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Carol’s Story: Seeking Life Along The Way — Part Three

Bruce Gerencser 9 Comments

the way international

Guest post by Carol. For many years, Carol was a member of The Way.  You can read Carol’s blog here.

1970s Word Over the World

In January, 1978, at the age of eighteen, shortly after dropping out of college, I got 100% involved with The Way. Back in my hometown, I moved into a “Way Home” with two other Way believers to help run Way Classes and “move the Word.” That’s what you did in a “Way Home.” I witnessed to everything that moved, sometimes going door-to-door alone. I landed a job in the laundry department of a local hospital. One of my fellow employees was my first Way recruit.

In February, 1978, I met the president and founder of The Way at a large Way gathering called a Heartbeat Festival at the Omni Hotel in Virginia Beach. I waited, alone, outside a conference room where Dr. Wierwille was meeting with the Word Over the World Ambassadors (WOWs) from the region. About midnight, he walked out of the room. I got up, walked over to him, introduced myself, and said, “I want to go WOW this year!” (WOW was The Way’s main lay outreach program, volunteers serving for one year wherever assigned by The Way.)

The next morning, I sat on the front row in the large meeting of hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, people. At the end of his teaching from the stage, Doctor pointed at me and said, “You’re going WOW. next year; aren’t you honey?” I nodded my head yes, and he said, “Have you signed up yet?” I shook my head no, and he bellowed, “Well come on up here!” He motioned his arm for me to join him on the elevated stage, which I did, and he personally signed me up to go WOW.

As I stood with him on the stage in front of the sea of onlookers, he again enthusiastically bellowed, this time to the whole audience, “Who else wants to go WOW!?!” As people came up to the stage I helped hand out the blue WOW sign-up cards.

Little eighteen-year-old me, on stage with the “man of God of the world,” our “father in the Word,” “Doctor,” as many loyal followers affectionately referred to him. I felt large and small at the same time. Privileged. Awed. Humbled. Knowing that I was doing God’s will for my life. Or so I thought.

It was almost intoxicating, but not in scary or uncontrollable way. I was high on the “love of God.” I thought there was nowhere else on earth where one could experience this unique oneness, unity of purpose, synchronicity, and more. I later came to call it “the chewy, caramel center of God’s heart.” It was almost tangible and was a feeling that would be duplicated at Way functions multiple times in the following decades.

Latter May through July, 1978

Before going WOW in August, I jumped on board with The Way’s statewide summer outreach program, WONC – Word Over North Carolina. I was assigned with three other young ladies to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Fort Bragg is located. I got a job driving a taxi cab. We witnessed to lots of soldiers and ran one Power For Abundant Living Foundational Class.

Sometime between February and May, I had made the commitment to enter The Way’s leadership program, The Way Corps. WOW was a one-year commitment; Way Corps was a lifetime commitment. My upcoming WOW year would serve as my first year of Corps training known as the apprenticeship year. (Ministry years ran from August to August.)

August, 1978

I was commissioned, with hundreds of others, as a WOW Ambassador at the Way’s yearly festival, the Rock of Ages, held at Headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio. (The Rock of Ages was discontinued in 1995 after twenty-five years.)

I was sent to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was designated a WOW Family Coordinator. There were four WOWs in my family, all of us barely adults – myself, another young woman, and two young men. Along with overseeing the WOW family, I oversaw our Twig Fellowship. Our WOW family was assigned with six other WOW families to Milwaukee and made up a WOW Branch, which was overseen by an 8th Way Corps trainee on his interim year assignment.

The Way was structured like a tree known as The Way Tree. The roots of the tree represented the research of God’s Word stemming from Dr. Wierwille and the research department at Headquarters. Research is what “fed the tree.” Later The Way purchased other training locations which were collectively called “root locales.” The Trunk represented a geographical country, such as the Trunk of the USA or the Trunk of Canada. Limbs were states, such as the Limb of New York. Branches were areas within a state and were typically composed of about seven Twigs. Twigs were the household fellowships held in Way believers’ homes. An individual believer was sometimes referred to as a Leaf. The Twig is where believers spent most of their time as far as Way meetings were concerned. A common phrase at that time was, “Life is in the Twig.” In the mid-1990’s, the term “Twig” was replaced with “Household Fellowship.” (Click here to listen to the song, Am A Leaf  by one of the popular Way bands of the 1970’s.)

My WOW family lived in a small, run-down apartment on the East Side near Lake Michigan and the University of Wisconsin. We spent a lot of time witnessing on campus. Through the year, I worked part-time jobs as an office assistant, a bus girl at a restaurant, and an ice cream cart driver selling frozen treats on the East Side.

One of my WOW brothers was my boyfriend. We had met at the end of Summer Outreach in North Carolina and had sat together through the teachings and the WOW commission at the Rock, never imagining that we would be assigned to the same WOW family. We were both stunned when we opened our assignment envelopes. He was kind of pissed because, since he was the man, he thought he should be the Family Coordinator. I was concerned because we both had raging teenage hormones. He was 18. I was 19.

Shortly after opening our assignment envelopes, our WOW Branch gathered so we could all meet each other. At that time, I privately told our Branch Leader that my WOW brother and I couldn’t be together; we were in love. There was no way we could concentrate on our commitment to God if we lived together in the same house. Our Branch Leader took my request up the Way Tree to higher leadership. The verdict came back – we were to stay together. The assignments were inspired by God.

I got pregnant within a couple months and got an abortion. I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, where our Limb Leaders lived, to get the abortion. My mom paid for it. I stayed in the Limb Home for a few days after the procedure. The Limb Leaders were kind, but to my recollection, we didn’t discuss the abortion. I recall feeling very alone, crying alone, and bleeding a lot. Other than my boyfriend and my Branch Leader back in Milwaukee, no one else in the Branch knew, at least that I was aware of. I returned to my WOW family like nothing had happened and went back to “moving the Word.” At that time in The Way, abortion was pretty much treated like getting a splinter removed.

Within two months after the abortion, my WOW brother was moved to a different WOW family in the Branch. But we continued as lovers, growing more fond of one other as the year went on. (Click here to read a two-part series about the WOW commission and abortion.)

In September, 1979, after the end of my 1978-’79 WOW year, I entered in-residence training with the 10th Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia in Kansas.

The WOW Ambassador and other outreach programs with The Way were on a volunteer basis with participants supporting themselves financially while doing the work of the Ministry; there was no monetary compensation from The Way. Volunteers were expected to continue to tithe from income received through their part-time secular jobs during their full-time volunteer service with The Way. As WOWs, we were to work our secular jobs twenty to thirty hours per week and do the work of the Ministry forty hours per week. (Click here to view pages from the WOW Handbook.)

When I was in Corps training, the program consisted of a first-year apprenticeship, when a trainee served closely with Way Corps, a second year in-residence at Way root locales, a third year as an interim or practicum when the trainee served wherever assigned by The Way, and a fourth year back in-residence at Way root locales. The in-residence years were work/study programs and were financed via funds solicited by the Way Corps trainee. Those who funded the trainee were called “Spiritual Partners” and agreed to a monthly or other non-tax-deductible financial donation. The Way Corps trainee was to pray for and to write to each Spiritual Partner once a month during that in-residence year.

The Way Corps training program was not an outreach program, per se, though outreach and teaching were some of the final goals as part of the “lifetime commitment to Christian service.” A Way Corps trainee could be assigned to an outreach program during the apprentice or interim years or after graduation.

The in-residence years included an outreach exercise called Lightbearers. Trainees would live in the field with Way believers for two weeks and help recruit enough people for the area to be able to run The Way’s Foundational Class.

As an outreach exercise, Corps trainees would sometimes have “witnessing” days in their local root locale communities.

The Corps program also included hitchhiking requirements where trainees were to witness to those who gave them rides and were to “believe God” to arrive at assigned destinations within given time frames. I hitchhiked over four thousand miles while in The Way Corps. On one of my hitchhiking assignments, from Kansas to New Mexico, my partner and I did not arrive at our destination in the allotted time frame. We had missed it by four minutes. We had to turn right around and hitchhike back to Kansas from New Mexico. (Click here to read a transcript from my 13th Way Corps personal journal detailing that excursion.)

Through my Corps years I spent time at three of The Way’s root locales in Kansas, Indiana, and Ohio. I spent a couple of weeks in New Mexico at The Way’s L.E.A.D. Outdoor Academy. L.E.A.D. stood for Leadership, Education, Adventure, Direction and was The Way’s wilderness, rock climbing program, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I did not spend any Corps time at The Way’s root locale in Gunnison, Colorado. (The Way sold its Kansas and Indiana properties in the 1990’s after losing followers en masse. At some point, The Way also sold the L.E.A.D. property in New Mexico. The Way kept its Headquarters in Ohio and The Way Family Ranch in Colorado.)

Though I spent over four years in Way Corps training I never graduated. I left the program, not once, but twice, midstream in the training, both times during my interim years. To break one’s Corps commitment was akin to a Judas’ betrayal.

Yet, for the most part, I loved my in-residence years at the “school of the prophets” and was successful through that part of the training. In-residence, our lives were scheduled for us. We seldom had “free time.” I believed that I was in the center of God’s will and heart. I felt I was in a cocoon where I was learning how to do things right so as to be better able to serve God’s people. I believe that is why most followers went into The Way Corps — to serve.

The proving years (interim/practicum) were my death of confidence. The pressure of overseeing people’s spiritual lives, of receiving revelation from God, and of bearing good spiritual fruit overwhelmed me. Externally I appeared capable and confident. But, internally, I felt an incredible urge to flee. I sought escape from an internal dissonance which was brought on by trying to run in shoes not designed to carry me, but that I believed were my duty to make fit. Or perhaps, I was trying to run from manipulation that I didn’t recognize as such.

Not only did I break my Corps commitment, I did so in an AWOL fashion which only added to the shame of my broken integrity.

I think one reason I chose an AWOL approach was because I felt that if I counseled with leadership and then disobeyed, in my confused perception, that was a more direct act of disobedience than if I just disappeared. Plus, I felt any counsel would try to talk me into staying.

For decades after breaking my Corps commitment, a dark shadow of shame followed me. I would try to understand the whys of my betrayal.  Immaturity? Insecurity? Low self-image? Lack of confidence? Unrelenting standards? Fear of failure or perhaps success? Devil spirits? Character flaws?

It took me until 2016, eleven years after leaving The Way, to realize that by fleeing the Corps I didn’t break my integrity. I was actually endeavoring to keep my integrity by trying to be true to my core, to my self. But I didn’t know how. Still, I wish I hadn’t left in an AWOL fashion.

To me, the Corps was a huge commitment.

And I had broken that commitment twice.

The ensuing shadow-of-shame haunted me for decades.

Yet, all that while as I was treading the waters of life trying to keep my head above my shame, unknown to me and other followers, top Way leaders were abusing their authority, engaging in covert and rampant illicit sex with followers.

Carol’s Story: Seeking Life Along The Way — Part Two

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments

the way international

Guest post by Carol. For many years, Carol was a member of The Way.  You can read Carol’s blog here.

Introduction

I originally wrote the following narrative two to three years after leaving The Way, in 2007 and 2008, dividing it into several parts. Between 2008 and 2016 I made some revisions and added my health story (written in 2005) as an Addendum. In April, 2017, I began expanding the narrative with more specific personal accounts, which may continue as an on-going project. Within the body of the narrative, I provide links to further information and to memoir pieces I’ve written about certain incidents or time periods. It’s a long read. But, in another sense, not. It covers over forty years.

I hope the narrative gives a glimpse (1) of some of the reasons folks join “cults” or similar groups, (2) of consequences that can result from following authoritarian and elitist groups, and (3) that even decades-long true believers can change.

I got involved with The Way International in September, 1977, at the age of eighteen and exited 28 years later in October, 2005, at the age of forty-six.  The journey continues…

1960’s -1977: Why would anyone joint a cult?

I wasn’t raised with a specific church doctrine, but my family attended a Methodist Church and Camp-meeting with some regularity in my younger years. From about age eight years old and into my teen years I was fascinated with the supernatural, reading books on UFOs, playing with Ouija boards, intrigued by witchcraft, and dabbling with astrology. I attended some sort of Baptist revival with a friend when I was maybe ten; I remember going up for the altar call. When I was around eleven years old, I saw a movie about Nicky Cruz, The Cross and the Switchblade, which led me to read Cruz’s book, Run Baby Run. Cruz’s story made an impression on me; it seemed authentic as opposed to a religious facade. Around twelve years old I attended a Methodist confirmation, but to my recollection never completed the requirements.

Around thirteen years old I read the four gospels and concluded that Jesus Christ was the biggest egomaniac that ever walked. However, I did like the poetic flow of the gospel of John. I continued to read parts of the Bible during my early teens; my opinion didn’t change. In the Old Testament I read about a vengeful God who annihilated people. Of the folks I talked with about the Bible, no one could satisfactorily explain the contradictions to me. I could argue most Bible believers into a corner, and for some reason I enjoyed it. Understandably, I rejected the Bible as an ultimate authority, but thought it contained some truth, alongside other religions.

Also at thirteen years of age I fell in love for the first time and gave my whole self, body and soul, to my young teenage lover. I craved attention and touch, to be wanted, and to please. I was involved with four such all-encompassing relationships between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. In the second of these relationships, I was a victim of physical abuse. I ended that relationship after about one year which coincided with the ninth and final hitting session; that time I fought back. At the time I did not reveal the physical abuse to anyone; I was embarrassed and didn’t want people to think badly of him or me. He was a “jock” four years older than I; I was a cheerleader. I decided then to switch peer groups and to become friends with the “freaks.”

In late spring, 1974, at fifteen years of age, I began experimenting with drugs. Three months later, I became romantically involved with one of the main high school drug dealers. We were never in short supply of mind-altering substances. In October, 1974, we ate seeds from datura stramonium (Jimson weed). I lived a four-day sleepless nightmare filled with hellish hallucinations while strapped to a bed in ICU. My boyfriend was restrained with a straight jacket. Yet, even after the stramonium nightmare, we continued experimentation with various kinds of hallucinogens — LSD, windowpane, blotter acid, mescaline, MDA, and a few others. (Click here to read about datura stramonium and click here to read a two-part series about my experience.)

Most of my psychedelic experiences caused me to feel at one with the universe, in harmony with all creation. But then as the months passed the trips began to turn bad. The feeling of tripping lingered even without having dropped any acid. I became paranoid and withdrawn.

Needless to say, I had many thoughts of insanity. My saving thought was, If I was insane I wouldn’t know it. At that point, in desperation for my sanity after spending over a year in my chemically-induced spiritual search, I quit experimenting with drugs and turned to Transcendental Meditation (TM).

In late summer, 1975, at sixteen years old, I got 100% involved with TM, volunteering at the TM Center, assisting with classes and initiations, and planning to attend the Maharishi Mahesh University in Iowa after high school graduation. Within eight months of starting TM I broke the relationship with my dealer boyfriend. He got busted a few months later.

A little more than one year into TM, I met my next boyfriend (four years older than I) and moved in with him the summer before my senior year of high school. He was faithfully involved with a small Baptist Church. Yet, he smoked pot on an almost daily basis, and we cohabitated, “living in sin” for ten months. Because I wanted to please him I dropped my involvement with TM and decided I’d try to believe the Baptist doctrine which was difficult for me, especially the hell-fire teachings. Almost every Sunday I found myself at the altar in tears of shame, wondering if I was “saved.”

We had wedding plans for June, 1977, a few weeks after I graduated from high school. But in May I broke the engagement; I couldn’t come to terms with belief in a God of damnation. I felt that for our marriage to work I had to believe. I was also struggling with mood swings, depression, and feelings of low self-worth.

I was eighteen years old. I felt driven to find “the truth,” to discover God, to find my way “back to the garden.”

Some may wonder about parental guidance through these years. For whatever reasons, I had few disciplinary boundaries while growing up. (Plus, it was the 1960s and 1970s.) I also apparently developed some issues with abandonment. In the 1960s, Mom spent extended time as an in-patient for manic depression (now known as bipolar disorder). Dad was challenged with anger issues, possibly as a result from a brain injury due to a serious car wreck prior to starting the family. Like most of humanity, my parents were good people who went through some hard times, handling life as best they could.

Looking back, I see that those circumstances influenced choices I made in seeking elsewhere to fill certain unmet physical, emotional, and familial needs. Yet these were also rich times spent freely exploring nature and life. From the age of four and into my teen years, I spent most of my free time playing outside. From my mid-elementary years and up I was a latch-key kid. I am the youngest of three children.

In 1961, when I was around two years old, our family moved from Daytona Beach, Florida, to the foothills of North Carolina. My parents lived in that NC home until their deaths, Dad in 1996 and Mom in 2009.

Our neighborhood was full of kids. We rode bikes all over the place and played pick-up football, softball, and rolly-bat. I loved to run and played lots of tag, relays, and Sardines (a hide-and-seek game). We regularly camped outside in our yards or select places in the surrounding woods. We directed our own play; adults were seldom involved.

Our neighbor owned and boarded horses. The large pasture stretched behind our house. I fell in love with horses and rode almost daily until I was around thirteen years old. Sometimes I’d even go for a ride before school. I loved grooming horses and caring for them. My parents bought me my first pony when I was six years old. His name was Dynamite. I later owned Princess and then Black Eagle. I liked riding bareback and pretending I was a Navajo or Cherokee Indian. Other times Marie, my horse-riding friend, and I would pack saddle bags and pretend we were explorers.

Shortly after the split from my fiancé in May, 1977, I moved onto a farm with a hippy family who had moved to the North Carolina foothills from New York. I dabbled with Transcendental Meditation (again), the teachings of Ram Dass, yoga, and a group that followed The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.

In June, I visited a cousin with the purpose of accompanying him to a Wicca meeting. He ended up having to work, so I spent the day with my aunt with whom I attended a small Charismatic gathering. At that meeting, I heard speaking in tongues for the first time. That day I was led into tongues and began to see a different side to the scriptures.

I returned to the farm and told my yoga-hippie friends that they didn’t have to do all that meditation to be one with God — “Just believe on Jesus Christ and speak in tongues!”

I became engrossed in the scriptures, trying to understand and craving to comprehend the “breadth and length and depth and height,” “to know the love of Christ,” and to be “filled with all the fullness of God.”

I began reading and rereading Acts and the Pauline epistles, mainly Ephesians through Colossians. I drove over an hour one way to attend church services where I had been led into tongues. The message at this church was different from what I’d been exposed to at the Baptist Church. The theme was love, grace, mercy, and understanding. Not to mention, they had good music!

I was full of questions and wanted to understand the Bible and be able to reconcile at least a majority of the contradictions. I decided to attend college focusing on biblical studies and counseling. I also had an interest in service work with either VISTA or The Peace Corps.

I chose a college that had “spirit-filled” connections, Montreat College near Black Mountain, North Carolina, in the heart of Billy Graham country.

During my few months at Montreat I attended Montreat’s Presbyterian Church services along with various flavors of Charismatic meetings in the local vicinity. However, the same insecurity and shame that I experienced in the Baptist Church again haunted me. I couldn’t seem to find satisfactory answers to my questions nor a remedy for my shame.

I became friends with some students at Montreat who were considered to be spiritually mature. We met regularly for prayer meetings. Talk went on qualifying who was spiritual enough to be allowed at these assemblies. Looking back, these meetings mainly served to achieve an emotional high with some participants being slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues out loud and uncontrollably. During one of these sessions I had to leave because I felt like I was tripping; I felt paranoid and dirty. I don’t think I went to any more prayer sessions after that one.

Montreat would invite well-known Christian leaders to speak with the students. It was a small school, so students were able to personally meet and interact with the guests. Jackie Buckingham was one of those guests. She and her husband, Jamie, were personal friends with Nicky Cruz. Jamie was Nicky’s co-author of Run Baby Run. As Jackie shared some of the miracle stories, my heart burned within me to know God and his power like she described.

On one occasion Ruth Graham visited the college campus. I attended a small gathering with about twenty young ladies and Mrs. Graham. We met in an informal living room setting attired with a few upholstered chairs for seating and the rest of us on the floor. It was very comfortable. I asked Mrs. Graham questions regarding speaking in tongues and the holy spirit field. Her answer was that she simply didn’t know the answers. I thought to myself, If Ruth Graham doesn’t know, who does?

Around this time is when I found The Way.

Fellowship meetings with The Way were tender and welcoming and didn’t involve the frenzied, spirit-filled confusion I was experiencing at some of the Charismatic gatherings. At Way Fellowships I witnessed what I had read in sections of Acts and the Pauline epistles: all things common, decent and in order, fruit of the spirit, greeting with a holy kiss.

I enrolled and took The Way’s Power for Abundant Living  Foundational and Intermediate Classes, which were combined the first time I sat through “the Class.” I drove a three-hour round trip, from Montreat to Hickory, for almost each of the fifteen sessions; though some sessions were combined over a few weekends.

For once I was getting answers to many of the questions that plagued me. Apparent contradictions in the Bible were explained. I learned that I was righteous before God and that I had “sonship rights.” I began to memorize King James scriptures, repeating them over and over in my mind convincing myself of “the truth.” I was finally learning God’s will for my life. Jesus promised, “Seek and ye shall find.” I had found it. Or so I thought.

Friends from the prayer group at Montreat warned me that The Way was a cult. I considered their words and read about The Way in cult literature. It appeared to me that those who claimed The Way was a cult based that conclusion mainly on the fact that The Way did not believe Jesus is God. Until shortly after starting college I never realized that Christians believed that Jesus is God. At the time, I was stunned that anyone would think such a thing, that a man could be God. Therefore, the main thrust of The Way being a cult because it was non-trinitarian didn’t concern me much.

In my college Old Testament history class I wrote an answer in response to an essay question on a test asking to compare Old Testament faith with New Testament faith. My essay was based on research from The Way. I received an A+ on that essay with a note from my professor, “Excellent research. I have questions about some of your findings.” Having been warned The Way was a cult I felt too uncomfortable to ever approach the professor on the matter.

The prayer-group friends subjected me to a type of interrogation with an emphasis on the Trinity. We met in a small classroom. There were five of them and one of me. Four of them were standing with one at the chalkboard writing. I was seated. Their examination included questions, authoritarian proclamations, and accusations regarding The Way and its “devilish doctrines.” I recall a couple of them raising their voices at me, I think in an attempt to wake me from what they considered my delusion and to save me from the “cult.” I felt attacked, cross-examined, and scared.

Not long after that incident my college roommate, who suffered with mental illness, was found in the parking lot trying to pick sparkling diamonds out of the glitter in the pavement. She had also recently begun using the window instead of the door to exit and enter our college dorm room. The prayer-group friends who had interrogated me blamed me for tainting my roommate and causing her to get “possessed with demons,” all because I was attending a Way Class and Fellowships. I was the only student at Montreat involved with The Way.

These were the people warning me that The Way was a cult? I guess it takes one to know one. Jesting aside, I believe these friends’ intentions were good. But their approach, for obvious reasons, sent me running in the other direction.

I mailed a handwritten letter to Dr. Wierwille (Wierwille received his “doctorate” in 1948 from an unaccredited seminary, Pikes Peak Bible Seminary, which was located in a house in Manitou Springs, Colorado), the founder and president of The Way, whom I had listened to for forty-five hours on audio tape as he taught the combined Foundational and Intermediate Classes. I shared with him what had happened with my prayer-group friends. I never expected to hear back. But I did. I received a typed letter in an envelope with a return address from “The Teacher” in New Knoxville, Ohio. He commended me for my stand and wrote, “When people throw dirt at God’s Word, all they do is get their hands dirty.”

I finished my first semester at Montreat College and then dropped out to study and serve with The Way.

Carol’s Story: About The Way — Part One

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments

the way international

Guest post by Carol. For many years. Carol was a member of The Way. Today’s post is an informational article about The Way for people who may not be familiar with this religious sect. You can read Carol’s blog here.

About The Way International

The Way International is a small, fundamentalist, Bible-based organization headquartered in New Knoxville, Ohio, on property that was once the family farm of the founder, Victor Paul Wierwille. The Way is considered a cult by many former members, by most mainstream churches, and by certain secular groups. It has most always operated as home-based churches.

The Way recognizes 1942 as its commencement date and has (almost) always operated as home-based churches. Wierwille claimed that, in 1942, God audibly spoke to him, telling him that He would teach Wierwille the Word as it had not been known since the first century, if Wierwille would teach it to others.

Like some other new religions, The Way had great growth beginning in the late 1960s, through the 1970s, and into the early 1980s. In the early ’80s, as many as 20,000 people attended the then-yearly Rock of Ages festival held on the Way’s property in New Knoxville. (The Rock of Ages was discontinued in 1995, after 25 years.)

Beginning in the latter 1980s, within a few years of Wierwille’s death, The Way began to unravel due (in part) to power struggles and to the exposure of rampant sexual abuses that had started with Wierwille. The Way has survived but is a skeleton of what it once was.

The Way teaches non-conventional biblical doctrines, and in that aspect, differs from conventional Christian Fundamentalism. It is fundamentalist in that followers of The Way believe that the Bible, as it was “originally” given, is perfect and inerrant and is God’s revealed Word and Will in written form to humanity. Way doctrine teaches that there is only one proper interpretation of the scriptures.

Way followers do not believe that Jesus is God. One of Wierwille’s books is entitled Jesus Christ is Not God. However, neither do followers believe that Jesus was just another man. Rather, he is the only begotten son of God and the redeemer of mankind. Without Jesus Christ shedding his “perfect blood,” mankind would continue in an irredeemable state. The Way teaches a virgin conception but not a virgin birth. God created sperm in Mary’s Fallopian tube which fertilized one of Mary’s eggs, thus producing a human with “perfect blood.” God, who is spirit, is Jesus’s biological father, and Mary, a human, was his biological mother.

The Way teaches that a human baby is not fully human until it takes its first breath and that abortion is not murder. Upon birth, a human is only body and soul (soul being breath life and encompassing genetics). A person does not receive the spirit of God until he or she decides to become born again (also known as being saved, made whole, redeemed, or the new birth). However, children are counted as saved as long as one parent is saved. This continues until the child reaches an age of accountability, when the child is able to independently make a decision to be saved or not.

Way followers believe that a person gets born again by believing Romans 10: 9 and 10. That is, people must confess with their mouths (out loud is not necessary) that Jesus is Lord (not as God, but as Master) and believe in their hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead. To accept Jesus into one’s heart or to believe that Jesus is God does not result in a person being born again; those are counterfeit formulas. Once people are born again, they cannot, for any reason, lose their salvation. The only people who cannot be saved are those born of the seed of the serpent, the devil. The Way does not subscribe to any sort of water baptism; it is not necessary and became obsolete once Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, making the new birth available.

Way believers are taught that homosexuality happens because of devil spirit possession. But people who are gay can still be saved, even if they continue being gay, though they wouldn’t be able to attend Way fellowships if they are unwilling to change their behavior.

In the 1990s The Way began teaching that the original sin in Genesis happened when the devil appeared in the form of a beautiful woman and enticed Eve into a homosexual experience. Adam watched, or at least consented, though he didn’t directly partake in the act. By consenting he ate of the figurative fruit from the figurative tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, and thus all humanity fell from grace and needed a redeemer. Prior to that doctrine, The Way taught that the original sin probably involved masturbation; Adam and Eve met their own sexual needs instead of each other’s. But masturbation is not considered a sin in and of itself.

Followers of The Way believe that when people die, they do not immediately go to an after-life in any form. The only human currently alive after death is Jesus Christ. All other humans remain dead and will be raised in the future either at Christ’s first “return” (which most Christians refer to as the “rapture” — The Way doesn’t use the word “rapture” but rather the phrase “the Hope”) or at the final judgments. Animals are not resurrected.

Way followers do not believe in an eternal hell-fire torment. After the final judgments, all non-believers will die the second death and cease to exist forever. The lake of fire and the devil and death will be obliterated. A new heaven and earth where all sorrow and death has ceased will then last for eternity, bringing into fruition God’s original intent in Genesis before the “fall of mankind.”

Though The Way is not part of the Charismatic movement, everyone in The Way speaks in tongues, but not spontaneously out loud during gatherings. In public Way meetings the believer is called upon by whomever is overseeing and is directed to either “prophesy” or “speak in tongues and interpret.” Speaking in tongues is mainly for the believer’s private prayer life “to build themselves up spiritually” and have a better connection with “God, the Father.” Way doctrine teaches that the nine “gifts of the spirit” referred to in I Corinthians 12 of the Bible are actually “manifestations” and that every equipped believer operates all nine of the manifestations. “All nine all the time” was a common phrase in The Way.

Way believers are not literalists. The Bible abounds with figures of speech and ancient Middle Eastern customs. A person needs some knowledge of these in order to understand the context of the Bible.

The Way is not a King James Bible-only organization. King James is the main version used in The Way because that version is what most biblical lexicons and concordances are keyed to and because the italicized words in the King James indicate that those words were added to the text. The Way references various versions in its study of the scriptures.

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Sin and the Hostile World: Changing One’s Worldview

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments

Guest post by Melody

There are roughly three ways of looking at the world, the universe, and nature: it is inherently hostile, it is indifferent, or it is loving  – three very different positions with quite huge consequences for one’s worldview. This past week, I realized that while I rationally see nature as basically indifferent—it simply is, it exists for its own sake; we are the ones that add the value, for better or for worse—I emotionally still see the world as hostile sometimes.

I was raised in a typical Evangelical fashion. Everyone is a sinner. The ‘world’ is hostile towards us—no one ever focused on our own hostility towards this so-called evil world—but God is on our side, so we will win eventually. The indoctrination, combined with my own personal negative experiences, led me to believe that yes, people were all bad at their core and so was the world, and so was I. It’s no surprise that such a belief does not help with feeling comfortable either on this earth or within one’s own skin.

Beliefs can be very harmful and divisive. In this scenario, there is always an enemy. There is always some sort of (spiritual) war going on. This war rhetoric also creates an intensity to one’s normal everyday life that may not be meant for anything else except real threatening situations. If there are demons and spiritual attacks everywhere, normal life will never be boring. This sounds a lot better than it is though, because a little boring is good. It is peaceful and restful. This state of calm hardly exists in people who see a spiritual threat on every corner, in every book they read, in every person they meet. They get worn out fighting imaginary threats.

To them, the world is hostile. Jesus was persecuted and we will be too. Jesus suffered at the hands of unbelievers and we will too: just look at all the signs! In order to hold onto this view, negative experiences get magnified and all good ones get disregarded, creating a huge negative spiral. Because I personally felt that some people were not trustworthy, I could myself easily believe that we were all sinful at heart; that no one but God could be trusted. I have believed this for the longest time. There were pastors who were untrustworthy in our church, family members who were untrustworthy… I could go on. It was far too easy to believe that sin was winning in this world, that the dark was winning and we absolutely, definitely needed God. All of us.

Now, I’m trying to change my worldview; to no longer see myself as a bad sinful person who has to do good things to make up for that, but who will always fail, because, doesn’t the Bible, in Romans 3:10, say that: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’”? Seeing myself as bad, as well as everyone else, does nobody any good. That is not to say that bad people do not exist: clearly some people are rapists, murderers etc. But the concept of us all being sinful beings and everyone as inherently bad does so much harm. Most people are neither entirely good nor entirely bad—nor do they have to be—there are shades of grey everywhere, possibly even more than fifty…

At the moment, I see the world as indifferent. There’s too much darkness in this world for me to see it as loving, but I also no longer want to see it as hostile either. Besides, for it to be either one of those, there would have to be someone or something that made the world so; and that is precisely the belief I have given up — the belief that everything and everyone is a helpless pawn in a huge fight between invisible beings. There is no God with a good plan for the world as there is no Devil with a bad one. The earth simply is and we are on it  as long as we manage not to destroy it, which we unfortunately might.

I want to see myself — and others — as a good person who may sometimes make mistakes, instead of as someone who has to do good to redeem herself without there ever even being a real possibility that she can succeed in doing so. Evangelical Christianity has the power to break people like that, because there is never even any point in trying. Everyone is sinful and will remain so; all good things one does are by God’s power and strength anyway. This view of humanity and life is pitch-black. It’s not easy to preserve one’s mental health in such a setting; it might even be impossible.

Mostly I want to find rest and peace within myself, to accept myself and others, to accept the indifference of nature and people alike; to move from a worldview where there’s a constant spiritual war to one where there is just as much uncertainty, but where there are no evil intentions behind that uncertainty — a life where good and bad exist but where they are not handed out on purpose.

(1) http://newlife.com/emb/bounce-your-eyes/ is a clear example of this state of mind. It’s about men staying pure of thought: they might need to avoid billboards—change their route to work if necessary—or the beach. It’s easy to laugh at but it is also heartbreaking because that is not an easy way to live, or a way to live at all. It is choking all joy out of life.

My Final Thoughts on the Election of Donald Trump by Tristan Vick

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments

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Guest post by Tristan Vick. Tristan Vick is an author and good friend. You can read his writing at Advocatus Atheist.

After the election I took a hiatus from social media and the Internet. I was too disturbed, disgusted, and disappointed to even gather a coherent thought let alone talk meaningfully about it. Now I feel I have regained some semblance of sanity and will share with you my final thoughts and opinions on the whole Trump election.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed Trump’s plans always involve doing the opposite of what is reasonable,  prudent, or right.

According to Trump himself, he’s going to quit social healthcare, regardless of who it affects. Very unwise.

He’s going to quit the Asian Pacific Trade deal, never mind that it took decades to work out and it will benefit everyone involved. Very ill-advised.

He’s going to get rid of Muslims and illegal aliens. Never mind that’s racial profiling (evil) and doesn’t make logistic sense on any rational scale. Very-xenophobic and racist.

He’s going to ban reporters  from saying “mean” things about him even if they’re true. Very fascist and totalitarian.

And he feels Global Warming isn’t really real, so why bother, even though the science is in and it states that Global Warming is definitely real. Very ignorant.

And his lies are endless. People complained about Hillary lying all the time, but her lies were to cover things up. They were strategic. You may not have agreed with them, or liked her very much, but Trump’s lying is far worse! All he knows how to do is lie.

First he’s going to revoke the marriage equality thing, but then he’s claiming he never said such things and that it’s perfectly fine for gays to marry and he’s not going to change the law but uphold it. But you can never really know what he’s thinking, because he says one thing, then says another, then claims he said neither, and everyone is like, yeah, that’s normal.

Yeesh.

In the words of Jon Oliver, “This is not normal.”

And all I can wonder and be terribly impressed by are those who voted for him thinking that the things he says don’t carry any moral weight, that they don’t matter, that they aren’t hurtful because, luckily, most those who voted for Trump are the white privileged, albeit sorely under-educated and morally retarded.

I use retarded in its literal sense of retardation. Not as an ad hominem. I don’t think people are acting retarded, but their moral reasoning is clearly retarded, leaving them to make bad moral decisions. Concepts like altruism, fairness, kindness, virtue, compassion, empathy and the like are absent from their vocabularies. It’s why Trump was so popular with them.

Yes, the fact of the matter is, I’m appalled and horrified by the anti-intellectual and morally vacant claims of Trump and his entire campaign.

But…I’m MORE appalled and terrified by the people who voted for him thinking he was the lesser of two evils or that he really would make America great again.

If I knew how to wage a war on all those who embrace blissful ignorance as if it was their God given right, then I wouldn’t be so bothered by Trump and his crippling ignorance and vile rhetoric. But the fact that he feels it his duty to inflict his painful ignorance and debauched rhetoric on the rest of us, and his ignorant supporters gladly eat up his nonsensical propaganda like yummy, yummy candies, makes me very worried for my country.

Then there are the other type of Trump supporters who get mad at the so-called-justice warriors calling Trump out on all his BS. It’s really strange how mad they get at honest and good people trying to criticize a not so honest and not so good person who they seem to idolize. Very strange. Can’t really explain it apart from the blatant ignorance part and retardation of any moral sense a decent person might have.

But I digress. I’ve been ranting about social justice for over a decade in my writing, my books, on my five blogs, in numerous OpEds, on social media and elsewhere. And it’s impacted about zero percent of the people who obviously voted for Trump.

I don’t think many realize how disconcerting that is. I wasn’t expecting to change millions of minds. But I was hoping that by speaking reason, by being virtuous, and living an ethical life and upholding high moral principles, people would read and say this makes more sense than what this right wing alt news site is claiming.

As disappointed as I felt after the election, I thought, I’m quitting Facebook. It obviously doesn’t do any good. And it’s true. There’s no breaching the bubble. Everyone sets up their own social-political-global bio-dome and never come out of it.

I’ve been luckier than most too. I’ve traveled the world. Been to 14 countries. Been forced to open my mind. I’ve had to learn to understand other peoples and cultures. I’ve had to step outside my bio-dome. I’ve stood on the precipice of an entirely new worldview, terrified of what I might discover, but knowing there was no going back. Only going forward.

I sometimes take it for granted that most people have never had to face this very real crisis. They haven’t had to grapple with reality in this way. They’ve been content to live in the blissful seclusion their bio-domes and internet safe-spaces can afford them.

They don’t want to face reality. Hell, they don’t have the skill set for it. Which is why, the things Trump says makes sense to them. He speaks their same language. The language of ignorance and fear. Of a person with a worldview so astonishingly narrow it could split the atom.

In the grander scheme of things, Trump is like a pimple. A redish-orange crusted whitehead just needing to be popped. His legacy will do some serious damage. How could it not? The gushing ooze of his loathsome ideas will ooze all over us like a cum-blasted-whore at an orgy, and his shameful level of ignorance and disgraceful lack of moral sense will make sure that everyone gets a taste. Those who voted for him will share in the culpability of the damage of his reprehensible actions and words and that which he blithely inflicts upon the nation he swears he wants to make great again.

But greatness doesn’t come from tearing down others, and that’s all Trump has really offered. His policies are bogus. His foreign policy is non-existent. He lacks all leadership qualifications. He’s not dignified or skilled enough to handle diplomatic matters. He has no military service. His legacy is on fake, failed universities, slanderous abuse to women and minorities, and litany of crashed-and-burned business with heaps of bankruptcy. Those are facts. And people actually thought, well, this is better that voting for the status quo. This will at least bring some real change.

Maybe in this they are partially right. Maybe Trump will be the catalyst to usher along the change we need. The change that says, you fucking morons…you voted for this prick, now reap the benefits and suffer–and then, when you’re screaming your safe-word through your mouth gag, then, that’s when we’ll begin to want real change and not the bad facsimile that Trump offers in false promises and hollow convictions.

Of course, after the clusterfuck the next four years will undoubtedly prove to be, others will be left to clean up his mess. And after the deforestation needed to produce enough tissues to get Trump’s filth off us, we’ll do the only thing we can do…move forward. Because there is no going back. Not after this.

And, moreover, there is no “Making America Great Again.” If you bought into that lie, sorry, you’re #DAF. There is no bygone time of perfect peace and prosperity. There is no point in time where America could lay claim to being the pinnacle of greatness everyone imagines it once was. That’s always been an illusion. A pipe-dream. But that’s the thing we need to chase. That’s what will keep us moving forward. The pursuit to make America great, but full well realizing it will never be great again. The competition isn’t with other countries or nations. The competition is with ourselves. Can we be greater than yesterday? Can I make the person I am today better than the person I was yesterday–you see, that’s the real challenge. That’s what the whole pursuit of becoming great again is about. It’s about chasing the ideal–about pushing forward.

Trump’s lie was sweet and tempting though. To slip back into some magical bygone era–where everything was flowers and sunshine. Yeah, right. Any level-headed person in touch with reality could see the lie for what it was. But so many bought into it, for whatever reasons. Maybe they were down on their luck, maybe the economy had kicked them in the nuts, maybe they were the disenfranchised. I doesn’t matter. They bought into the lie, and they voted a vulgar imbecile into the highest office in the land. Because he promised them a cure to all their woes.

But after the election, there was the lingering sense of dread in all of us who were privy to the reality of the situation. Those of us who remained firmly disillusioned to the lies we were being fed. We felt sick to our stomachs after. Because that was the moment we realized all those sweet lies really only amounted to a mountain of arsenic.

It was devastating to say the least.

But like I said…

The only thing we can do is go forward.

Keep struggling to try to make America better than it was yesterday. But it will be a hard and long four years before America can ever lay claim to decency let alone greatness again. And the fact that this doesn’t bother the nearly 60 million who voted for Trump sure as hell bothers me.

Because, the truth of the matter is, the people who bought into the lie will be trying to take two-steps back for every step forward the nation makes together. We’ll lose some ground in the next four years, I practically guarantee it.

But what’s the use of complaining, right? It doesn’t do a lick of good. People are enjoying the psychedelic ride of the insane acid trip too much to care about reality right now. And snapping our fingers in front of their faces and shouting, “snap out of it,” isn’t going to do much good.

But I jot down these thoughts now; as a matter of record. As a way of trying to get past this undeniable trauma, and reminding myself, all we can do is move forward.

That’s going to have to be good enough, because at the moment, that’s the best any of us can hope to do.

Kindred Spirits in a Pathless Land — Part Nine

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Guest post by Kindred Spirits

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight

Science of Persuasion

More ways our own brains trick us into reacting emotionally, and using confirmation bias to reinforce what we already believe.

The Science of Persuasion, by Jon Hemmerdinger:

First, partisans don’t listen to facts, and their opinions are difficult to change even with hard evidence. Second, political opinions are generally not based on fact at all, they are based on emotions. In The Political Brain Westen writes: “The results showed that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to ‘reason’ to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints as they do it.” By “trace,” Westen means using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what’s happening in the brain. The researchers found that subjects confronted with negative information about their party or candidate initially feel the unpleasant emotion of distress. It doesn’t last long. Very quickly, the brain uses faulty reasoning and false beliefs to counteract the negative feeling by reaching a false conclusion. The brain then produces positive emotion — a reward for having reached an illogical decision.

The bottom line, according to Westen, is that the “the political brain is an emotional brain.”

And another similar article, (I think looking at the same underlying research), discussing confirmation bias is The Political Brain by Michael Shermer, appearing in a Scientific American article from 2006.

 

Kindred Spirits in a Pathless Land — Part Eight

Bruce Gerencser 1 Comment

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Guest post by Kindred Spirits

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

Susan Blackmore — Out of Body Experience

Susan Blackmore had an out-of-body experience in 1970 that she thought was astral projection at the time. She later earned a PhD in Parapsychology. She’s now an atheist, practices Zen meditation on retreats but does not consider herself a Buddhist, and researches consciousness, out-of-body experiences, and memes, among other things. (Her website)

An account on her website of her out-of-body experience, which links to another web site with a more complete discussion of her out-of-body-experience, due to additional notes and comments made long after the original writing.

“Out-of-the-Body, Explained Away, But It Was So Real…..”, by Susan Blackmore:

“The next day I tried to check up on things I had seen and immediately discovered that some were wrong. For example, I had ‘seen’ old metal gutters on the roofs of the college when in the morning I realised that they were modern white plastic ones. I had seemed to travel through rooms above Vicki’s room which were not in fact there, and had seen chimneys which did not exist. This led me to all sorts of sceptical questioning, but more to elaborate my astral theories than to abandon them. For many years I continued to think of my experience as an astral excursion.”

[…..]

I do not believe I would ever have become a parapsychologist had I not had this experience. Yes, I was interested in the paranormal before it happened, but parapsychology did not become an abiding passion until this night. Afterwards I knew that there were other non-ordinary states of consciousness – other ways of being – that seemed somehow more real, more right, more direct than ordinary life. This had two effects on me. One I wanted to repeat the experience, and two I wanted to understand it.

As far as understanding is concerned I assumed, initially, that I had to understand the nature of the astral world and astral travel. I knew that my lecturers at Oxford would not countenance such ideas and that science in general rejected them utterly. I assumed that only parapsychology could help and therefore conceived an overwhelming desire to become a parapsychologist and to prove them all wrong. The story of how I set about to do this, and how I ultimately changed my mind, is told in my autobiography In Search of the Light.

[….]

Meditation

Many years later I began to realise that it was the clarity of awareness that I wished to find again, not the out-of-body experience itself. I began learning meditation in about 1975, but only intermittently. In 1982 I went on my first Zen retreat, and in 1986 I began to practice mindfulness (being in the present moment in daily life) and took up regular daily meditation which I have continued to this day. I have described some of this in In Search of the Light and in various articles. Through this practice I have found that the confusion of ordinary awareness can be dropped, or let go, and clarity is simply there. It is not something to be sought or obtained. I no longer try to have more OBEs.

Reading her story, imagine if someone with a different starting set of assumptions had the same experience, what conclusions would they draw? E.g., would a Christian assume they had been drawn up to the seventh heaven, as Paul was, and therefore believe that all the Bible was true? (Also, would Paul have experienced galaxies, given that the cosmology of the time did not know they even existed?) Would a Hindu devotee of Krishna have assumed that therefore all of the Bhagavad Gita was therefore true? Ie, Does anything about the experience support any particular religious tradition over another? Does it require that all of that tradition is therefore true? That all of that tradition’s dogma and doctrine is true? Salvation by grace vs good works? The details of the trinity? Papal infallibility? Young earth vs Old earth creationism?

It was interesting that she had an insightful perception about the chimney’s early on, and yet it still took quite a while before concluding psi and astral projection were not real. And it can’t be blamed on childhood indoctrination. Also, it took many years of experimenting with drugs and other attempts to repeat the out-of-body experience, before she concluded she just wants clarity of insight into the real world, and meditation gets her that. In short, our own ability to fool ourselves is quite strong!

There are additional essays on her website that are interesting, although it’s been too long since I’ve read them to recommend any particular ones – just sample any topics you’re interested in.

Kindred Spirits in a Pathless Land — Part Seven

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Guest post by Kindred Spirits

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six

Continuing from the last installment regarding “The Big Silence” documentary, and the thoughts of Maggie Ross the 30+ year professed solitary and theologian…
Maggie Ross’ view of the relationship between silence and religion is shown in one of the essays in her book “Writing the Icon of the Heart.” According to Ross, the Church began losing its understanding of the role of silence during the 1400s, with disastrous consequences of not understanding the metaphors contained in the Bible. In particular, she’s a stickler for the use of the world “behold.” My understanding is that the types of experiences you get from extended silence, as demonstrated in “The Big Silence” documentary, are what “beholding” is about. (Although she also makes a distinction that most of the actual resulting of sitting in silence and beholding isn’t the “experiences,” but the changes that occur in the subconscious that one is not even directly aware of.)

You can read excerpts from the book online at the publisher’s website: Writing the Icon of the Heart, In Silence Beholding;

From the Introduction:

This silence is not the absence of noise; it is the vast interior landscape that invites us to stillness. At its heart, in our heart, it is the Other. Silence is not in itself religious, but to express the ineffable joys found in its depths is almost impossible without metaphors that frequently sound religious.

Silence and beholding coinhere, mutually informing one another.

Beholding, also, is not in itself religious; the primordial silence we engage in beholding is unnamable and not an object. Beholding leaves traces in its context and bestows an energy that is likewise often expressed in religious metaphor.

If the silence and the beholding that underlie these metaphors are not acknowledged and understood, we cannot interpret any of the texts that refer to the processes of the interior life, including Scripture. For example, in the Bible the imperative form of the word ‘behold’ has more than 1300 occurrences in Hebrew and Greek. After God has blessed the newly created humans, the first word he speaks to them directly is ‘Behold’. This is the first covenant, and the only one necessary; the later covenants are concessions to those who will not behold. In the NRSV the word ‘behold’ appears only 27 times in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and not at all in the New Testament.

[….]

One of the reasons for writing this book is to attempt to make more accessible the assumptions about silence and beholding that underlie the often arcane language of the interior life. To do this, I have often referred to key functions of the brain that are familiar to everyone. The paradox of intention is the one most critical to both silence and the religious metaphors that refer to it, and it turns up in these essays in a number of guises. I have illustrated some of these observations about the mind with quotations from Isaac of Nineveh, whose unsurpassed writing on the spiritual life is underpinned with a psychological acuity that was widespread among ancient and medieval writers. In many ways they knew more about the way the mind works than we do; some of the most basic insights—such as how we arrive at insight—have corollaries in recent neurobiological studies. This correlation does not ‘prove’ anything, however; it rather shows convergence at a cellular level with what had been common knowledge for millennia until about the middle of the 15th century, when the practice of silence was suppressed by the Western church.

A summary of some of the things that change in your life once you embrace silence, which she writes about in a blog post titled Ethics Issuing from Silence IV:

It is something of a shock the first time you walk into a big store and realize that not only is there nothing you want to buy but that most of what is on offer looks shabby and sad (not to mention a waste of natural resources). It isn’t a matter of like or dislike but rather of indifference and compassion.

[….]

You seek wisdom. Slogans, half-truth, political insincerity, being told what someone thinks you want to hear (he or she is often trained to manipulate instead of relate) as opposed of being told the truth becomes so naked that you wonder why anyone falls for these ploys—until you look at the faces around you and see the expressions of lostness, bewilderment and pain.

In short, there is good news and bad news. The “bad” news is that you will never again feel at home in the culture around you. The good news is that you now lead a life whose riches were once unimaginable.

Heaven Can’t Wait

And another example of Ross’ views, “Heaven Can’t Wait,” demonstrating that she doesn’t follow the “official” views regarding heaven and hell. The first part is excerpted below, with links to the remaining parts that are serialized on her website:

Heaven Can’t Wait, by Maggie Ross

“What do you think happens when we die?”

My eighty-year-old mother had the pedal to the metal. We were hurtling through spring sunshine and green hills, past the long sparkling lakes that mark the San Andreas fault just south of San Francisco. I was careful, very careful, not to express surprise at her question. Religion was an unmentionable subject in our family, a topic loaded with dangerous intimacy.

Her Edwardian outlook, capacity for denial, and inability ever to let go of anything were hallmarks of her life, yet she had grown old with unusual grace. Paradox was her métier: when facing a difficult choice she would worry and fret, twist and turn, her anxiety levels skyrocketing. But when the dreaded task could be avoided no longer, she would walk serenely through the jaws of whatever it was she had feared as if she were going to a garden party at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

She liked to present herself as a grande dame but she had a wild streak, which I encouraged whenever it peeked out of its elegant shell. The car we were riding in was the consequence of one of these glimpses. Little did I know that it was a mild flutter compared to the escapades her envious, more conventional friends would recount after her death.

“What do you think happens when we die?” Her question was costly; how long had she been waiting for the right moment to ask it? What had provoked it? She was not requesting a story or a discussion but demanding a naked truth that would bridge the abyss between our conflicting perspectives. Underneath my mother’s studied nonchalance lay barely controlled terror; for me, death was as familiar as my own face.

I shifted slightly, as far as the bucket seat, restraints, and g-forces would allow, trying to respond as casually as she had asked the question, laughing a little at the existential and cosmic incongruities.

“My views on this subject are mindlessly simple. I think the universe is made of love and that when we die we are somehow drawn deeper into that love.”

Having obtained the information she desired, Mother withdrew into her own thoughts, and we traveled the rest of the way to Palo Alto in silence. I have no idea what she thought about heaven. She was an obsessively private person and not an abstract thinker. Until the last four nights of her life, when she had no other choice, this single exchange was as close as she would ever allow me to come. To ask for comfort would have been, for her, a serious moral lapse.”

Read all 5 parts at her blog:  Heaven Can’t Wait, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Kindred Spirits in a Pathless Land — Part Six

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Guest post by Kindred Spirits

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

Silence has a role to play in various spiritual traditions. “The Big Silence” was an interesting and well-done documentary about silence. A description of the documentary lies below.

The Big Silence documentary (~3 hours long; used to be free to view, but now only a preview is available at this site):

Abbot Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, believes that he can teach five ordinary people the value of silent meditation, as practiced by monks in monasteries, so they can make it part of their everyday lives.

He sets up a three-month experiment to test out whether the ancient Christian tradition of silence can become part of modern lives.

Christopher brings the five volunteers to his own monastery, Worth Abbey, before sending them to begin a daunting eight days in complete silence at a specialist retreat center.

Journey with the volunteers into the interior space that time in silence reveals. They encounter anger, frustration and rebellion, but finally find their way to both personal and spiritual revelation.

Will they make silent contemplation a part of their everyday lives? How much will their lives be changed by what they have discovered in their time in silence? And will Abbot Christopher’s hope, that they will discover a new belief in God, be fulfilled?

Now available free at Gloria TV:  The Big Silence 2012 (Reality TV meets Monasticism) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. It appears that it can be watched for free on Amazon Prime too.

Maggie Ross: “The Big Silence”

Maggie Ross, (pen name of Martha Reeves), is a 30+ year professed solitary in the Anglican Faith. For many years, she spent half the year in remote Alaska, and the other half of the year teaching Theology at Oxford. She’s written a handful of books, and also writes a blog.

Her summary of “The Big Silence” documentary can be found in a blog post titled No Place for Silence:

It [‘The Big Silence’ on the BBC] was a well-done series, I thought; but Jamieson’s sadness and puzzlement at the end about people’s alienation to putting what they had found in silence into traditional words and church structures seemed the only disingenuous moment. He was right on when he pointed to the relationship between silence and the evolution of doctrine, but oblivious of how those doctrines have been divorced from silence, twisted, and used to beat people up, keeping them immature and dependent, narrowing the parameters of what it might possibly mean to be human.

How can Jamieson stand the conflict between what deep silence teaches and what being a Roman Catholic forces you to assent to? Does he just glaze over, tune out, the way so many RC monastics do when confronted by contradiction (as opposed to paradox)?

I’m a professed religious and my sympathies are all with the alienated. Organized religion has become so embarrassing that it’s not surprising people don’t want to be associated with it. I’m not willing to use the fossilized language, either, not unless it’s ringed about with explanations and caveats and provisionality. Some of it can still be useful, but only as it is understood in its wider relationship to silence and as it is restored to its relationship to silence and, most of all, as it yields to silence.

Another example of Ross being highly critical of organized religion can be found in her blog post Stammering in the Dark.

After watching the documentary, think of what the participant’s experiences were, and how those experiences were related to Christian doctrine. Did their experiences directly concern or support church doctrines? Or were their experiences of a more generic feeling of peace, that doesn’t support any particular church doctrine or theology? Imagine if each of the five participants had a different religious and cultural background, and what conclusions they would come to from the experiences that they had, e.g., would a Hindu see Jesus, or Krishna? Would a Buddhist see Jesus or Buddha?

We’ll continue with Maggie Ross in the next installment…

Former Evangelical Shares Why He Can No Longer Believe in the Christian God

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments

why

Posted with permission from Clay who blogs at Life After 40: My Journey Out of Christian Fundamentalism

It’s been more than two years since I came out as an atheist. In that time, my lost Christian faith has come up often with family and friends. It’s difficult to distill a decade-long journey into a 5 minute elevator speech. When believers ask, that’s typically all they want. They don’t want to hear a lengthy, articulate response. Instead, they hope to hear something that they can easily dismiss as invalid or untrue.

I remember being in those shoes. As a former evangelical fundamentalist, it’s incredibly hard to admit to yourself that you’re wrong. It’s especially hard when you’ve spent the better part of your life in total commitment to what amounts to a fairy tale.

With that said, here’s my 5 minute elevator speech on why I stopped believing.

The Bible
The Bible’s collection of books were penned over a long span of time, some 2000+ years ago, by a diverse group of men who lived in a relatively confined area of desert in the Middle East. Unfortunately, significant portions were written by anonymous authors, and the collective whole is riddled with contradictions, errors and logical fallacies. The canonization of the New Testament (choosing which books were inspired and worthy) was a long, drawn out process that lasted many years and was subject to much debate.1 Political powers also played an influence. It’s especially troubling that the four gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are from unknown authors, dated several decades after Christ’s death, and even penned in a language not spoken by the apostles. There are discrepancies about the resurrection details, the death of Judas, and what Jesus might have said while on the cross. We also find that the oldest gospel account (Mark) is rather light on miracles, but later accounts are more generous with miraculous events (which is indicative of our human tendency to enhance or exaggerate with each telling). You can also toss in odd things like walking zombies (Matthew 27) and apocalyptic 7-headed monsters in the last book, written by someone stranded on a Greek island, known to harbor mushrooms that can induce wild and vivid hallucinations. Are these facts in dispute among evangelical pastors? No.

The Old Testament doesn’t fare better. The first five books are from unknown authors which includes Genesis — a book that begins with a grossly mistaken account of creation that is not only scientifically incorrect, it’s logically flawed. Compounding it all are bizarre tales of a talking snake, a talking donkey, a man living inside the belly of a large fish — combined with an embarrassing lack of archaeological evidence to support the significant stories of the Old Testament. For example, there’s zero evidence for the mass exodus of Israelites from Egypt and there’s little to no evidence for any of the major patriarchs.

When you read the Bible with truly open eyes (and with the above facts in mind), it’s clear that we’re dealing with a man-made tale of a god named Yahweh who is petty, jealous, vindictive, and cruel — a deity who is very unsympathetic to his own creation. Even worse, the Old Testament gives abundant and clear endorsement for human slavery, genocide, misogyny, and sexual slavery, with a generous sprinkling of blood-lust for sacrifice.

God is Silent
The God of the Bible is silent. He does not actually talk to or respond to people. Conversations are entirely one-sided, and any purported two-way conversations are merely imaginary in the mind, and those who claim to have literally heard God speak to them are routinely shown to be mentally ill folk. These same individuals often commit acts of violence, which can (and has) included killing their own children. And some even choose to run for president, convinced that God told them to!

God is Inactive
The God of the Bible is inactive. Human misery and suffering is rampant, especially in less developed parts of the planet. Disease, famine, pestilence, violence, injustice, and natural disasters demonstrate that the God of the Bible isn’t there to act or intervene. The Bible makes bold and specific promises to believers about the power of prayer, but truly miraculous events are not substantiated. No mountain has ever literally moved, nor has an amputee ever had their missing arms or legs restored via prayer. Positive action and intervention only happen when humans take action. As someone once said, “I’ve never seen faith move mountains, but I’ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers.”

The Gospel is Ineffective and its Promise Lacks Evidence
The gospel of Christ makes several audacious promises, which includes: forgiveness; transformation; peace; love; and the ultimate prize: eternal life. Unfortunately, people are routinely targeted with this promise when they are the most vulnerable — during a crisis in their life. Evangelical churches make it a point to go after young children with the intent to indoctrinate before those young ones can think for themselves. What’s especially cruel is how some evangelicals abuse youngsters by painting vivid pictures of fiery eternal torment if they don’t follow along with the adults.

But the real question is, are the promises true? Many competing religions promise peace and contentment, and their followers claim to enjoy just that. Christianity can’t claim uniqueness in that regard. But is the gospel message of Jesus truly transformational? Given that divorce rates among Christians and unbelievers are the same, I think we have our answer. Neigh, I forgot to mention that the rates are even higher among protestants. Or consider the viewing habits for pornography. Evangelicals consider porn a grave sin, and yet we see no difference between the secular populations vs. the Christian population. In fact, we find that Protestants are even more likely to view porn. And alas, we find that some of the most judgmental, hateful and intolerant people are those of the Christian faith.

Now to be fair, I know people have been truly helped and motivated by the Christian message of love and forgiveness. There are some truly wonderful people in the church. But I find similar mixes of people outside the church. Christianity isn’t really much more helpful than any other self-help programs. So it’s not the transformational panacea it claims to be.

There’s No Soul, Spirit or Eternal Abode
But what about that promise of eternal life? It’s the ultimate carrot. Some have claimed to have died, gone to heaven, and returned to tell the tale. But we frequently find these stories are attention-seeking grabs and/or publicity for a profitable book deal. Unfortunately, there’s zero evidence to support the notion of an eternal abode. What we know for certain is that who we are — our unique personalities — is solely contained in our brains. It’s not in some ethereal spirit or soul. We now have 100’s of years of research in human psychology combined with medical science about the brain’s structure and inner-workings. A person’s personality and conduct can be easily and grossly manipulated by chemicals that interact in the brain tissue. We also see the devastating effect of diseases like Alzheimer and dementia on a person. Severe head trauma can also result in significant changes to a person’s psyche — what folks originally attributed as the soul. A good question to ask yourself is, “if you’ve ever been knocked out by anesthesia for a medical procedure, did you have any knowledge of things happening during that time?”. All of us who have been knocked out can answer — we have no recollection of ANYTHING. There’s no immortal spirit hanging out to watch as wisdom teeth are extracted or to watch as Dr. Gregory House cut into our chest.

So when the brain is dead, that’s it folks. And as much as I might like a good zombie movie, it’s fictional — just like a majority of the Bible.

1 When the early church was debating about the gospel accounts for canonization, there were many other gospel accounts considered for inclusion which included The Gospel of Thomas and The Gospel of Peter. So how did they decide to go with the four we currently see? Irenaeus summed it up in the following quote: “It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four-quarters of the earth in which we live, and four universal winds, … it is fitting that she should have four pillars breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.”  Yeah, that’s a good reason. Since the earth is flat and has four corners, there should be four gospels! It all makes sense! [Face Palm]

Bruce Gerencser