Charlene Lamy Edge Speaks about The Way International

Pictured is Charlene L. Edge at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. 2022. Photo by her husband, Dr. Hoyt L. Edge. Welcome to my blog about The Way International and related topics such as cults, Christian fundamentalism, and my memoir, Undertow , that describes my 17-year immersion in The Way as a leader and biblical researcher trained by the founder, Victor Paul Wierwille.  If you don't know, The Way was started about 75 years ago by Wierwille in Ohio. It is still in business as I write this on September 10, 2026. That fact distresses me beyond measure. If you want to know why, my memoir answers that question, and so do many posts on this blog. The Way's current website is:  The Way International - Biblical Research, Teaching, and Fellowship The content on this blog Many of the posts you find here I first published on my author website at https://charleneedge.com. This month I retired that website. With its disappearance from the internet went more than 400 posts I wrote...

  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 ...

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. Aft...

  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  ...

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!

  When Fundamentalism Hooked Me  by  Charlene L. Edge   Me during the weekend I got “born-again” at a Young Life Christian retreat in Ocean City, MD, November 1969 Some of you know about my former life as a Christian fundamentalist. It lasted seventeen years (1970-1987). I loved it. Until I did not. First, what do I mean by fundamentalism? The term applied to Christianity comes from a series of publications called  The Fundamentals  (1910-1915) which stated basic beliefs that  real  Christians must agree to, like the virgin birth of Jesus, miracles, Jesus’ resurrection, and biblical inerrancy. This post pertains to fundamentalism’s striking and often inflammatory tenant of biblical inerrancy. A Catholic youth But first, to understand how and when fundamentalism hooked me, let me tell you a bit about my upbringing. I grew up Christian, the Catholic kind. When I was a kid, my parents paid for me to attend St. Francis de Sales Catholic Scho...