Charlene Lamy Edge Speaks about The Way International

  Fundamentalism , by James Barr, is book that helped educate Charlene concerning Victor Paul Wierwille's claim of inerrancy of Scriptures and other aspects of Christian Fundamentalism. Greetings, readers! Today, let's flash back to a few of my posts about Christian fundamentalism. Note: The featured photo is of an outstanding book about fundamentalism, by James Barr. Studying it soon after I left The Way helped me understand my experiences in the cult, especially in the Biblical research department, which I tell you all about near the end of my memoir,  Undertow . I wrote about Christian fundamentalism... ...because The Way International, the Bible-based cult I spent 17 years in, fits into that category of religious ideology. How's that? The main reason is that The Way's founder, Victor Paul Wierwille (1916-1985) promoted the claim that "the Bible" is inerrant. Which Bible? He didn't say, other than "the original Scriptures," which were lost or ...

Welcome to the continuing celebration of Undertow's upcoming 10th birthday. If you've read the book, I want to say thank you for your support of my memoir—a story that, for one thing, shows how good intentions can go so very wrong. I foreshadow this at the end of the first chapter, "In the beginning, I only wanted to know, love, and serve God and understand the Bible. What harm could that possibly bring?" Thankfully, Undertow has a relatively happy ending, but believe me, that's not the case for many other people who escape from cults. From reader feedback, I know Undertow is a source of healing for other former cult followers. I also know it's a resource for outsiders. It shows how vulnerable seekers can get hooked on false promises, claims that prove detrimental to the quality of people's lives. A stellar review of Undertow In 2017, Undertow was independently reviewed by a professional at Kirkus Reviews. If you haven't heard of Kirkus, Wikipedia...

  The following was written by me when I was known as Charlene Lamy at  Valencia Community College (in Orlando, FL) in  1988 for a creative writing class assignment that required us to do research on something personal to us. Research was to include information from interviews and also citations from published materials.  A bibliography is included at the end of the essay. I married in 2002 and changed my name to Charlene L. Edge.   Note: I do not use AI to produce content.  From Fundamentalism to Freedom by Charlene L. Edge From 1970 until 1987 I was involved with a fundamentalist Christian group known as The Way International Biblical Research and Teaching ministry.   One important point that its founder, Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille, taught was that the United States was a Christian nation founded on the Bible.   In 1985, questions I began to ask concerning how we got the Bible, how translations are produced, and the history of early Ch...

Greetings, readers! I hope you're all doing well. It's November already and one thing I celebrate in November is a birthday. Not my birthday but my first book's. Undertow is nine years old this month. I think many of you have read it, so thank you very much. If you haven't, I invite you to do that! It reads like a mystery and has a happy ending. Today I'm sending a little insider info to you on the book's progress in the world. This is relevant because I created this blog 10 years ago specifically to let subscribers (to my personal blog) like you know I was working on what became Undertow. Over the years, I also wrote a lot of blog posts about cults and fundamentalism which many folks tell me are helpful. In November 2016, we launched the book and sold it from my website for one month before it was available online at Amazon , Barnes & Noble , etc. It was a VERY exciting time. Actually, it still is an exciting time for the book. Read on... Undertow fun fact...

This post was first published on 9/21/2025 on my personal blog at https://charleneedge.com. Greetings, readers! I hope this finds you doing well. I’m okay, but these days I’m flashing back to many alarming times I experienced in a cult. This time of year, I tend to reflect on the last stages of writing and publishing my cult memoir,   Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International ,   which came out in November 2016. Today, I’m sharing the first few statements from the Preface in  Undertow  (at the end of this post, after some initial thoughts). These statements put a chill in my heart, striking me to the core even after all these years since the damaging events happened that I describe in my book. In my memoir, you meet and hear from an authoritarian,  Victor Paul Wierwille (1916-1985), founder of The Way International™ (1916-1985). The Way is the fundamentalist Bible cult I was in for 17 years (1970-1987), and it’s  ...

The following was first published on my website's blog on  8/15/2025. Greetings. Today I must share this IMPORTANT NEWS:  If you come across a Spanish translation of any part of my memoir, Undertow , or of my other book, From the Porch to the Page , or any of my blog posts, I want you to know I have NOT authorized it. You may know that I am not only the author but I am also the publisher of both of my books. I own New Wings Press, LLC which published them. As the publisher, I've not given permission for anyone to generate any translations of my work into Spanish, or into any other language. And I do not plan to do so. Translating, which involves reproducing, an author's published work without permission from the publisher is a big NO-NO. As a reminder, here's the rule which appears in my books: “No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information stor...

Greetings, readers! It’s November and we’re celebrating another  Undertow  birthday. Eight years ago this month, New Wings Press, LLC published my memoir that you probably know about —   Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. What you may  not  know, is that not long after its publication, just before I gave a free presentation at Rollins College about my cult story, a local newspaper reporter interviewed me about the book. His article was published March 8, 2018. Here you go! Winter Park resident Charlene Edge escaped a fundamentalist cult | West Orange Times & Observer (orangeobserver.com) Undertow  is available in paperback and ebook at major booksellers. Indie bookstores and libraries can order it for you, too. Thanks for reading!

The following is the Preface to  Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International. By Charlene L. Edge In its heyday in the 1980s, The Way International was one of the largest fundamentalist cults in America, with about forty thousand followers worldwide. 1 Founded in 1942 by a self-proclaimed prophet, Victor Paul Wierwille (1916–1985), who marketed the group as a biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry, The Way still operates in the shadow of its dark history.  I knew Wierwille personally. As one of his biblical research assistants and ministry leaders, I am a witness to his charisma, as well as his abuse of power and manipulation of Scriptures to serve his own agenda. I discovered his sexual abuse of women and chronic plagiarism. Today, those underbelly facts are hidden, denied, or otherwise squelched. The years of Wierwille’s authoritarian reign and the chaos after his death provide the context of my story. In 1987, after...