An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part II (Inerrancy & Canon of Scripture)

Back when I was involved in a Christian-esque cult, we used to sign a green card when we registered for its foundational, introductory class. The card listed a number of supposed benefits of this class — one of them was "explains apparent Bible contradictions". We believed, as do most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, that the Bible is inerrant, i.e. it contained no errors, and therefore couldn't contain any contradictions. So what seemed like a contradiction was really our own lack of understanding or a mistranslation. Lack of understanding might include lack of knowledge of the customs of the Biblical era and milieu, it could be that the meaning of English words had changed since the Bible version that we were reading had been published, or we hadn't properly looked at the immediate and remote context. The cult that I was in had some interesting ways of harmonizing it all, sometimes bending the words into a metaphorical pretzel to get it all to fit, but if you are familiar with the evolution of the doctrine of the Trinity, it wasn't too unusual. If you are going to insist that the Bible is without error and internally consistent that's what you're going to have to do. There are parts that blatantly contradict each other. There are parts that seem to describe Jesus in one way and other sections paint him with an entirely different brush. To make it all fit, including the Old Testament, a lot of mental gymnastics will have to be involved. 

If you read the Bible, not as "a" book, but as a collection of books, which it undeniably is, then the need to explain away contradictions disappears. Or at least the need becomes less urgent. If it's a set of books about the same subject — God — even if you concede for the sake of argument that the God of the Bible exists, different people are going to have different opinions based on their experiences and mindsets. You would expect the different writers to emphasize different things, to interpret experiences differently. 

The Tanakh, what Christians call the Old Testament, can be divided or categorized in a number of ways. There's the Torah, i.e. the Law, the first five books; there's the prophets; and there's the other writings which include books of alleged history as well as "poetic" books like Psalms and Proverbs. Some books are subcategorized as books of history. The first five books are traditionally credited to Moses, Psalms to King David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & The Song of Solomon to King Solomon. The various books of the prophets usually are considered eponymous. Various others round out the team. 

The first book, is called Genesis ("beginning" in Greek) by Christians, or Bereshith in Hebrew (From the Hebrew phrase bereshith barah Elohim — "[in the] beginning created [by] God").  Although it is included as part of "The Law", it actually is comprised of a creation myth and a legendary account of the origins of the people of Israel. This is not unusual, most cultures have, or had, creation myths and legends about the foundation of their nations. Within Genesis you'll find many of what we think of as "Bible stories": Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah's Ark, Abraham almost sacrificing his son, Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt and finally Joseph and his family's sojourn in Egypt. It is self-evidently a book written to and for a specific tribal group, the Hebrews. Most of the Hebrew Bible does not read as universally applicable either. So how did it become part of the holy book of the Christians?

Things were a bit jumbled in Christianity's early days. Jesus, of course, was a Jew, descended from those Hebrews and Israelites who wrote the Bible. His followers were all Jews. After his death and alleged resurrection and ascension the first wave of followers were also Jews. They were all people who followed and revered the Torah. They were not out to start a new religion. Something that I will bring up as this series progresses is that when they followed Jesus, what he was preaching was that God would soon intervene in the world, overthrow the old order, and institute the Kingdom of God (or Heaven). This, boys and girls, was the end of the world! All the "love thy neighbor", all the "get rid of all your possessions and follow me" — all that stuff was in order to get yourself right to enter the new world ruled by God. But let me say it again, these early followers of Jesus were all still Jews and the Old Testament (which wasn't old to them) was still in force. This was one reason why, when Christianity moved beyond it's Jewish origins, that Christians retained the Old Testament as part of the holy book. 

During Christianity's early days there was a Roman cultural bias toward religions that were "ancient" and a suspicion, if not an outright prohibition, of new religious movements. As Christianity became less a Jewish sect and more a new religion, it got around this by claiming the Old Testament, which was undeniably ancient, as its own. Sections of it were reinterpreted as prophesies of the Messiah in ways that would have (and did) surprise Jews then and now. By piggybacking this new faith on the ancient religion of the Jews, even claiming via supposed prophecies that the the ancient religion of the Jews predicted Christianity, Christians could have the best of both worlds. 

After around fifteen to twenty years people started writing things down, mostly famously the man we know as the Apostle Paul. We'll revisit Paul later, but he was instrumental in spreading Christianity to non-Jews, and for writing some of Christianity's foundational documents. Most of the New Testament outside the Gospels is credited to the Apostle Paul. He wrote over a period of around twenty-five years. Others started to write things down as well, including the first of the canonical Gospels in around 70 BCE. Christian leaders in the Second Century began discussing which writings were legitimate and which ones weren't.  

Although Jesus in the Gospels quotes the Old Testament, and refers to "the scriptures", and his follower Paul does the same, some Christians noted that there was a stark difference in how God was portrayed between the Old and New Testaments, almost as if they weren't the same God. Some went beyond the "as if" and declared unambiguously that they weren't the same god. Marcion was the most well known and influential of these. He completely rejected the entire Old Testament as being about an evil God of this world, while Jesus represented the "true" God. He was the first to compile a "canon of scripture" which viewed Paul as the ultimate authority. His "New Testament" included the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke, all heavily edited to remove theology that Marcion did not approve of. Although Marcionite Christianity was later condemned as a heresy, Marcionite Christian churches at one time outnumbered Orthodox/Catholic churches. Christianity could have very easily become a brand new thing, totally divorced from the culture and religion from which it sprang. Marcion's canon may have been the impetus spurring the creation of an official canon.

There's a verse in the Second Epistle to Timothy (which probably was not written by Paul) that states that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. The Old Testament, however, doesn't say that about itself. 

Start at the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part III

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part I

One of the criticisms of the Bible that is tossed about is that there's no proof that any of it happened, or that there's no contemporaneous confirmation of its contents. One of the most attention getting statements that I have read in recent years is there are indeed historical documents regarding the life of Jesus Christ — the four gospels. To those of us with a non-religious orientation that statement sounds ridiculous. Of course they're not historical documents, they're religious texts! The people who wrote them had an agenda! Yes, both of those statements are true, the gospels are religious texts and they were written by people with an agenda. We've all heard the saying "History is written by the victors", which is just a different way of saying that history is written by people with an agenda — always. 

Over the last few years I listened to a few history-themed podcasts — the history of Rome, of Byzantium, of the successive Persian Empires. In each of them I was struck by how often the only information that we have about an event was written decades or generations after the event took place. How there are often gaps in lists of rulers that can only be filled in by speculation. How the only contemporaneous documentation of an era has been long lost and all we have are fragments by historians quoting earlier historians. While there are exceptions, for the most part ancient historians were employed by their rulers to make them look good, or to make the ruler's opponents look bad. Or it was a citizen of the winning side wanting to paint his people in glory. Or maybe it was the losing side trying to depict their people as something other than abject losers. Yes. They had an agenda.  

The writers of the Gospels had an agenda too, which doesn't make them any better or worse than any other writings from that time period. The first of the surviving Gospels, "Mark" was most likely written around 70 C.E., i.e, around 40 years after Jesus' ministry. This gap in time is brought up a lot to disparage the authenticity of the Gospels, but it was not unusual, especially since it is likely Jesus' early followers were illiterate or at least not educated enough to put together a narrative like you see in any of the Gospels. It's also apparent that, since they believed that God would be imminently intervening in human events, there was no reason to write anything down for future generations that they didn't think would exist. So a written account during or immediately following Jesus' life would not be expected. The utter lack of any originals of the Gospels or even the epistles, or even any copies dating any earlier than hundreds of years after Jesus' life is also cited as problematic, yet you'd be hard pressed to find an original edition of any of the classical writings, or any writings that have as many extant manuscripts as does the Bible. (The number of manuscripts on the other hand doesn't prove anything other than people valued them enough to make lots of copies)

Historians will examine any historical document to determine, not only its authenticity, but to discover any biases that the author had; they also have a number of ways to test the reliability of the claims made in any history, any ancient biography. Unless one is of the opinion that The Bible is the "revealed Word of God", inspired by God Himself, it makes sense to subject The Bible to the same scrutiny that any other historical document would be. 

For most people, however, The Bible is an either-or proposition. Either it's God's Word delivered via prophets of God to His people, or it's a book of fables with no truth in it whatsoever. (Of course there are intermediate positions — some believers admit that some passages in The Bible may be metaphorical while some disbelievers accept that there's some decent morals and ethics in it.) 

In this series I take the position that there is good reason to accept that there was an historical Jesus that the New Testament was based upon, but that not only are there contradictions regarding him among the different books, but that Jesus wasn't who most people think he was. I'll be touching on the milieu in which Jesus lived, the Jewish scriptures that he was taught, contradictions between how the Gospels differ from the message of Paul in his epistles, how how it all morphed into "The Church". 

And off we go!

Go to Part II

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Conclusion

No one wakes up in the morning, and after a shower and that first cup of coffee, decides that they’re going to join a cult. No one approached by someone with an engaging smile and an encyclopedic knowledge of the bible thinks “Cool! A cult! Just what I’ve been looking for!” Yet, every day in America, people join up with ...cults. 

From "So, You Want to Join a Cult  Part I"

I have documented my time in a cult through 41 blog posts, with an additional 13 outlining cult tactics and strategies for recruiting, retaining and controlling people. If you have read through the series, one of the themes that you may have picked up on is how ordinary it all seemed, how banal. I wasn't holed up in a "compound", prohibited from leaving; there weren't any mass suicides; we weren't immediately identifiable by our bizarre clothing. We certainly didn't think we were in a cult when we were, in fact, in a cult.  No one who is in a cult thinks that they're in a cult. Most people believe that they would never be taken in by a cult, that they're too smart. They're wrong.

Part of why I wrote this series was to show how easily someone could get caught up in a cult. Cult members aren't stupid. Cult members aren't brainwashed. Cult members see something in the cult that appeals to them. They make a decision every day that what they are getting out of the cult is worth what they are giving to the cult. For many, it becomes the sunk cost fallacy, i.e. they feel that they can't leave after investing so much time and energy, for others, they're ashamed to admit that they were wrong. One way or another the goals and priorities of the cult become their goals and priorities. They refuse to consider evidence that they're wrong. Opposition to the cult is viewed as foolish, deranged, evil. 

Some of you who have stuck with me through this whole series have made the connection between what I experienced in a religious cult and the political cult that millions of Americans have embraced. People who looked down their noses at those poor, deluded, fools at Waco, or in Guyana, have walked open eyed into devotion to a man who stands for everything that they just a few years ago would have been against. They don't believe they're in a cult, but no one who is in a cult thinks they're in a cult. 

My years in the way have made me a skeptic. Not only of charismatic leaders and pat answers to complicated questions, but to anything or anyone who claims to have The Answers. I hope I have inspired some skepticism in a few of you. 

Start at the beginning: Part I

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part LIII - Stupid People Often Assume Everyone Is As Stupid As They Are

An aspect of cults that is at times overlooked is that there isn't always a clear dividing line between those who are fooled and those who are doing the fooling. Even at the very top levels, there's often some question whether the cult leaders believe their own press clippings. Was a con always being run, or did the leader little by little come to really believe they were the anointed one? 

In any cult, there has to be intermediaries between the top dog and the flock that is being fleeced. Between 1970-1980 the Way Corps program graduated hundreds of field leaders. I was never privy to the qualifications that were looked for in leadership, but like in the business world, I saw many "leaders" who exhibited no leadership qualities whatsoever. If I had to guess at the prerequisites for being given a leadership assignments, I'd say that loyalty to the organization and the top leader, including obedience, were the primary criteria. There were also exercises within the Corps training that served to weed people out. L.E.A.D. was one of them. 

The initials (if I remember correctly) stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, Direction. The participants had to hitchhike in pairs from the Way Corps headquarters in Emporia, Kansas to Tinney, New Mexico with only ten dollars in their pockets and still have ten dollars when they arrived. Their time in Tinney involved a number of outdoors tasks and ended with hitchhiking back to Emporia. For some reason rappelling down a cliffside, surviving alone in the forest for 24 hours and thumbing rides were crucial skills needed to lead God's people. The other apparent stumbling block was money. There was tuition to be paid for the two years of training "in residence", i.e. at one of The Way's properties. In my observation every Way Corps rejectee of my acquaintance was sent home over money — or the lack thereof. 

For a "Biblical Research" organization, many leaders had an abysmal lack of understanding of the Biblical texts. I was aware of several who were functionally illiterate. With few exceptions their "teachings" in home fellowship meetings were nothing more than rehashing what they had heard promulgated from headquarters. Sometimes the Way middle managers, the Way Corps branch and limb coordinators, were dumber than the rank and file membership. They would deliver information that was so obvious as if it were secrets that only the elect could understand. I remember one year Fred, our local leader telling us all, with a look of utter seriousness on his face, that Christ wasn't Jesus' last name. I imagine that there were people in the world that thought that Christ was his family name; Jesus Christ, son of Joseph Christ and Mary Christ, but I felt insulted that he thought I need to be told that. Somebody higher up was dumb enough to believe that Christ was Jesus' last name, and the assumption was that everyone was dumb enough to think that. 

I remember sitting through a class at Way headquarters taught by Way President Craig Martindale. He went off on a long tangent about an Old Testament tribe called the Kenites. His rant assumed that, due to the similarity in the name to Cain, the son of Adam and Eve who murdered his brother Abel, that their evil ways were due to their ancestry. I remember sitting their thinking that according to the Bible, Cain didn't have any descendants at that time — they all drowned in the flood. I looked up the names later and saw that although similar in English, they were not the same in Hebrew. Another teaching that I recall vividly was based on the teacher confusing the Greek word aleitheia (truth) with athleo (to contend or struggle), which was further confused by the insistence within Way leadership that athleo must imply an athletic allegory throughout the epistles. 

Cults are based on the assumption that knowledge derived from outside the cult is tainted. Only that which originates from within is legitimate. It doesn't matter whether or not the inner knowledge is fact-based or not. In fact, ignorance of what the experts are saying is required. My own exit from The Way began with my own questioning of what was being taught. Anyone who dares to point out errors is dangerous. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part LIV

Women Are Not Property

Epstein and his enablers. The online "rape academy" with 62 million views in one week. College athletes enabled by their coaches. No, it's not all men, but it's certainly a lot of men. A recent article quipped that "It's not all men but it's always men". And yes, there are women who enable rapists — Ghislaine Maxwell is as guilty as Epstein was — but even when women are involved it's always for the benefit of men. A critical step to attacking the rape culture is for men to speak up and confront other men. 

Why don't men confront other men who are abusing women? One reason is the suspicion that the abused woman will defend her abuser. This happens, as any cop who responds to domestic disturbance calls will attest to. I ran into this problem in my own life over twenty years ago, I heard some shouting outside my bedroom window and saw a family member assaulting his girlfriend. I ran outside and intervened. When the dust settled, the abuser claimed that I had attacked him, unprovoked, and the girlfriend backed him up. Other family members took his side. After everyone left I realized that there was one person besides myself who had witnessed the assault. When I asked him why he didn't intervene and had remained silent afterwards, he told me he didn't want to get involved. 

And that sums it up. Men don't want to get involved. Maybe it's fear of the abuser turning on them, maybe it's a cynical belief that as soon as they get home the abuse will continue. Maybe they just think that perhaps she provoked him. Whatever it is, it has to change. This is not to suggest that women aren't perfectly capable of defending themselves. A few years ago I witnessed a customer in the bar where I was sitting grab a woman bartender, before I even knew what was happening the other two women on duty intervened and threw the guy and his two buddies out. But it's a fact of life that the typical man outweighs and is stronger than the typical woman. A man determined to abuse a woman who is by herself has the advantage. 

One strategy that some men employ to assist a woman who is the subject of determined unwanted attention is to pretend to be her husband or boyfriend, whereupon the "bro code" kicks in and the woman is left alone. Women will often tells the creep that she has a husband or boyfriend to fend off potential trouble. I'm not going to suggest not doing this, but why does it work? The reason the "I'm her boyfriend" intervention works is that men will respect another man's property while not respecting the personhood and autonomy of a woman. It's definitely the mindset of the creep in this scenario. He has zero respect for the woman's disinterest, for her right to determine with whom she will interact, for her very rights as an independent entity; but once it is suggested that she belongs to another man, he backs off. But what does this say about the mindset of the intervening man? True, he is to be lauded for involving himself and getting the other guy to back off, but he is doing it by pretending that the woman in question is his property. 

Okay, maybe the term "property" is a bit harsh. Maybe "under the protection of" is more politically correct. But it can't be denied that in terms of the larger culture we are going backwards in the realm of women's rights. The right-wing "trad wife" movement is advocating for a barefoot and pregnant past. Members of Congress are suggesting that the husband be the one to cast votes for his entire family, disenfranchising women. 

This isn't going to change because I write a blog about it, but it has to change. 

Stupid Social Security Reposts (Again)

This stupid post makes its way around Facebook periodically. No, I do not copy and paste, because it's mostly bullshit. The original post in ARIAL, my comments in bold courier font

Concerning Social Security payments, my contributions have been made for nearly 40 years on every salary I received. I always had a job. The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment?" I'll be part of the one percent to forward this.

Well, it's probably more than 1% that forwards it — because people are dumb. Social Security payments have been called "benefits" for as long as I can remember. It's nothing new.

I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment." This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.

One thing that I don't understand though, is what is the big objection to calling a Social Security check (more likely a direct deposit) a "benefit"?. I met the requirements by having payroll tax deductions taken out of my paychecks and I BENEFIT from my meeting of those requirements. I guess the idiots who make these up got tired of getting "entitlement" explained to them.

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security. If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

I won't argue against the figures that indicate that privately invested money would have yielded more retirement income than what the typical person receives as Social Security payments, but seriously, how many people would do that? Investing 15% of their income? Especially in the early years of lower income? Many people living paycheck-to-paycheck find it very difficult to save, let alone invest.
Even as it is, I just calculated that if I live until 80 I will receive roughly twice what I and my employers were FICA taxed over the course of my working life (51 years). I don't argue that it would be more than if invested in something like a mutual fund, but it's certainly more than if there was no Social Security.

A big myth is that what we "paid in" is our money setting in an account somewhere. The money that came out of our paychecks immediately was used to pay people who were then receiving benefits. OUR benefits are based on a formula that takes into account a portion of our lifetime earnings.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger "Ponzi scheme" than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer.

But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a "benefit", as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

Just because they borrowed the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

There's another big inaccuracy in this copy & paste job. The whole myth of "they took our money & used it elsewhere". Until just a few years ago the amount of revenue collected via FICA payroll deductions exceeded what was paid out in benefits. By law, this surplus was invested in US Treasury bonds, which paid interest into the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF). Right now it's reversed: the benefits being paid out exceed what is coming in, so the difference is being taken out of the SSTF. The SSTF balance will be down to $0 in around 7-10 years. After that payroll deductions of current workers will cover 70-80% of benefits payments. The whole "Congress raided Social Security myth" persists. Democrats blame the Republicans, Republicans blame the Democrats. But there's no blame needed, because it didn't happen. The Social Security Administration is required by law to invest any surplus in US Treasury Securities. This is what is meant when you hear about "the government" borrowing money from the Trust Fund. Look at what happens to your money when you deposit it in a bank. Even though there is a vault in every bank with cash in it, this does not represent all the bank's deposits. Once you put your money in a bank, a percentage of it is loaned out, and some is invested in interest-bearing securities. Currently, banks are required to have a cash reserve of 12% of assets. That means that 78% of what has been deposited in a bank isn't physically there in the form of piles of cash. It's earning its keep. This is similar, but not identical, to what happens to the surpluses in the Trust Fund. The Trust Fund, rather than sitting on a pile of cash, is freeing up the cash for current use, paying out benefits to current retirees. If, rather than investing in Treasury securities, the Trust Fund invested in private securities, it would be a similar situation, except that the cash would now be in the hands of private companies (or individuals), rather than the US Government. Having this cash in government hands, rather than private investors reduces the amount of borrowing needed to make up annual budget deficits.

Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

99% of people won't Cut and Paste this to their timelines. Will you?

Please, for the sake of our country, Copy & Paste. It's important. Then type Done!

This affects everyone! I don't know what the originator of this, or other Social Security posts, intends to accomplish. The problem isn't that Congress or a past president "stole" or "borrowed without paying back" our money, it's not that your direct deposits are called benefits or entitlements. What are the people who repost or share these posts demanding be done?

In reality, what needs to be done is to find a way to make up the 20-30% gap between revenue from payroll taxes and paid benefits that will exist when the Trust Fund is depleted in 8-10 years. Increase or eliminate the income cap? Increase FICA withholding by a percentage point? Means test benefits? Something that no one yet thought of? That's what we should be getting worked up about. Not these imaginary "raids", or whining about "our" money. Previous articles about Social Security: https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2020/01/social-security-tutorial.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2017/12/social-security-trust-fund.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2021/07/social-security-misunderstanding.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/10/entitlements-social-security-trust-fund.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/01/social-security-part-2.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/06/are-republicans-eliminating-social.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/01/social-security-part-1.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-myth-of-them-borrowing-or-stealing.html

https://tjpolitics.blogspot.com/2022/05/another-blog-post-about-social-security.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part LIV - Hidden Knowledge & The Pseudo-Caste System

Among the many ways that cults use to recruit and retain members is by the hint of a special or secret knowledge that is only available to the initiate. It's reinforced by a hierarchical structure where more special knowledge is revealed as you move toward the center of power. 

The Way's initial appeal for many was that they claimed to be able to teach you the Bible "like it hadn't been known since the First Century". Anyone who has studied the Bible from a scholarly, disinterested point of view knows that it is full of contradictions. I won't spend time here pointing them out, but they are numerous. They range from historical and archeological mistakes to different Biblical authors describing the same events in mutually exclusive ways. There are also many instances where the average Christian believes something about the Biblical narrative that is totally at odds with what it actually says. The founder of The Way was well aware of these things and did a great job spotlighting them in his Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) class. His purpose, of course, was to undermine trust in mainstream Christianity and its leaders and traditions in order to substitute his own foundation for belief. 

At face value, he was substituting simply "reading what was written" for tradition. But the Bible is not a simple book. It's not a book at all, but a collection of more than 60 books by almost that many different authors. Despite his "keys to interpretation" that emphasized reading what was right there on the page, in the context, the contradictions and difficulties still existed. They called them apparent contradictions, and set about constructing logic-twisting explanations to harmonize the various discrepancies. One of The Way's more obvious doctrinal deviations from mainstream Christianity was a disbelief in The Trinity. The Trinity is the doctrine whereby God is a threefold entity, consisting of The Father, the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit. You can't find it detailed explicitly anywhere in the Bible, but is the result of centuries of early Christian theologians attempting to reconcile the conflicting descriptions of Jesus' nature set down in the Bible. The Way's unitarian view of Jesus was a similar attempt, albeit one that took significantly less time than the development of The Trinity. 

But the fact that a different conclusion about Jesus' nature was reached isn't the point, it's the use of that unique take, that special knowledge which was part of The Way's hold on people. The undermining of trust in mainstream Christianity, replaced by reading what was written, cemented a trust in what Way leadership was teaching, making it clear that The Way was the only place where you could find Biblical truth. If that was important to someone, that was a powerful tool to keep people from straying. In fact, so much emphasis was placed on the trustworthiness of the teachings of Victor Wierwille, The Way's founder, that any questioning of his conclusions were brushed aside. However, it was never framed as "Wierwille is infallible", but suggested that you should hold your questions "in abeyance" until you understood more, i.e. became as knowledgeable as Wierwille — which was effectively never. 

The special knowledge did not end with what was presented in PFAL. The class itself was only part of a series of classes, culminating in the "Advanced Class". This class was billed as training in more special, secret knowledge, including spiritual healing, discerning of spirits, and revelation from God. As I look back on it 40 plus years later, it was a bit of a disappointment, but Advanced Class Grads still had that elite cache, and got to wear a special nametag identifying them as such. (The Way was big on nametags identifying which caste you belonged to) But taking the Advanced Class only took a couple of weeks out of your life and a few hundred dollars. The next circle included participants in The Way Corps "leadership training program", which was effectively a lifetime of servitude. 

The structure and time commitment of Way Corps training varied during my time in The Way, but it was never less than two years, spent at one of The Way's properties. Graduates of the Way Corps training made up the leadership cadre of The Way. Upon their graduation they were given assignments, either at Way headquarters or "in the field", i.e. running fellowships, or state programs. Although initially billed as a program to turn out the best "Twig" (aka local fellowship) leaders, in reality, you were in it for life. Dismissal from the Way Corps was viewed as shameful, a failure. 

These Way Corps grads typically had a higher level of commitment and loyalty and helped standardize fellowships around the country and world. To the rank and file "believers", Way Corps leaders were the authorities. You didn't question leadership. They themselves were recipients of more special and secret knowledge that the non-Corps weren't privy to, tantalizing their egos and locking them more firmly into the system while simultaneously keeping the non-Corps in a state of obedience. If you weren't a Corps graduate you were conditioned to trust Wierwille and in turn, logically accepted the virtually infallibility of those he had deputized to lead in his place. There was a balance between feeling above the riff-raff of the world due to being holders of secret knowledge that the non-Way didn't possess and being inferior to the Way Corps who had even more secret knowledge and who were spiritually incapable of steering you wrong (God just wouldn't allow it). 

Those who came to The Way because they were lonely, or fell in love with the person who "witnessed" to them, typically did not stick around. The Way's appeal was intellectual. I don't mean that intellectuals were attracted to The Way, although some were, but that it was a search for answers based on logic (with the Bible's inerrancy as the basic premise) and not faith, that attracted the vast majority and kept them around, often for decades, if not their whole lives. The hook that snared many of us was the declaration that on one hand God's will was easy to understand and apparent to anyone who could read, yet at the same time hidden away from the ignorant hordes of mainstream Christians. 

The seeds of The Way's destruction were sown from the first days, although it took 40 years for them to come to fruition. The special, secret knowledge had always been based on the promise that The Bible was very literally an open book. Anyone could read and understand it without the aid of priests or theologians. This was never strictly true, but it was the selling point and it kept people around. The trust that was engendered in Wierwille and his successors sealed most people's compliance. But that required unity among the leadership, which fell apart after Wierwille died. 

Control by the elite required a membership body that was unskilled in actual Biblical research. Wierwille's "research" was shoddy and incomplete. He quoted scholars such as E.W. Bullinger without understanding the points that they were making and had no understanding of Hebrew or Greek grammar beyond what could be looked up in a concordance. His definitions of Greek words would have surprised anyone who had studied Biblical Greek. But most Way members had no such expertise, so they were easy marks. A lot of what was taught sounded right if you didn't have the educational background to separate truth from utter bullshit. 

Internal dissension was usually handled by kicking people out, often in the middle of the night. And in pre-internet days, the dissenters might never be heard from in Way circles ever again. In the late eighties though, there was a very public "civil war" amongst Way leaders in the wake of the death of founder Wierwille. Instead of one voice parroting what was coming down from the top, various leaders began developing their own followings and "ministries", people began to see this lack of direction and began doing what they had been promised they could do — read, study and understand the Bible and make their own decisions. Eventually this all began to be played out on message boards and websites all over the internet. The Way splintered into dozens of groups all competing to be the true heirs of Wierwille's mantle. 

The Way still exists, as well as a multitude of Way-derived groups promoting various versions of Way doctrine. But it's no longer what it was, and the control mechanisms that were in place for many years were no longer effective. I have no idea if the raggedy remains of The Way can still be considered a cult, since I have been out and away for 25 years, but cults proliferate and they don't have to be religion-based. 

Start from the beginning: Part I