They are:
- Speaking in Tongues
- Interpretation of Tongues
- Prophecy
- Word of Knowledge
- Word of Wisdom
- Discerning of Spirits
- Faith
- Miracles
- Gifts of Healing
In The Way's foundational class we learned about, and engaged in (or possibly "performed") the first three. Speaking in Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues and Prophecy were important parts of Way meetings and our spiritual life. Wierwille, The Way's founder, taught that Speaking in Tongues was a believer speaking in a tongue unknown to the speaker. It took two forms. One, when used privately, was prayer to God, or praise of God. The second, when accompanied by interpretation, was a message of comfort or exhortation from God, and was typically done if meetings of Way believers.
There's a lot of opinions among Christians about whether Speaking in Tongues carried out today is the same as what is written about in the Bible. Some denominations have Speaking in Tongues as part of their doctrine and practice, others do not. Among those that do, there is disagreement regarding how it's done. One thing about The Way's practice of it was practice sessions. Those who were new to it were encouraged by established Way people to practice speaking in tongues out loud. Nothing odd about that, but part of the practice sessions included a leader shouting out a sound, or letter of the alphabet, and the new folks were expected to say a word starting with that sound. Even if speaking in tongues was real, if it were legitimate, if it were divinely inspired, how could you consciously choose even just the sound of a word in the tongue you were speaking? Another thing leaders would talk about was "getting more fluent in your tongue". Again, if what you're speaking is inspired by God, how can you get better at it? About all I can think of is that if it were a language with unfamiliar sounds and phonemes it might take some time to get comfortable with those sounds.
Interpretation and Prophecy were usually short messages tended to generic versions of whatever was current Way-speak, or the prevailing Way priorities. If the "theme" of the year was Living Sanctified, a typical interpretation of prophecy might be "I the Lord your God want you to live your lives in a sanctified way, speaking the truth in love to all who would hear". Never any specific instruction.
There was great pressure to perform. People who didn't often didn't last and left of their own volition. One misunderstanding about what The Way thought about Speaking in Tongues had to do with its connection to being born again. It was taught that it was the evidence, or proof that you were born again, but it was never suggested that those who didn't weren't. In retrospect I believe most, if not all people faked it. How hard could it be to spout some gibberish? Nonsense syllables that had no apparent linguistic structure? This aspect of Way life wasn't necessarily cultlike in my opinion, unless you want to paint all Charismatic or Pentecostal denominations as cults. I brought it up to provide context for what came next: the Advanced Class on Power For Abundant Living.
It was during the Advanced Class where we were supposed to learn about the other six Manifestations of the Spirit. Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom and Discerning of Spirits were referred to as "revelation" manifestations, i.e. God was directly giving you information. The final three, called the "power manifestations", were supposedly more action oriented. Miracles and Gifts of Healing are pretty much what the names suggest. "Faith" was one that I never heard an explanation for that made sense. For those of us who were not Advanced Class grads, that class seemed like the ticket to real spiritual street cred. It was the Advanced Class grads who were in the pipeline to become Way leaders, the real movers and shakers. And you go to wear the Advanced Class name tag. Let me digress for a moment to talk about Way name tag culture.
By the time I got involved in The Way, every class, every program, had its own standardized plastic name tag. If you were at a Way event you could tell at a glance where someone was in the Way caste hierarchy by their name tag. If they had on a paper tag in a cheap plastic sleeve, with the name written in Sharpie, they were at the bottom. A newbie. Advanced Class grads had a green name tag with white lettering; WOW Ambassadors wore white name tags with blue lettering and the "wave" in the corner. (The first wave of WOWS went out in 1971, 1980, when I went, was the tenth wave) Students at the Way College of Emporia had red tags with white lettering. Way Corps had a name tag that was a slightly different shape than the others with tags in either white letters on green or green letters on white, with their Corps number in the corner. (There were others, but you get the idea) Anyone who rated one of these special nametags made sure that they displayed them. There was a fashion for a while to create "name tag ties" where every tag that was earned was displayed on a necktie.
In June of 1980 I would be travelling to Rome City Indiana to take the Advanced Class. I had committed myself to participate in the Word Over the World (WOW) ambassador program starting that August, so it would be a busy time my last few months in New York. At the time I owned a car, but it was in storage and I'd shortly sell it to my sister to help pay for my Advanced Class fee and my WOW Ambassador move. None of my Way friends were going, so I thought it would be cool to hitch hike from Queens to Indiana. In retrospect, not the smartest idea, but I was never accused of making smart decisions back then! I had Lori, my girlfriend at the time, drive me to the other side of the George Washington bridge in New Jersey so that I wouldn't have to hitch through New York City. Amazingly, I arrived in one piece and started the class.
One of the hallmarks of Way culture was to promote everything as the greatest, the first, the most effective, the most "accurate" teaching of the Bible since the First Century. Classes and seminars were described in glowing terms by those who had taken them before, and new people were likewise expected to react similarly with effusive praise. Anyone who didn't was suspected as having not "got it", and were pressured to see "the truth". These people usually drifted away. Let's take another detour and talk about "brainwashing".
Anti-cult activists and families of people who joined cults are often convinced that cult members have been subjected to mind control techniques, informally known as brainwashing and that people who got involved were somehow forced to do so. My experience in The Way does not support this view. Those who stuck around after their initial contact with The Way were typically people who were those who wanted to believe. In the earlier installments I went into to detail about why I got hooked. Other people had different reasons, but the important thing to note was that no one was forced to stay, in fact Way leadership was glad to get rid of the skeptics or those who asked uncomfortable questions. Over the years I saw many people leave voluntarily, with no real attempt to bring them back into the fold. My own cousin, whose involvement predated mine, left with nary a ripple. The people who signed up for the Advanced Class, or to serve as WOW Ambassadors, were a self-selected group who were very likely to buy in to whatever The Way was selling. They were also predisposed to keep any doubt and skepticism to themselves.
I arrived at the Rome City Indiana campus primed to learn. I was ready to learn how to receive revelation from God, discern the presence of devil spirits, and perform miracles and heal people. (And do whatever the manifestation of "faith" entailed) In Part XV I talked about how we saw a lot of apparent miraculous healing during my final year as a Twig Coordinator in New York. I was convinced at the time that it was all real, and I was excited to be able to "kick it up a notch" and become just like the Apostles in the Book of Acts. Boy, was I in for a surprise. The operation of Speaking in Tongues, Interpretation and Prophecy in the PFAL Foundational Class was something that was taught practically as well as shown from the Biblical text and was practiced in groups and coached by the leaders. We didn't just read about it, we did it and worked out our spiritual muscles. The Advanced Class was all theory, with no practice. We read Biblical passages, we listened to theories about devil possession, we heard anecdotes about miracles and healings, but we didn't do anything. I was disappointed, but I kept it to myself.
Even though it was natural and logical to expect more from the Advanced Class than what we got, anyone who expressed their disappointment and criticized the lack of practical application was "reproved". It was suggested that those people just didn't understand "Doctor" Wierwille's wisdom in how he presented the class—did they think they were smarter and more spiritual than he was? We were encouraged to hold any doubts or lack of understanding "in abeyance", assured that we would eventually understand. (Probably as we got more spiritual) There was a lot of peer pressure to not only keep one's doubts to oneself, but to act publicly as if it all made sense and was, in fact, God's Word as it hadn't been taught since the First Century. Even if it made no sense at all.
I went back to New York with warring impulses fighting for attention: the part of me who saw this as a red flag and the part of me who couldn't admit that I had been involved in something that was less than what it purported to be. I didn't want to be one of the people who drifted away, admitting that I had been duped, I wanted to be one of those hot shot Advanced Class grads who knew more than everyone else.
And besides, I was leaving for a year as a WOW Ambassador in a few weeks.
Start from the beginning: Part I
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