Charlene Lamy Edge Speaks about The Way International

  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...

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...

"The Word" - Which Bible Is It Anyway? by Charlene L. Edge Photo by:   emilydickinsonridesabmx Will the real Bible please stand up?  Trigger warning: if you hold the belief that the Bible is perfect—factually, historically, and scientifically true and is without contradictions—it is highly likely you’ll get uncomfortable reading this.  I’m not here to argue, but simply to share with those who care what I learned on my  journey out of what I consider a fundamentalist cult, The Way International™ (TWI). ♦ By the by, I think trigger warnings do not really help people, but keep them from learning something new and possibly worthwhile, like the value of considering other viewpoints. In this post, I want to give you some food for thought from the most instructive book about Fundamentalism that I read and re-read after leaving TWI. It’s James Barr’s book simply titled,  Fundamentalism . In 1987, just before I escap...

Greetings! The following review of my memoir, Undertow , was first published by the International Cultic Studies Association on 02-26-2024. Enjoy!   As part of our mission to support scholars, mental health professionals, and former cultic group members and their families, ICSA Reviews publishes, via email, social media, and in print, reviews of new and recent books and other media dealing with cults and coercive control.   Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International   by Charlene L. Edge   New Wings Press, LLC, 2017. ISBN-10:  0997874708; ISBN-13:   978-0997874709. Paperback, 474 pages, $24.95. Kindle, $8.49. Amazon.com   Reviewed by Bart Stewart   Undertow may ...