Happy New Year 2026: Celebrating 39 years away from The Way

Greetings, readers. Happy new year 2026!

This coming year I'm celebrating my thirty-ninth year of life after escaping The Way International, the Bible-based group I gave myself to for 17 years as a leader (1970-1987). 

Today, I want to give hope to anyone thinking about disassociating from that organization or leaving any other group based on the teachings of Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way. It is possible, with loving help and education, to leave the confining teachings of Wierwille and create a new life. 

It is possible to gain confidence to make your own decisions and not have to check with a Way "spiritual leader" first. It is possible to find friends who accept you as you are, not people who say they are your friends but demand you believe their Bible teachings.

It is possible to find joy in the world and not constantly worry about the Devil trying to ruin your life, which is what Way leaders, especially Wierwille, said would happen if you left The Way.

After I left The Way

I found many helpful resources as I was letting go of Wierwille-based ideology. And I'm telling you he plagiarized his Bible teachings and books from men like Bullinger, Stiles, Leonard and others. They were Christian fundamentalists. Wierwille latched onto their way of thinking and promoted it himself. The following is a section from a blog post I wrote in 2017 citing two sources that helped me in my endeavor to deprogram myself.

Notice that one author, Hodge, mentioned below, taught at Princeton Theological Seminary. That's the same institution that Wierwille attended. 

What Karen Armstrong can tell us about fundamentalist certainty

Maybe you've heard of the author of books about religions, Karen Armstrong. I don't agree with her every opinion, but I have read many of her books and they are well researched and compelling. In her book The Bible: A Biography (2007) she has this to tell us about fundamentalism and certainty. The first quote comes from a section describing the end of the nineteenth century.

"The rational basis of the modern world made it difficult—if not impossible—for an increasing number of Western Christians to appreciate the role and value of mythology. There was, therefore, a growing sense that the truths of religion must be factual and a deep fear that the Higher Criticism [studying the Bible's history, authorship, and origin of its various texts] would leave a dangerous void. Discount one miracle [in the Bible] and consistency demanded that you reject them all. If Jonah did not spend three days in the whale's belly, asked a Lutheran pastor, did Jesus really rise from the tomb?" (197)

"In 1881, Archibald A. Hodge, Charles's son [Charles Hodge was a professor at the Presbyterian seminary at Princeton, New Jersey], published a defense of the literal truth of the Bible with his younger colleague Benjamin Warfield. 

"It became a classic: 'The scriptures not only contain but are the Word of God, and hence all their elements and all their affirmations are absolutely errorless and binding on the faith and obedience of men.' Every biblical statement - on any subject - was absolute 'truth to the facts.'" (199)

"... The belief in biblical inerrancy, pioneered by Warfield and Hodge, would, however, become crucial to Christian fundamentalism and would involve considerable denial. Hodge and Warfield were responding to the challenge of modernity but in their desperation were distorting the scriptural tradition they were trying to defend." (199)

Wierwille's certain curtain

So, erecting a curtain of certainty about the Bible being literally true, and then being certain about that, is a relatively new phenomenon that influences a large portion of the Christian population in America today. This interests me because while I was in The Way International, the founder, Victor Paul Wierwille, made this view of the Bible seem as if it were the original we must "get back to," not a modern development.

A few serious words about what we don't know

Some of you know I'm a big fan of Bart D. Ehrman, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his book, Jesus, Interrupted, he writes about the history of the Biblical texts. To me, if a person says he or she believes the Bible, it makes sense to know the where, when, how, and why facts about it. I suggest checking out Jesus Interrupted as a source for finding helpful information to answer those questions. But if you are or have been a fundamentalist, be ready to learn what you've not known before.

Ehrman points out that "This kind of information is relevant not only to scholars like me, who devote their lives to serious research, but also to everyone who is interested in the Bible—whether they personally consider themselves believers or not. In my opinion this really matters. Whether you are a believer—fundamentalist, evangelical, moderate, liberal—or a nonbeliever, the Bible is the most significant book in the history of our civilization. Coming to understand what it actually is, and is not, is one of the most important intellectual endeavors that anyone in our society can embark upon." (xi, xii).

That's it for today.

Peace and good health in the coming year,

Charlene

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