So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part II - How Do Cults Recruit?

"Sincerity is the key, if you can fake that, you can achieve anything"  ~ Attributed to various people

Cults appeal to that part of ourselves that is searching. Sometimes what's being searched for is love, or a sense of belonging. Sometimes what's being searched for is answers, knowledge of the world: the mundane  or the spiritual. Sometimes people are attracted to "secret knowledge". Cult recruiters have to be sincere - not appear as con men and women. 

Contrary to widespread belief you don't have to be stupid, or a broken person to get caught up in a cult. Shortly after I left The Way I was friends with a woman with whom I had many religious and philosophical discussions. When I revealed that I had been in a cult, her attitude toward me changed; she couldn't believe that someone whom she viewed as intelligent and discerning would be foolish enough get involved in a cult. She didn't realize that part of what made me discerning was that I had gotten out of a cult and knew their tricks. 

The recruiting tool that I am most familiar with, having been on the receiving end as well as employing it on others, was the search for answers, the search for knowledge. Love bombing, or overwhelming a potential recruit with attention and offers of friendship was something that I had heard about, and saw rarely, with hardly any success. Someone who is just looking for a friend, or who has a crush on one of the cult recruiters has, in my opinion, a shallow attraction to the cult itself. If there isn't enough commonality to maintain a friendship, or the crush proves to be not interested, that usually ends the involvement. I saw this with the family member who first introduced me to The Way. When her friendship with the local Way leader soured, her involvement ended. Seekers after knowledge, once hooked, tended to stick around, ignoring potential red flags. 

A cult recruiter who is offering answers though, is relying on the recruitee having just enough information to see the plausibility of the cult's doctrine, but not enough to be able to see through the subterfuge. They have to be able to undermine faith in the reliability of mainstream sources of information in order to strengthen the cult's position as the arbiter of truth. My initial exposure to The Way indicated that they at least thought that they had all the answers, and as I stuck around and enrolled in their classes, what they were teaching seemed to make sense and fit together. Of course, if I had any background in studying the Bible I may have spotted the weakness and contradiction in many of their positions. Unfortunately no one in my circle of family and friends had the knowledge to contradict what I was being taught. Once I was hooked, I became invested in their doctrines and was willing to overlook red flags because they were providing something I craved - knowledge of the Bible. Having access to that knowledge outweighed the problems that I encountered along the road, even in the early days. And it made me feel special - I enjoyed the feeling of possessing secret knowledge, that I was among the spiritual elite. 

And that's an important key to cult recruitment and retention: providing people with something that they want, and making them feel like they are part of something greater than themselves. Whether or not any of it is true. 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part I - What IS a Cult?

There's no universally agreed upon definition of for cults. But there are some common features: 

1. Shared unquestioning commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology
2. Belief that the group has all the answers
3. System of behavioral control, including isolation
4. Dissent is not tolerated

Google "cults" and you'll likely find more characteristics, but the four I have listed a the main overarching categories. Note that I haven't mentioned unorthodox beliefs. Mainstream Christians often categorize groups such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (The Mormons) and Jehovah's Witnesses as cults based solely on their beliefs which deviate from the majority of Christian denominations. I won't argue with an ex-Mormon or former Jehovah's Witness if they tell me that they left a cult, but a Catholic or Protestant who accuses those groups of being cults is likely doing so based on what they heard about their beliefs. 

Sure, a belief that Joseph Smith received his revelation by translating the divine message that was inscribed on gold plates, or that the "Lost Tribes of Israel" moved to North America or that in the afterlife there's the possibility that we get to be gods of our own planets, just like God was once a mortal before his becoming God - sounds crazy. But does a virgin birth, a man ascending bodily into the heavens after being raised from the dead, talking donkeys and one family with a boat full of animals repopulated the world after a year-long flood make sense? No religion makes sense to those outside that religion. 

Of the four main indicators of cultishness that I cite, there is definitely a continuum. Many groups believe that they have all the answers, systems of control vary in seriousness and differ among different cultures, and how much dissent is tolerated can be situational. I grew up a Catholic, in my opinion there is some mild cultishness involved in being a Catholic. Most Catholics that I know would never even consider being anything but a Catholic, and if they think about it at all, consider that as far as religion goes, "The Church" has all the answers, but as long as one isn't too overt or obnoxious about it individual Catholics pick and choose what aspects of Catholic doctrine to adhere to. The dominant behavioral control is peer or family pressure. 

A cult does not have to have a religious focus. A contemporary example of non-religious cult behavior is the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) followers of former president Trump. There's an inarguable unquestioning commitment to a leader who is followed no matter what; they believe that in the realm of politics and governance, Trump has all the answers and dissent is most assuredly not tolerated. Even the behavioral control and isolation applies. Although they still have whatever jobs they had before becoming a Trump supporters, and are often involved in their communities, they have willingly isolated themselves from anyone who isn't 100% on board with their views. Anyone who differs is branded a socialist, anti-American, a traitor or even a pedophile. Not that different that a religious cultist claiming their opponents are devil-possessed. 

Cults come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it's a cults actions, their behavior, that defines their cultishness, not necessarily their beliefs. 

God

Let's assume for the sake of discussion that God exists. What do I mean by "God"? For now, let's just say I mean what the average American means when they refer to "God". We'll circle back to that eventually. In the article I will be referring to the Abrahamic God with an upper "G" and other deities with lower cases "g's". 

In the United States the predominant religion is Christianity in its many forms. Christians, as well as Muslims, claim to worship the same God as do Jews, who worshipped him first. Even people who aren't officially part of any of those three religions, who can in no way be considered religious, would default to the Abrahamic God when talking about "God". (We're specifically talking about the United States here, and even within the U.S. exceptions would include people who follow non-Abrahamic religions). Where did belief in the Abrahamic God originate? Is there anything to suggest that he really is the supreme creator of the universe? Or did he just have better press agents than all the other gods?

I doubt that there is any serious argument against the idea that every little tribe, every kingdom, every group of nomadic clansman had a god. I'm not going to argue about the probability that any of these gods existed in any real sense, but certainly people believed that they did. The people we know as the Hebrews and later the Israelites had a god as well. It's also certain that the Hebrews believed that there were other gods in addition to their God - just that their God was the best. Eventually the company line became that there was only one god...God...all the other "gods" were just demons, or were people worshipping Satan in a different guise, but it's indisputable that early on (it's in the Bible, people) worshippers of God acknowledged that there were other gods. If we acknowledge that early followers of God believed that the gods of other nations were just as real, it follows that if we believe that God is real, then those other gods must be real as well. 

But what about the first few chapters of Genesis? Doesn't that say that God created the heavens and the Earth? Doesn't it say that he created the first man and woman and communicated with them? Yes, it certainly does. But every other tribe had a creation myth as well. Every other tribe had a story about how humans came to be. We still know what some of those were, and there are still people following the religions from whence those creation myths originated. 

We've already, for the sake of discussion assumed that God is real. We're further assuming that other gods are likewise real. Let's extend that assumption and assume that God talked to someone and told them what how creation came about which eventually got written down in the Bible. Wouldn't it make sense that other gods talked to their worshippers and told them their version of the creation story? From an objective viewpoint we don't know which of these deities is really the creator. Or maybe the various creation myths aren't meant to be historical records, and were written down by people who liked to tell a good story. It's pretty well established that no creation story is physically possible. So, at best what's written down in the Bible about creation is God bragging about how great he is and other sacred traditions are other gods doing the same. We can extend this to the other early parts of the Bible as well. The "Law"? Sure, God setting down rules and regulations. Fine, other gods had their own rules, why not God? The books of "history"? Why not? Later writers assembling a legendary history of a people. Doesn't even need God to be involved. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon? Some good poetry and lots of talk about how different human beings viewed God. The Prophets? People trying to make sense of current events. Again, not the only people who wrote books about legendary times or wrote down their opinions about what the gods thought about various issues. 

Let's stop and take a breath here. We're still assuming that God exists. What we're not assuming is that anything that is written down about God is necessarily true. It might be, but it also might be just the opinion of one of God's followers. Or it might be the self-aggrandizing opinion of one god among many gods. 

Around 2000 years ago a new sect of the followers of God sprung up. There had always been factions within the followers of God, who mostly were confined within the ranks of the people who were by that time known as Judeans (aka Jews). There were Pharisees and Sadducees, factions we know about from the Gospels, but also Essenes, Hellenists, and probably, like today, people who just got on with their lives and didn't give God much thought. This new faction centered around the figure that we know as Jesus of Nazareth. After Jesus' death and alleged resurrection, this faction, unlike previous iterations of Judean religion, aggressively proselytized, spreading their beliefs about God outside the bounds of their nation. At this time the various peoples within the Roman Empire still had their own national or tribal pantheons. But it was also a time when for various reasons people began to experiment with new and exotic religions from outside the borders of the Empire. 

Let's stop and take another breath. Remember, we're still assuming that God exists, but we're not assuming that he is the only God around, or that the book purporting to describe his will for mankind is in any way superior to the many other "holy" books or mythologies. There's a running argument about whether Jesus existed. I tend to follow the logic espoused by Bart Ehrman, a professor of Biblical studies and author of many books on the subject. He views the four Gospels as historical documents. Not in the sense of "true", but in the sense that they claim to describe events that happened once upon a time. I've been listening to a podcast about the history of the Eastern Roman Empire. One of the subjects that continually comes up is the reliability of the sources. Sometimes there is only one source for a period of time. That source is then analyzed for biases, compared with what is known from other writers as well as internal consistency. Sometimes the only source was written decades or even centuries after the events it purports to describe. The Gospels in this respect are similar. The earliest one was written around 30 years after Jesus lived. Historians can examine each of the Gospels and study them in the same way that a historian would study an account of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, looking for inconsistencies, points of agreement and many other points that I won't get into here. My point is that in addition to assuming that God exists, when it comes to Jesus, I'm reasonably sure that he existed as well, but with a lot more certainty.

So, we're now assuming that God exists, but only to the extent that he was one deity among many, but now we have Jesus, which we can assume with a lot more certainty existed. What does that tell us? Not as much as you might think. While we have historical documents attesting to Jesus' existence, and can reasonably conclude that a lot of what is recorded therein are things he actually said and did, we don't have any evidence that he was who he said he was or that his teachings really came from God. Which brings us to another issue. There are numerous contradictions within the Gospels regarding what Jesus taught and who he said he was. Each of the Gospel writers, not to mention Paul and the other writers of the New Testament, seemed to have different opinions about who Jesus was, what he taught and what the purpose of his death and resurrection was. Like the writers of the Old Testament, we can't be sure that the Gospels and Epistles weren't anything more than men's opinions about God. 

As the years and decades and centuries ran on, a lot of arguments were made and even blood spilled attempting to determine precisely what the Bible actually said. The doctrine of the Trinity was the result of an attempt to reconcile the various Biblical views of who Jesus was, with opinions regarding why it had to be a certain way were tacked on every few years. Factions multiplied in Christianity's early days, shrunk as power was centralized and multiplied again at regular intervals. Today there are thousands of Christian sects and denominations, some differing from others in barely noticeable ways, others hardly recognizable to each other as having sprung from the same roots. In addition to the myriad institutional variations of Christianity, there are even more personal variations on who God and Jesus are, what prayer is, and what a Christian is; people whose image of God conforms to nothing in any creed or holy book. 

And why should it? We act as if the Bible is an unassailable source of truth and that God's existence and his basic attributes are beyond argument. But if you're worshipping God, you're worshipping a tribal god who had a very good press agent and whose followers eventually pushed their beliefs outside the insular tribal ethno-state and out into the world. There's, of course, a lot of good in some versions of Christianity, and I believe that people who follow the more "love thy neighbor" strains of the faith are generally good people. But for myself I see no reason to ascribe to Christianity over that of any other religion, at least not on the basis that any of them have a lock on "The Truth"...or even "truth". I can be a bad person all on my own without justifying it with Bible verses and I can also "love my neighbor" without worshipping a Middle Eastern tribal deity. 

We're responsible for our own actions. 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XLI - The End

 When it was announced in a special adult-only meeting that Way President Craig Martindale had admitted to an extra-marital affair that he claimed  was consensual the reaction was varied. One couple left immediately. They later told me that when it was announced that I was being put on probation I was described as "traitorous", among other things. This couple was incredulous that I was treated so badly while during the same time period our supposed leader was engaged in behavior that was arguably much worse. Others made excuses for him. I kept my mouth shut. Pat was one of those who made excuses. In order to further my attempt to salvage our marriage I stayed away from subjects where we would argue. Inside, I was furious. Martindale had recently taught a whole new series of classes, The Way of Abundance and Power, Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced, that would replace the Power for Abundant Living series taught originally by Wierwille, The Way's founder. A lot of what was in the class deviated from what we had been taught previously about several subjects. Some of it was just Scientology-level insanity. I couldn't believe that a man who didn't even understand that adultery was wrong should be trusted to present what was billed as new revelation from God. 

I soon found a like-minded group of people in a message board called GreaseSpot Café. The name came from Martindale's frequent rant that people who left The Way would be "a grease spot by midnight". One of the first things I noticed from the stories that people posted was that things that I thought were minor, or outliers, were in fact common throughout The Way. Things that I had brushed off as one-time personality quirks were in fact official policy. From people's testimonies I learned that Martindale's "affair" was not unusual, but that sexual harassment and abuse had been going on for years, for decades. I participated in discussion about various Way doctrines and saw how shaky they were. At one point I put together a ten page review of Martindale's Way of Abundance and Power (WayAP) class and sent it to a member of the Board of Trustees who I felt was open to what I had to say. The review was an in-depth examination of WayAP, pointing out the numerous inconsistencies with previous Way teaching and with the Bible itself. This Trustee called me at home one night and told me that he was going to have our regional coordinator, who was going to be in Lincoln to teach the WayAP class live, address my concerns. Which he did, unconvincingly hitting some of the high points of my ten pages as we took a walk around the block, closing with "So, we've covered everything". This was the point where I knew that I needed to leave The Way. 

Looking at things in a 20 year rear-view mirror, it seems like such a minor thing to become the straw that broke the cale's back, especially after decades of red flags. But, to use another metaphor - it was that last pebble that started the avalanche. 

Yet I was still unwilling to make a clean break, as I knew that my ex-wife did not see things my way. The decision was made for me in August 2001. I had been posting on GreaseSpot Café (GSC) pretty regularly. The Way had loyal members reading through GSC, trying to identify "innies" who were posting there. They figured out who I was and confronted me about it. Although I never admitted to my role I was informed by phone several days later that I was no longer welcome at any Way functions. I'm not sure if they were putting me on probation again, or whether I was M&A, but as the leader on the phone attempted to give me some instructions I informed him that he had just abdicated any authority that he had over me. I was finally out of The Way for good.

Unfortunately, this put the nail in my unrealistic dream that I could somehow salvage my marriage. Things had not gotten any better when my probation was up in 1999, Pat was still convinced that I was entertaining devil spirits and frequently "confronted" me on various issues, large and small, usually having the children sit in as witnesses, eventually preventing me from interacting with the children even though I still lived there. But being ejected from The Way gave her the excuse to finally sever ties with me and in early November 2001 I was asked to leave. 

Rebuilding relationships with my children is another long, but ultimately successful story. I stayed involved with GSC for many years afterward, contributing to the record of cultishness that it embodied. I made many friends and met over 30 of GSC participants in person over the years. One never sets out to join a cult, but people end up in them every day. They're not always religious based, but many are. It's been over 20 years since I left The Way. My involvement shaped who I am, good and bad. It made me more aware of what cults are, and it made me much less likely to get involved in shady enterprises and much more likely to do my homework and not get sucked into conspiracy theories.  

The Way was part of my life from the ages of 19 to 43. It's still part of my memories. I hope my experiences can help others steer clear of cults of all kinds.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part 40 - The Purges Catch Up

[There will be things in this installment that are just me making bad decisions that have little to do with being in a cult - I'm also leaving out details regarding my ex-wife's actions that I think have nothing to do with cultishness. It's the response of our so-called spiritual leaders that's cultish. I do not want to leave the impression that I'm blaming my own foolishness on my ex-wife or The Way- I take responsibility for my actions]

The purges caught up with me in early 1999. Our finances were in bad shape. Any attempt that I made to take a hard look at our budget, or cut back in area was met by a stubborn refusal by my ex-wife. As I mentioned in an earlier installment she, as well as several other women had interpreted the verse that said a women was to be a "keeper at home" to mean that the wife would make all the decisions, but that the husband, as "head" would be responsible. Way leadership supported this interpretation. As I said, our finances were a mess, we were under pressure to, not only give 10%+ of our income to The Way, but spend money on classes and out-of-town events. At home, I was under pressure to make purchases that we couldn't afford. The answer both from Pat and from Way leaders was to "believe for financial prosperity". My solution to this impossible situation was to run up an unsustainable amount of credit card debt - and hide it from her. As you could imagine, eventually I would be found out. It was a house of cards.

Eventually Pat found out about the mountain of credit card debt. Rather than confront me personally Pat went to the local leadership. I came home from a work conference to an empty house which was soon filled with several Way leaders who confronted me on my "sin" of being in debt. I was rather relieved to be found out, and looked forward to putting all the lying behind and moving forward. For some reason I was not, as I had suspected, marked and avoided and thrown out of The Way. The Way had instituted an intermediate punishment that they called Spiritual Probation. This involved a six month period where the probationer would be banned from attending any Way functions, prohibited from contact with any active Way people and required to write a letter to the Way state leader outlining how he was "getting back in fellowship". Oh yeah - still required to keep tithing 10%+. I guess they figured that if expulsions continued at the rate that they were, soon there would be no one left. Probation was just another method of control. 

To back up a step or two: Little by little over the previous several years Pat had been redirecting her habitual finding of fault with Way leadership towards other Way people in the area. She was the originator of many accusations which resulted in people being confronted and marked and avoided (M&A'd). After running out of targets she focused on my shortcomings. Of course every marriage has its bumpy spots. One of the spouses drinks too much, or spends to much time with buddies, or is rude to the other. Sometimes it's just minor things like the toilet seat gets left up. But in The Way, everything was spiritual. Everything. And my ex-wife was more willing than most to find a spiritual explanation for any behavior that she didn't like. What do I mean by a spiritual explanation? Devil spirit possession. That's right, things as simple as paying a bill late or allowing the kids to stay up late to watch 'Seinfeld' were evidence of being possessed by Devil spirits. Pat became convinced that I was possessed and that somehow if I was out of the picture, things would be alright. On two occasions she disappeared for several days at a time, once leaving a note that said "It has been a disgrace to be unequally yoked with you" which one of the children found before I did. The children were convinced that she had abandoned us. Local leadership allowed her to come to them and complain without bringing me into the conversation.  As for me, I was frustrated by her behavior and the response of the Way leaders. Eventually my credit card debt was discovered and the six month of probation started.

At the time we had two sons who were legal adults and lived in an apartment across the street from us. They were allowed to participate in Way functions - an arrangement which contributed to more division within my family. My eldest son, who among other things had serious anger issues, would go to Way leaders whenever he and I had a disagreement. At one point Roger, the local fellowship leader, informed me that he was stepping in as a father for my son, implying that I was incompetent to do so, further dividing the family. Pat thought that by going to leadership with evidence of my sins The Way would kick me out and she would be able to live her life without my "Satanic" influence. But The Way had other ideas. They decided that she would also be banned for six months, although not required to write a monthly letter. This angered her even more. The six months dragged on. I took a second job in order to pay down the debt without affecting the family finances and faithfully wrote my letter every month. (And sent in my tithe) After the six months were up I was let back in to The Way, the leaders convinced I had mended my ways. Pat was not convinced. She was convinced that I had pulled the wool over leadership's eyes and was bound and determined to show them that I was evil. And I'm not being metaphorical - she was 100% convinced that I was evil. I'm not pointing at Pat's words and actions to suggest any kind of delusion, but that her position was in line with what Way believers had been primed to believe. It was exacerbated by her "it's always someone else's fault" personality, but the conclusions she reached were incubated by her several decades in The Way. 

I was readmitted to The Way in August 1999. In January 2000 it was announced that Craig Martindale, president and supposed spiritual leader of The Way was being sued by former Way members as the result of an extramarital affair that he claimed was consensual but the ex-members claimed was coerced. He resigned a few weeks later. We were told to not start searching the internet for information about the lawsuit, which of course I did.  I soon found several message boards run by ex-Way members and I began living a double life.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part XLI - The End

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/12/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-xli-end.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXXIX - More Purges

In the previous installment I brought up the purge of gays (derided as "homos") as well as anyone who was suspected of having gay fantasies or even sympathies for gay people. But this was only one of a series of purges of the ranks of Way "believers". 

Predating the "homo purge" was the "no debt" purge. Despite common sense and even a cursory knowledge of modern economics indicating that reasonable debt could be a good thing, Martindale banned all debt based on a verse that read "Owe no man any thing, only to love". Obviously unsecured credit card debt should be avoided, but how many people could afford to pay cash for a house? Or even a new-ish car? Understanding the future value of money might cause one to finance a purchase of a home appliance rather than pay cash up front. But Martindale was insistent. No debt. Period. No exceptions. If you were in debt you couldn't be a fellowship coordinator, you couldn't enter or remain in The Way Corps, you couldn't attend the Advanced Class. But people were in debt. People owned homes, had car loans, student loans, home improvement loans. All things that no one thought would be "off the Word" as recently as the previous year. People who owned homes were counseled to sell their homes and start renting. There was utter chaos. Once this new edict filtered down to the rank and file the "confrontations" started. In our area there was a man who appeared to be developmentally disabled. He usually dressed very shabbily, and leadership talked to him about buying some new clothes. Which he obediently did - with a credit card. Bam! Debt! Confronted. Marked and avoided. My eldest son, who at the time was living with Fred Brown, the aforementioned local leader, worked several part time and temporary jobs throughout the year. As anyone who has ever been in that position knows, none of the part time employers withhold enough taxes - the withholding formula assumes that there isn't any other income - so when it comes time to file there is a tax liability due rather than a refund. Fred told him that he was in debt and therefore "off the Word". When asked to explain his reasoning about how paying taxes was debt, all Fred could come up with was "Tell me how it isn't". Of course some leaders managed to work around the new rules. Some lived in homes that were in their parents' names; one local man had concocted an elaborate workaround to convince himself that his debt wasn't really debt. 

There was also a series of new classes that Martindale recorded, all of which were mandatory. Advanced Class graduates who had not taken the old class were no longer considered Advanced Class grads...for all that was worth. Anything from before this time period was called "old wineskins" Anyone speaking nostalgically about "the old days" was suspect - and confronted and M&A'd. The little blue pin that WOW Ambassadors received and which they had always worn proudly as a reminder of their service was no longer approved. An old nametag indicating an old class, the same. Anyone who had been around for a long time was derided as an "old grad" whose opinions and input were disrespected or ignored. Men and women who were not in The Way Corps themselves but were married to Way Corps grads had always been given the courtesy designation of "spouse Corps" and were treated as Way Corps, but no more. Any Corps married to non-Corps were no longer considered Corps grads and were relieved of any leadership responsibilities unless they submitted themselves to four years of Way Corps training. Some of these couples had served faithfully in leadership positions for 20 years or more. More thinning of the ranks. 

For years the top leadership had been extremely stingy with funds, requiring reams of red tape for the smallest expenditures, so it came as a surprise in the mid nineties when Martindale decreed that all active Way Corps would be receiving a salary as full time employees of The Way. As part of the "benefit" of not having to work a secular job (Fred had been a drywaller) the Way Corps had to submit to a ratcheted up level of control, including prohibitions on smoking and other habits and having to ask permission before starting a family. In order to justify having Way Corps with small numbers of people to "oversee", Martindale changed the definition of a branch from seven twig fellowships to two, basing this on a misunderstanding of a Hebrew phrase in Exodus. Like most excrement, it all flowed downhill. Free from working a "9-5", Way leaders had all the time in the world  to snoop into the affairs of their flock. Fred and his new wife Elaine started scheduling "witnessing" excursions mid-day and popping over for inspections and meetings. I worked at home and we home-schooled our children, so these visits were quite disruptive. We had to keep track of who we talked to about God, the Bible etc, who we invited to twig fellowship, who attended and reasons for being turned down. The 10% tithe wasn't enough - we were now pushed to increase our "abundant sharing" to higher percentages. It went on and on. Along with this, the confrontations increased and people were thrown out. 

A weird addition to the Way Corps becoming full-time employees was "no gift" policy. Way protocol for many years had been for the "believers" to present their leaders with some kind of gift at the completion of classes or at major events. Martindale at this time became convinced that gifts to leaders constituted bribes and were banned. Once, my five-year old son wanted to give Fred a little trinket - I think it was an animal-shaped pencil eraser - but Fred turned it down, reiterating to us the "no bribe" policy. 

Despite Martindale's claim that he got the idea to make all Corps full-time employees from God, the idea soon hit the brick wall of reality. The Way International was hemorrhaging money. In addition to the salaries, they had to remit payroll taxes on all of it, and none of these people, who had previously been gainfully employed, were tithing or "abundantly sharing", reducing The Way's gross income while expenditures had multiplied. 

Remember that every one of these changes begat grounds for more suspicion, more confrontation, more people humiliated and kicked out of active involvement in The Way. As this state of affairs progressed (or regressed) the air of suspicion and accusations of devil spirit possession reached into every corner, not exempting marriages, including mine.

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part 40

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/12/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-40-purges.html

So, You Want to Join a Cult -Part XXXVIII - Purges

Deprived of their usual targets of alleged spiritual impurity, the wives of the Women's Cabal turned on their husbands. Couldn't afford whatever your wife thought was a necessary purchase? You could forget about a reasonable conversation reviewing the household budget and the state of the bank account - you "weren't believing" for prosperity. Cold or flu making the rounds at your house? Obviously the "head of the household" wasn't believing for health. What this had become was a dictatorship by the women, who made all the decisions, but all blame was put on the men when things went wrong. This was by no means a universal phenomena. Some Way men emphasized the "man as head" model and made all the decisions, relegating the wife to the role of silent enabler, and in charge of nothing more than cook and baby-maker. In Lincoln, the tendency of local Way woman to challenge leaders that they didn't agree with was strengthened by that one word in Titus: oikôdespotês. In practice, Way leaders took advantage of this dichotomy, the confusion about who was in charge (as if anyone needed to "be in charge") to exercise control, pointing out marital discord as evidence of devilish influence.

But this was all just a sideshow to the purges.

Most cults take pride in growth, pointing to it as "evidence" of God's favor. For most of its history The Way did as well. Much was made about the large number of people who attended the annual "Rock of Ages" gathering every August; the thousands of new Way believers in Zaire was celebrated as were record numbers entering the Way Corps or "going WOW". But after losing around 80% of its membership and leaders in the late 80's, some rationale had to be constructed to make sense of it all. That rationale was the teaching of "the faithful remnant". This was the doctrine that stated that God wasn't about quantity, but was more concerned with quality. The smaller number of active Way people was celebrated as being more pure, more godly, more "on the Word" than what had been around before. And not only were we supposed to view the shrinking numbers as somehow positive, but leadership began to actively reduce the numbers by imposing strict standards of behavior and obedience to leaders that had never been seen before. The most intense was what we profanely referred to as the "homo purge". (I'm using term and placing it in quotes because that's what it was called in The Way, I do not endorse describing gay people simply as "homos")

For most of my early years in The Way, homosexuality wasn't addressed, at least that I noticed. I didn't know of any "out" gay people and I can't recall a single sermon on the subject until the mid nineties. The times were not friendly to gay people outside The Way, and in retrospect Way people were probably as homophobic as the typical straight people of the time, but it just wasn't a focus. In 1995 it became a focus. Way President Martindale began making homosexuality THE sin to be on guard against. You know the verse about the love of money being the root of all evil? Well for Martindale homosexuality was the root of all evil. Everything that would or could go wrong was blamed on closeted gays in our midst. In 1995 he cancelled the WOW Ambassador program with no notice in the midst of the Rock of Ages. His "reasoning" was his belief (that God supposedly told him) that 10% of the outgoing WOWs were homosexuals. He encouraged people to point the finger at suspected homosexuals, as long as you had "a genuine spiritual suspicion" - whatever that is. Martindale wasn't slowed down by the inconvenient fact that few if any actual gay people were found to be hiding out among the believers. That deterred him not in the slightest. He came up with the terms "Homo fantasizers" and "homo sympathizers" and they became were corollary targets, based on that ephemeral "genuine spiritual suspicion". 

I'm not proud of my behavior during this time. Growing up I had taken a laissez faire attitude about gays. If I knew any, I didn't know that they were gay. I probably made ignorant jokes...because I was ignorant. When I moved to Nebraska and got involved in KZUM, however, I came in contact with a lot of gay people and became friends with many of them. This was during the time when my ex-wife and I were not actively involved in The Way, 1983-1990. Even after getting back involved with The Way in 1990, homophobia and gay bashing hadn't taken hold yet, but once the organization which I viewed as having a handle on God's Truth started preaching against gays, I'm ashamed to say that I jumped on board. I probably wasn't as vicious about it as some, but I was vocal. I'm sure there are family members who haven't forgotten my homophobic remarks made in those days. 

Fred Brown, our local Way Corps leader discovered that I had a talent for accurate note-taking. Why was this a valuable skill to have in a cult? Because the manner in which purges were conducted was a "confrontation". The local leader, along with a subordinate leader if there was one, and several witnesses would "confront" the person suspected of homosexuality (or some other sin - there were multiple, overlapping purges that I will get into in the next installment). This was supposedly the "Biblical" way to address "evil". The leader would grill the confronted one, aiming to pin some sin on him or her with the inevitable result that they were kicked out of Way involvement. My job was to take notes and read statements back to the leader when asked to, with emphasis on finding contradictions and lies to pin on the person being confronted. The term we used for kicking a person out was "mark and avoid" based on a verse which said "...mark them which causes divisions and offenses...and avoid them". Not only was a person who was marked and avoided kicked out of the fellowship, but none of the active members were allowed to have anything to do with them. Someone who was marked and avoided (M&A'd) was cut off, not only from any friends that they had, but often from their family as well. This went on for several years and I was involved in dozens of M&A confrontation sessions. 

Along with the other purges, this was my Way lifestyle for around five years, always looking my shoulder, watching what I said and to whom, and all the while I was complicit in the evil. 

Start at the beginning:

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2019/10/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-i.html

Part XXXIX

https://aesduir.blogspot.com/2022/12/so-you-want-to-join-cult-part-xxxix.html