To be fair, I'm not certain that this is plagiarism so much as simply repeating a truism. I'll use a lot of old bromides without even KNOWING where they originated.
To be fair, I'm not certain that this is plagiarism so much as simply repeating a truism. I'll use a lot of old bromides without even KNOWING where they originated.
George
True, but Wierwille was very familiar with Jones' work.
In fact, if you research the works of Jones, you will find the parallels unsettling. Even the Way Corps concept is strikingly similar to Jones' modern revival of the Ashram. The actual execution, of course, is unfortunately dissimilar. Jones, you may recall, had a rather lengthy and successful career in India.
A Challenge to the Originality of His Teaching on "Receiving the Holy Spirit"
by John P. Juedes
Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way International, says that he resolutely searched for the power of the Holy Spirit after he left his pastorate in Van Wert, Ohio, in 1944. He says his quest was finally fulfilled when he spoke in tongues in Tulsa, Okla., under the ministry of the Rev. John Edwin Stiles Sr., who was an important figure in the American charismatic movement.
Although one would expect that Stiles would have had a profound influence on Wierwille, "the teacher" never again mentions him in Way literature. A close look reveals that there is a reason for Wierwille's silence-- Wierwille stole Stiles' ideas and even his very words from his book The Gift of the Holy Spirit, all the while claiming that God taught him everything he knew and that he learned none of it from other men's books.
Stiles was born in northern California in 1891. He studied and taught at the University of California and was a farmer. In the late 1920s, he decided to become a full-time minister. He explored the Foursquare denomination, but settled into the Assemblies of God. He served as a pastor in Woodland, Calif., for two years and in Hayward, Calif., for 17 more.
The Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal bodies had long taught that a Christian could receive the Holy Spirit only by "tarrying" and pleading with God until agonizing insights and personal worthiness were rewarded with an experience of the Spirit.
Influenced by Howard Carter, Stiles bucked tradition when he insisted that the Bible taught that the Holy Spirit was received by simple faith, not by wrestling with God. Incensed denominational officials reprimanded Stiles, accusing him of leading people into a "light" or "unselfconscious" experience with the Holy Spirit. Stiles left the parish ministry around 1946 to travel and spread his message of receiving the Spirit by faith alone. In 1959, Stiles estimated that he had led 10,000 people into receiving the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues, including about 1,000 in an eight-month tour of Canada.
Moved by a lack of biblical teaching on receiving the Holy Spirit, Stiles published a pamphlet called "How to Receive the Holy Spirit" for free distribution after his meetings. Stiles also published a book called The Gift of the Holy Spirit in 1948. This book told how to receive the Holy Spirit by faith, evidenced by speaking in tongues.
The book became a classic, especially among those who had been frustrated by strained attempts to receive the Spirit. The book went through 10 printings totaling over 50,000 copies. (1) Given the wide distribution of Stiles' literature, Wierwille's intense search for the power of the Holy Spirit, and Wierwille's personal contact with Stiles, it would be a surprise to find that Wierwille had never come upon his writings.
Accordingly, one wonders why Wierwille never mentions Stiles' publications in footnotes or anywhere else. The similarities between portions of Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit and Wierwille's Receiving the Holy Spirit Today (First edition, 1954, six years after Stiles' book appeared) suggest one reason for the silence. We invite you to examine the following excerpts from these two books, with an eye for similarities in ideas and terminology: "
"A comparison of these books gives us insights into Wierwille's methodology and integrity. The unwritten code of honor among authors tells them to fully credit another writer when borrowing his ideas or terminology. This is why footnotes mark scholarly productions. Many men who have plagiarized as Wierwille did have been fined, sued or fired.
Furthermore, authors' integrity and copyright laws demand that direct and indirect quotations of another writer be noted, even when another's work is not copyrighted. (3) Wierwille's methods do not reflect the integrity that the secular world expects, to say nothing of the integrity that God demands.
Yet, there is an even more important issue than integrity. Wierwille not only claims to be a scholar, he also claims to publish original material on the Spirit and that he is taught by God and His Word alone. Wierwille counts his ministry as beginning the day that God audibly assured Wierwille that He Himself would teach him. Wierwille claims in the preface to Receiving the Holy Spirit Today that he used only the Bible as a reference for the book.
Sadly, Wierwille again falls far short of his own claims, of the mark of scholarly integrity, and of God's moral expectations. "
Members of The Way International hold in high esteem the writings of founder Victor Paul Wierwille. His teachings embody the group's theology and practice, and are the primary rule by which The Way's researchers decide which verses of the Bible may be deleted or revised (The Integrity of the God-Breathed Word, May-June 1975, pg. 7). The courses Wierwille teaches (via video tape), including Power for Abundant Living, for decades were essentially required for acceptance by anyone who wishes to participate in The Way International.
Wierwille's followers produced a book, The Living Word Speaks, which lauded the quality and volume of his writings with a chronological bibliography. His followers also value. his. writings as unique and original in our day, being based entirely on his own biblical research with God Himself as mentor (The Way -- Living In Love, second edition, 1972, pg. 178).
When one understands the nature and origin of Wierwille's writings, one also understands something about him as a man. Further, when one understands the writings, one realizes that Wierwille does not deserve the esteem bestowed upon
him.
Categorizing His Work
Wierwille's writings fall into three categories of character and origin: transcribed sermons and teachings, books actually written by him and books written by others in his name.
The majority fall into the first category, including the Studies in Abundant Living series, Victory in Christ, parts of Jesus Christ is Not God, and most magazine articles. The style is sermonic; Wierwille alternately quotes a few verses of Scripture and then follows with commentary. It is easy to "write" a book in this manner. All Wierwille needed was an audience to discipline him to give regular teachings, a tape recorder and a transcriber. Rhoda Wierwille, Wierwille's secretary since 1947 (and who later became his sister-in-law), remembers transcribing the tapes of his Power for Abundant Living teachings into a 900-page manuscript that later was edited into a book of the same name. Any pastor who preaches regularly could produce a 500-page book every year using this method.
Wierwille made his output seem even larger by printing certain articles several times, as chapters of books and in several different issues of his magazine. This is apparent from identical titles listed in the bibliography of Writings of Victor Paul Wierwille in The Living Word Speaks (1981, pp. xv-xxx).
The greatest weakness of this method is that it is easy to say inaccurate things in a live situation. For instance, when Wierwille gave his Power for Abundant Living teaching on Hebrews 11:5, he stated that the word "see" in Greek is anablepo, which, he said, means to see with one's eyes (see Power for Abundant Living, 1971, pg. 191). Anablepo was changed to eidon some time after the second printing, though the text around the word was left unchanged - a sign that Wierwille's interpretation of the verse would be the same no matter what Greek word was used.
No one has ever found a Greek manuscript with the word anablepo used there. However, Wierwille was using his English Bible, guessed wrong on what the Greek word was and bunt his whole case against the orthodox Interpretation of this passage on a false statement. As one reads some of his teachings, it appears that he did not do any significant research before his presentation. Consequently, Wierwille's exegesis, exposition and applications often are superficial.
Examples in the second category include portions of Receiving the Holy Spirit Today and Are the Dead Alive Now? It takes more time and effort to sit down and write than it does to merely speak and have someone else transcribe a tape, and it usually makes a person more careful in what is put into print.
However, there is a temptation in written work to plagiarize and Wierwille succumbed to it. He copied some parts of J. E. Stiles' book, The Gift of The Holy Spirit, published in 1948, into his Receiving the Holy Spirit Today, published in 1954, almost word for word. Wierwille also incorporated every section of E.W. Bullinger's book, The Giver and His Gifts, published in 1905, into this book, copying some sections almost word for word (see PFO Newsletter, Jan.- Mar., 1983, pp. 1, 10-11). In fact, if one were to delete from Receiving the Holy Spirit Today all the words and ideas that he took from Stiles' and Bullinger's books, little would remain.
Wierwille also included some sections of Bullinger's works in his book, Are the Dead Alive Now? This will be dealt with in more detail In a later article. It is likely that more plagiarism will be brought to light, too. Plagiarisms are most noticeable in the earliest editions of Wierwille's books, before rewritings obscured them.
One cannot overemphasize how dependent Wierwille was on the ideas of other men to fuel his teachings. He absorbed teachings from many men, including Glenn Clark, Albert Cliffe, Rufus Mosely and George Lamsa, none of whom are Christian teachers according to the standards of either evangelicals or The Way International.
The many willing writers found among Way membership as it grew in the 1970s gave birth to the third category of Wierwille writings. Examples are Jesus Christ Our Passover, Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed and portions of Jesus Christ is Not God. One photo in The Way Magazine showed his eight person research team working on a manuscript of Jesus Christ Our Passover (President's Newsletter, The Way Magazine, Nov.- Dec., 1979, pg. 28).
Use of a writing team expedites larger volumes and makes possible deeper treatments of a topic. However, to conform to the rules of scholarly practice, Wierwille should have listed himself as the general editor of these works, rather than author. One is left with the impression that the writing was done by him rather than by others. The material does reflect Wierwille's theology, since he picked the writers, approved the production and contributed material.
Wierwille the Author
All this suggests that Wierwille's primary talents did not lie in writing. Apparently, he rarely took the time or care, or perhaps just did not have the ability. It may be that this also reflects shallow research abilities and a tendency to "shoot from the hip" in teaching, which - led to inaccuracies.
Wierwille combined a lack of original research with a tendency to grab unusual ideas from others and publish them as his own. The most alarming facet of this was Wierwille's plagiarism.
The Way International rests its teaching primarily on the integrity and authority of Wierwille, its founder. When the founder's lack of integrity and authority is demonstrated, it calls the foundation of the group into question. Those wanting to witness to members of The Way should be ready to demonstrate just how faulty a foundation The Way is built upon. "
"STOLEN GOODS-- HOW V.P. WIERWILLE PLAGIARIZED FROM OTHERS TO MAKE RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT TODAY
by John Juedes
The Way International (TWI) and its founder Victor Paul Wierwille have long considered themselves to be the sole true source of Biblical research and teaching in the area of teaching people to receive the holy spirit (which TWI does not capitalize, because TWI considers holy spirit to be an impersonal power or ability).
The key book which describes its teaching is Wierwille's Receiving the Holy Spirit Today (RTHST). Wierwille claimed to have hauled all 3,000 of his theological books to the city dump (see Power for Abundant Living, pp. 119-120) and studied the Bible by itself, without referring to men's writings. In the preface to RTHST, Wierwille claims:
"I prayed that I might put aside all I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with The Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook" (RTHST, p.x).
However, in the very book in which he said he "put aside" all he "had heard," he draws thought after thought, indeed, word after word, from two books: E. W. Bullinger's The Giver and His Gifts, and J. E. Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit.
In other writings, we have printed side-by-side columns proving that Wierwille copied long sections of Stiles' and Bullinger's books (see The Integrity and Accuracy of The Way' Word, pp. 43-48 and "Wierwille Borrows-- Challenge to the Originality of Receiving the Holy Spirit Today;" also, Will the Real Author Please Stand Up proves that Wierwille plagiarized other books, too).
Here we will show that nearly every section of RTHST was stolen from Stiles and Bullinger. RTHST is heavily based on the content, wording, structure, terms and general conclusions of these authors. In fact, Wierwille included every section of Bullinger's book into RTHST in some form, and most every chapter of Stiles is represented as well. If Wierwille had never plagiarized Bullinger and Stiles, his "book" RTHST would be hardly the length of a magazine article.
Wierwille never once credited these authors for their work. In fact, he never once mentions their names in RTHST, and never admitted in any other article or book that he used Stiles and Bullinger to compile RTHST. It is clear why he omitted their names-- if he did cite them, it would show that Wierwille's claim to have studied the Bible alone was completely false and fraudulent.
This chart shows the major sections of RTHST and the portions of Stiles and Bullinger's books Wierwille stole them from:
Was Wierwille just an ignorant and naive student, who unknowingly used other men's writings and would have credited them if he'd thought of it? One very revealing portion of RTHST is the preface. In the second edition, Wierwille states that he once was a searcher who learned something from an unnamed source:
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all I had been taught and start anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. It took me seven years to find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that I did not have to omit, deny or change any one passage. He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove, and when you can do that, you can be assured of having truth." (RTHST, 2 ed, p. 8)
While Wierwille admits he learned from someone, he still is intentionally deceptive. First, he never mentions the man's name (though it is clear now that he meant Stiles). Furthermore, Wierwille never says that he took most of the material from Stiles (copying sections almost word for word) and wrote very little of RTHST himself. He clearly leads the reader to believe that he wrote RTHST on his own, even though he clearly plagiarized much of it.
However, in following editions of RTHST, Wierwille deletes his statement that he learned from another man, and states an arrogant lie-- that he did entirely original research, and that none of his teaching came from other men. Note how Wierwille rewrote the same paragraph from the preface to RTHST for the third (and later) edition:
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with The Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny or change any passage for, the Word of God being the Will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove." (RTHST, 6 ed, p.x).
The fly leaf of RTHST includes a brief biography of V. P. Wierwille which lists the names of several Bible teachers such as E. Stanley Jones, K. C. Pillai and George Lamsa. While some editions of RTHST say that Wierwille quested "with" them for truth (which infers Wierwille was their peer), others say they aided Wierwille. But none of the editions ever mention Stiles or Bullinger, even though they had far more influence on the content of RTHST than the other men listed. The most likely reason that Bullinger and Stiles were omitted from the fly leaves is that Wierwille wanted to avoid providing his readers any leads to finding that Wierwille had indeed plagiarized huge amounts of Stiles' and Bullinger's books.
This is the point at which V.P. Wierwille apparently turns from a fairly well-meaning searcher who at least partially credits someone he learned from, into a self-promoting liar. Now he promotes himself as the unique, accurate Bible teacher and innovator and excludes any mention of other sources. He not only leads the reader to believe something false (that he's original), but blatantly claims it himself.
The different versions of Wierwille's story of how he heard God speak to him also suggest that he may have fabricated details about his experience in order to inflate his image.
One of the first times the story is published is in the 25th anniversary booklet. In this version, he doesn't claim that audibly spoke to him:
"Father clearly spoke to me one night while I was praying, and He made this promise as He spoke to me: He would teach me the Word as it had not been known since the first century, provided that I would teach what He taught me to others." (Page 9)
While Wierwille still makes the audacious claim that he is the only man in 1,850 years to teach the pure Word of God, he didn't claim outright that God's voice was audible.
However, a few years later Elena Whiteside wrote a book which virtually idolized Wierwille and TWI. In this version, Wierwille insists it was an audible voice:
"I was praying.... And that's when He spoke to me audibly, just like I'm talking to you now. He said he would teach me the Word as it had not been known since the first century if I would teach it to others" (Whiteside, The Way-- Living in Love, p. 178).
Mrs. Wierwille quotes a version of the audible-voice story in her book Born Again to Serve and adds, "Rev. Wierwille never told anyone of this experience until much later when he was teaching The Way Corps. It was a most astounding phenomenon which he kept to himself" (page 43).It may be that Wierwille found that such stories could easily impress the more impressionable young Corps with such stories of his exploits. Whiteside's book is written in that period and includes other examples of Wierwille exaggerating (even lying about) his background, which greatly impresses Whiteside (see examples in From Vesper Chimes to The Way InternationalBy Juedes & Morton).
Plagiarism is serious fraud. It has caused doctoral candidates to be removed from graduate school, journalists to be fired, and public figures to be shamed.
A person better understands the severity of plagiarism when he realizes that plagiarism is both lying and stealing. Ephesians specifically instructs us, "you must put off falsehood" (4:25) and "he who has been stealing must steal no longer" (4:28), while Jesus states that the Adversary is the father of lies. Wierwille stole others' words when he placed them in his books and then lied by placing his own name on the books, asserting that all words in them were his alone. By selling his publications, Wierwille also made money from other men's work. He therefore obtained a degree of prestige and money at others' expense. Many lawsuits initiated by the entertainment industry and business have established that theft of other peoples' words, ideas and work are criminal offenses. Surely Wierwille's extensive plagiarism indicates that he has stolen words and ideas and lied about their source, and even claimed that all his work was orignal. All this demonstrates a lack of integrity.
Dr. John P. Juedes, 1998, Highland, CA www.empirenet.com/~messiah7
Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way International (TWI) wasn't satisfied finding a respectable occupation or goal in life, as most people do. Instead, Wierwille wanted to be the greatest initiator and leader of God's people to live in the last 2,000 years. From promoting himself as "the Man of God" to singlehandedly surviving a communist takeover of the USA, VP thought he was "the best" and could make his followers the same.
But instead of providing "one-stop" shopping for every spiritual and personal need, VP failed at every effort and left thousands of disillusioned followers soured on spiritual leaders to the degree that many still reject legitimate Christian endeavors.
Wierwille's central goal was to take "the Word Over The World (WOW)" and signed up thousands of idealistic, young "WOW Ambassadors" to do the job for him. Some people may think that taking "the Word" meant distributing the Bible to people and cultures absorbed in paganism or telling people about Jesus Christ. But no, "the Word" they sold was a fee-based (costing students from $40-$200), taped class by Wierwille called "Power for Abundant Living." They recruited mainly people who already had Christian background, but who hadn't heard the Word according to Wierwille.
Many students were disillusioned when they found out that Wierwille's teachings weren't original and unique as they thought, but were plagiarized, copied and repackaged from others. Wierwille copied parts of others' books and syllabuses, and virtually reads appendices from the Companion Bible during PFAL, yet never cites his sources during the class or footnotes the quotations in books.
TWI itself lost confidence in the class and replaced it about 25 years after it was taped. Barely .0002% of the American population bought PFAL.
Wierwille also promoted himself as "The Man of God" for our day, and he loved to be called "Doctor" and "The Teacher" (not just "a," but "The"). He encouraged his followers to think of him as the greatest spiritual leader since the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago. Wierwille claimed God spoke audibly to him and promised to teach him the Word "as it has not been know since the first century."
Wierwille saw himself as the One Man who could bring the deluded, tradition-bound Christian church around the world back to the truth. He thought he was a reformer greater than Martin Luther who launched the world-wide Reformation in the 1500s. He portrayed himself as Luther by staging a stunt in which he rode in his custom tour bus to a nearby church and nailed a proclamation reading "Jesus Christ is not God" to its door. Followers wore matching straw hats emblazoned with the same words, and bus horns blared as the great "Reformer" drove off after he posed for the appropriate photos.
TWI has now replaced VP with a new "Man of God," and forbids followers to cite Wierwille anymore.
Wierwille founded TWI to carry out his world-changing plan. VP made himself the President and Founder and declared its anniversary to be not the day of its founding, but the personal experience he claimed he had with God. As one of only three trustees, VP essentially made all the policy, financial and theological decisions in TWI (he bragged that TWI didn't have the tradition-laden practice of membership, thereby making his autocratic control seem beneficent rather than overbearing). Though he flaunted the term "international," TWI's comparative influence around the world has been negligible. By the time he died, he apparently was upset that his successors were ignoring his input.
TWI has lost about 95% of all its followers (those who took the PFAL class) and numbers only about 5,000 today-- barely a shadow of its former self, and hardly a blip of the radar screen of American religion.
Since Wierwille condemned seminaries and colleges that didn't accept his teaching and class, he wanted to start his own college and seminary and ordain his own clergy. In fact, he wanted to ordain his own clergy even while he was the pastor of a very small church, and didn't understand why his denomination considered this to be impertinent and egotistical. Wierwille soon began to ordain his own clergy (under the auspices of "The Way, Incorporated").
Wierwille long wanted to start his own seminary. Since he came to spurn "tradition," he changed the name from "The Way Seminary" to "the Way Corps." Wierwille oversaw all the Corps training, teaching, administration and placement, and required all graduates to appear at his annual "Corps Week" meeting before the "Rock of Ages" gathering. About 95% of the Corps graduates have severed ties with TWI, and it trains just a handful of people now (even though TWI counts children, making its numbers seem higher).
Wierwille also founded "The Way College of Emporia" (Kansas) which he promised would offer bachelors' degrees in liberal arts and theology. Of course, VP was the first president. VP's college never was accredited, never conferred recognized degrees, closed within 15 years and never was replaced by anything better.
Part of Wierwille's teaching on "abundant living" was his claim that he could teach people to "believe" so that they could always be healthy, illness-free and prosperous. This could even drive off the evil devil spirits that he said caused cancer. He and his followers thought he excelled at believing since he was the "Master Teacher."
But his followers were disillusioned again when Wierwille had a series of strokes and eye cancer (which necessitated the removal of one eye) before dying of liver cancer at only age 68. TWI tried to keep his demise as secret as possible (even though he had a stroke while teaching on stage at "the Rock") because of the embarrassment of "The Man of God" being so desperately ill. Many followers were shocked when he "suddenly" died without explanation and were never told the cause. The Corps he left behind today live in nearly pallid conditions, typically sharing a trailer and phones and receiving room, board and a pittance each month.
Wierwille also sought to be a great author. Followers brag that he published a dozen ground-breaking books in his lifetime. Then he truth came out-- Wierwille had plagiarized large sections of his books.
He promoted his book Receiving the Holy Spirit Today as "the most thorough and original" book on the topic. However, more than half of it was copied from EW Bullinger's The Giver and His Gifts and JE Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit. Wierwille not only copied the ideas and general content-- he also copied sections word-for-word. His book Power for Abundant Living (which actually is a transcription of the first third of his class) is drawn largely from Bullinger's Companion Bible. Parts of his other books, magazine articles and classes are copied from Bullinger, Stiles, B.G. Leonard, EW Kenyon, Ernest Martin and others.
Some of VP's longest books weren't even written by him-- they were written by committee, and he put his name on them. While those books allude to his research team, Wierwille's name alone appears on the cover.
While VP promoted himself as a researcher who discovered new truths in the Bible as a result of personal, innovative study of the Bible alone (In PFAL he claimed to have dumped all his books in the city dump and studied the Bible alone), he actually largely let others study the Word for him and copied their work. The wasn't primarily a word craftsman, but a word thief.
Wierwille also sought to defend the free world from communism (Wierwille politically was a conservative capitalist). He told his followers to be prepared to survive a communist takeover of the USA. They were to have supplies on hand, be armed, and have at least a half tank of gas at all times. He started the LEAD outdoor academy to train them in survival skills. There even was one aborted attempt by a Wayer (who was an ex-Marine) to train Corps to survive prison camps. As history shows, the USSR fell, not America, and TWI's survival training is now defunct.
Along the way, Wierwille also started his own police force, "The Way International Police Department," with its own officers, cruisers and insignia. The state of Ohio saw this abuse of power and used legislation to shut down TWI's police within 18 months.
Wierwille also wanted to make TWI grounds (which had been his parents' farm) into a successful agriculture and fur-raising business. He also had an idea of designing a snow-climbing machine.
VP Wierwille had grand visions of changing the world forever through the force of his own will, intelligence, anointing from God, revelation and knowledge of the Word of God.
Instead, Wierwille was just a "wanna be." All of his grand ideas were impotent and fell to ruin within about 20 years. As hard as his devoted, well-meaning followers worked, VP's designs were shown to be "the worst," not "the best."
Above all, VP Wierwille lacked humility and apparently didn't apply Romans 12:3 to himself, "do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement." He also lacked respect for the work of Christian leaders, teachings and the Church at large, and became one of these who "will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30).
Sadly, his followers have paid a greater price than he. While he saw many of his feeble endeavors begin to fail, he died before they turned completely to ruin. But his followers were greatly disillusioned, felt their efforts were mostly in vain, and still find it hard to be involved in Christian ministries because of how he drummed into them the idea that they were all deluded by "tradition."
Wierwille's successor, Martindale, on the other hand, has given up on Wierwille's grandiose ideas. He has sold property, forced honest critics out of TWI, closed the college, and so forth. In part, he seems to delude himself into thinking that the grand decline of TWI is somehow an advance. Although PFAL never reached more than an infintisimal fraction of North America's population (to say nothing of the world), Martindale declared that the goal of getting the "word over the world" had already been accomplished. He teaches that the 95% of TWI's followers who left were all spiritually corrupt and had to go in order to have a "clean" Way household.
Martindale (and The Way International) isn't a wannabe-- he's a "has-been" who thinks he "is."
Dr. John Juedes, 1999, www.empirenet.com/-messiah7
Wierwille also wanted to make TWI grounds (which had been his parents' farm) into a successful agriculture and fur-raising business. He also had an idea of designing a snow-climbing machine.
Some how it seems fit the "shovel ready" Man of God, should design a snow-climbing machine. He needed something to get over all that snow he was shoveling.
Some how it seems fit the "shovel ready" Man of God, should design a snow-climbing machine. He needed something to get over all that snow he was shoveling.
Just a point to help clarify.....
Two Family Corps men, Tom K. and Al G., were assigned to this project. Not sure how much wierwille added to this project, but these men were highly talented with extensive backgrounds in hydraulics, welding, engineering, etc.
Officially named the Sno-way........similar to a small snowcat [click here]
Don't really remember the final outcome, but think it was unacceptable. Others might know more.
Wierwille also wanted to make TWI grounds (which had been his parents' farm) into a successful agriculture and fur-raising business. He also had an idea of designing a snow-climbing machine.
Just a point to help clarify.....
Two Family Corps men, Tom K. and Al G., were assigned to this project. Not sure how much wierwille added to this project, but these men were highly talented with extensive backgrounds in hydraulics, welding, engineering, etc.
Officially named the Sno-way........similar to a small snowcat [click here]
Judging by the text, in typical Saint Vic fashion, he took credit for the whole project.
Not to get too far off topic but since we are there, Johnny Jumpup is an old Irish term for very potent home distilled 'cider' akin to american moonshine
You have all heard, haven't you, that Wierwille claimed that he was the one who originally had the idea for fast food restaurants?
The story is that he shared "the revelation" with some Christian businessmen who didn't have the "believing" to see it through. Then, once it was known in the senses world, the devil took the idea and gave it to one of his men. I personally didn't hear Wierwille himself say this. I did hear Martindale say it though in 1975 at Emporia.
I mean, think of how this story must have come about. Can't you just see Wierwille sitting around a fire at a night owl one night, after having downed a fifth of drambuie, someone's talking about how blessed they were to pull weeds in 95-degree weather and how doing so helped them see the greatness of The Book of Ephesians when suddenly Wierwille blurts out, "Yep! I was the first one to think of fast food! Couldn't say anything until now because no one could handle it (hic-cup)!"
I realize this is off-topic, I was just inspired by the talk about the "snow climbing machine".
You have all heard, haven't you, that Wierwille claimed that he was the one who originally had the idea for fast food restaurants?
The story is that he shared "the revelation" with some Christian businessmen who didn't have the "believing" to see it through. Then, once it was known in the senses world, the devil took the idea and gave it to one of his men, who I guess would be Ray Kroc. I personally didn't hear Wierwille himself say this. I did hear Martindale say it though in 1975 at Emporia.
What is so amazing about this is that I sat there and went, "Wooooow!" Then again, I was only 18 at the time.
You must be wrong about VPW having had the idea for the internet. Because the internet, you will know from reliable sources like LCM, is full of devil spirits and evil information (like how he abused women).
Or maybe the internet as it is currently is just another cunning counterfeit?
Well there you go! Socrates and I didn't have the believing to see it through. Since it was in the senses world, the devil gave the idea to Al Gore. Now look at the mess, all because of me and Socrates!
This plagiarism stuff and vp's ineptness reminds me of a joke I heard about an old economics professor who traveled by his long-time chauffeur around the country giving lectures at universities on the history of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in America.
He had been doing this for such a long time that one day his chauffeur said "i've heard your spiel for so long I think I could get up at the lectern and do your whole bit – even when you open it up to questions by the students. Those kids always ask the same questions."
Perhaps out of boredom, the professor said "okay – how about you handling my next lecture this afternoon." So they arrived at the university with the professor posing as the mere chauffeur and the driver as the professor.
The chauffeur delivered the lecture perfectly. He then opened it up for questions and answered each one from memory of how the professor answered it before….. Until – one student asked a very complicated question, that no one had ever asked before - on the levels of impact specific crisis events like 9/11 and the collapse of Wall Street had on the way business was conducted and how it may change in the near future.
After a long pause, the chauffeur smiled and said, "hmmm, good question – and on the surface seems like a tough one – but actually if you had followed anything I have said today you could answer that for yourself. Why…[raising his hand to gesture toward the back where the professor stood by the door] I bet even my driver could answer that one....Hey, old chum, be a good fellow and answer this student's question. "
ba dum bum….seriously folks, it's really great to be here.
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waysider
Fear is sand in the machinery of life-----E.S. Jones
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GeorgeStGeorge
To be fair, I'm not certain that this is plagiarism so much as simply repeating a truism. I'll use a lot of old bromides without even KNOWING where they originated.
George
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waysider
True, but Wierwille was very familiar with Jones' work.
In fact, if you research the works of Jones, you will find the parallels unsettling. Even the Way Corps concept is strikingly similar to Jones' modern revival of the Ashram. The actual execution, of course, is unfortunately dissimilar. Jones, you may recall, had a rather lengthy and successful career in India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Stanley_Jones
http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/philosophy/practical/missions/jones.htm
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WordWolf
Most of you are aware that there were 2
types of book that say "by Victor Paul Wierwille" on the cover.
The SECOND type-which came later-were written by committee, and the
research staff wrote 100% of the contents except the introduction/preface.
That's books like "Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed" and
"Jesus Christ Our Passover."
vpw himself otherwise provided zero percent of the contents.
The FIRST type-which describes most of "vpw's" books-
were the result of taking one book of one author and retyping its contents,
or taking more than one book and inserting chapters and retyping their
aggregate contents.
Almost all of vpw's "signature books" fall in this category.
===========================================
The White Book, "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today"...
RTHST's 1st edition was Jack E. Stiles' "the Gift of the Holy Spirit",
with a few words moved around.
Its introduction included an anonymous reference to a man of God
who taught him on this subject. That's the Stiles whose book
this was a complete photocopy of.
Later editions deleted all mention of ANY man teaching him
on the subject (3rd edition and later). Later editions also
featured EW Bullinger's "the Giver and His Gifts".
(This book is currently available under the name
"Word Studies on the Holy Spirit.")
The Bullinger book is the source of the 385 occurrences
of "pneuma" in the New Testament.
(Which vpw was unable to even pronounce correctly.)
Small portions of the White Book were also taken
from BG Leonard's CTC "Gifts of the Spirit" class.
===================================
The "Power For Abundant Living" book was, of course, a transcription from
the class of the same name. The Orange Book's origins therefore are the
same as the origins of the class. In its first iteration, that meant it was
the exact same thing as Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit course.
Later iterations pruned out the Advanced class from the
"PFAL Foundation" class, and filled in the remaining space with
Bullinger's "How to Enjoy the Bible", and culminating the class
with Sessions 9-12, which were Stiles and Bullinger's works on
Holy Spirit.
===============================
The "original" PFAL (what I call its first iteration)
was a clone of Leonard's class in EVERY detail.
Leonard's class had imaginary characters called Maggie Muggins, Johnny Jumpup and
Henry Belocco. (I'm not sure about Snowball Pete or Herman B.)
Leonard was Canadian. Maggie Muggins was a children's television character
easily recognizable by his audience by name.
(As if you said "Captain Kangaroo then said..." or "then Big Bird said...)
Johnny Jumpup is the name of a plant.
Using those 2 names as characters in a class, however, that was straight
out of Leonard.
Herman Belocco probably started due to an inability of vpw to precisely
recall EXACTLY what was in Leonard's class-so sometimes it was Henry,
sometimes it was Herman.
Snowball Pete was mentioned ONCE in pfal, and doesn't match the pattern
Leonard normally used-normal first name, possible normal last name.
This suggests-if I may engage in wild speculation-that this was made up
by vpw in a pitiful attempt at originality.
One of our posters-who took Leonard's class-said that vpw even ripped off
Leonard's speech patterns and style, which made it eerie to hear Leonard
teach after hearing vpw imitate him.
Leonard handled publishing under Canadian Christian Press.
vpw handled publishing under American Christian Press.
Someone also pointed out that one of Leonard's books contains an
introduction that slightly resembles one of vpw's claims.
Expand it, add grandiose claims, and an imaginary snowstorm,
and you have the 1943 promise.
(Leonard never claimed God told him he was unique nor mentioned
the 1st century church to him.)
==================================
"Are the Dead Alive Now?" is a compilation of some of Bullinger's
works,
most notably "the Rich Man and Lazarus: an Intermediate State?"
and "King Saul and the Witch of Endor: Did the Prophet Samuel Rise at Her Bidding?"
Most readers will note that vpw also ripped off the "title with question mark"
in addition to the content of the books.
====
"Studies in Human Suffering", later called "Job: Victim to Victor",
was taken from Bullinger's book "the Book of Job".
That became a large chapter in one of the "Studies in Abundant Living".
=============================
Ok, the White Book's Preface,
pages ix to xi, which is the ENTIRE preface.)
========
"When I was serving my first congregation, a Korean
missionary asked me, 'Why don't you search for the
greatest of all things in life which would teach Christian
believers the HOW of a really victorious life?'
This challenge was the beginning of a search which led
me through many, many hours of examining different
English translations, the various critical Greek texts,
and Aramaic 'originals', looking for the source of the
power which was manifested in the early Church.
Finally I realized that the experience referred to as
'receiving the holy spirit' in the Scriptures WAS and IS
actually available to every born-again believer today.
I believed to receive the gift of holy spirit and I, too,
manifested.
Ever since receiving into manifestation the holy spirit,
I have had the desire to put in written form the longings
and fears that were mine regarding the receiving thereof.
I believe that sharing my quest with the believers who are
today seeking to be endued with power from on high may
be instrumental in leading them to the answer of their
hearts' desires.
I knew from the Bible that what God sent at Pentecost was
still available. It had to be, for God does not change. I knew that
the receiving of the power from on high on the day of
Pentecost had meant increased ability for the apostles and
disciples years ago, and that I needed and wanted the same
blessing. I knew that if the Church ever needed the holy
spirit in manifestation it needed it now.
Throughout my academic training in a college, a university,
four seminaries, from the commentaries I studied,
and from my years of questing and research among the
various religious groups claiming adherence to the holy
spirit's availability, there appeared many things
contradictory to the accuracy of the recorded Word of
God. I knew their teachings were sincere, but sincerity
is no guarantee for truth.
The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all
that I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew
with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook.
I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for,
the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must
fit like a hand in a glove.
If you are a Christian believer, I sincerely encourage you to
study this book. Do not allow your past teachings or feelings
to discourage you from going on to receive God's best.
If you need power and ability to face up to the snares of
this live, you may find your answer while reading this book.
It is my prayer that you may be edified, exhorted, and
comforted.
For those searching the Scriptures, desiring to know the
reasons why, how, what or where, I suggest you do a
careful study of the introductions as well as the
appendices in this volume. For those who simply desire
to receive, read chapters 1 though 5 and enjoy God's
great presence and power.
"II Timothy 2:15
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the
word of truth."
To his helpers and colleagues every writer owes a profound
debt. This seventh edition has been read and studies carefully
by men and women of Biblical and spiritual ability.
To all of these I am most grateful."
=========
End of Preface.
-----------------------------------------------
-===============================================
It is interesting to compare the Preface to the White Book, 7th Edition,
which I already quoted,
with the Preface in the 2nd edition.
=====
Here's how one paragraph ORIGINALLY read in
the 2nd edition, (pg-8):
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all
I had been taught and start anew with the Bible as my
handbook as well as my textbook. It took me seven years to
find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew
the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that
I dod not have to omit, deny or change any one passage.
He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove,
and when you can do that, you can be assured of having
truth."
========
Here's the corresponding paragraph in the 7th Edition,
the one most of us got to read:
======
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all
that I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew
with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook.
I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for,
the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must
fit like a hand in a glove."
======
Interesting how the other man just VANISHES from the picture,
no? It's as if vpw later wants to take exclusive credit
("I started anew with the Bible as my handbook as well
as my textbook") for something that was exclusively
the result of Stiles-the UNNAMED Christian-working for
God ("...He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a
glove...")
====================================================
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skyrider
WW.......very few have ever exposed wierwille's hypocrisy more than you.
Thanks.
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WordWolf
If that's true, I'd say one who HAS would be John Juedes.
I was just about to quote him....
http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_stiles.htm
"WIERWILLE BORROWS
A Challenge to the Originality of His Teaching on "Receiving the Holy Spirit"
by John P. Juedes
Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way International, says that he resolutely searched for the power of the Holy Spirit after he left his pastorate in Van Wert, Ohio, in 1944. He says his quest was finally fulfilled when he spoke in tongues in Tulsa, Okla., under the ministry of the Rev. John Edwin Stiles Sr., who was an important figure in the American charismatic movement.
Although one would expect that Stiles would have had a profound influence on Wierwille, "the teacher" never again mentions him in Way literature. A close look reveals that there is a reason for Wierwille's silence-- Wierwille stole Stiles' ideas and even his very words from his book The Gift of the Holy Spirit, all the while claiming that God taught him everything he knew and that he learned none of it from other men's books.
Stiles was born in northern California in 1891. He studied and taught at the University of California and was a farmer. In the late 1920s, he decided to become a full-time minister. He explored the Foursquare denomination, but settled into the Assemblies of God. He served as a pastor in Woodland, Calif., for two years and in Hayward, Calif., for 17 more.
The Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal bodies had long taught that a Christian could receive the Holy Spirit only by "tarrying" and pleading with God until agonizing insights and personal worthiness were rewarded with an experience of the Spirit.
Influenced by Howard Carter, Stiles bucked tradition when he insisted that the Bible taught that the Holy Spirit was received by simple faith, not by wrestling with God. Incensed denominational officials reprimanded Stiles, accusing him of leading people into a "light" or "unselfconscious" experience with the Holy Spirit. Stiles left the parish ministry around 1946 to travel and spread his message of receiving the Spirit by faith alone. In 1959, Stiles estimated that he had led 10,000 people into receiving the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues, including about 1,000 in an eight-month tour of Canada.
Moved by a lack of biblical teaching on receiving the Holy Spirit, Stiles published a pamphlet called "How to Receive the Holy Spirit" for free distribution after his meetings. Stiles also published a book called The Gift of the Holy Spirit in 1948. This book told how to receive the Holy Spirit by faith, evidenced by speaking in tongues.
The book became a classic, especially among those who had been frustrated by strained attempts to receive the Spirit. The book went through 10 printings totaling over 50,000 copies. (1) Given the wide distribution of Stiles' literature, Wierwille's intense search for the power of the Holy Spirit, and Wierwille's personal contact with Stiles, it would be a surprise to find that Wierwille had never come upon his writings.
Accordingly, one wonders why Wierwille never mentions Stiles' publications in footnotes or anywhere else. The similarities between portions of Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit and Wierwille's Receiving the Holy Spirit Today (First edition, 1954, six years after Stiles' book appeared) suggest one reason for the silence. We invite you to examine the following excerpts from these two books, with an eye for similarities in ideas and terminology: "
Follow the link back for a great chart:
http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_stiles.htm
"A comparison of these books gives us insights into Wierwille's methodology and integrity. The unwritten code of honor among authors tells them to fully credit another writer when borrowing his ideas or terminology. This is why footnotes mark scholarly productions. Many men who have plagiarized as Wierwille did have been fined, sued or fired.
Furthermore, authors' integrity and copyright laws demand that direct and indirect quotations of another writer be noted, even when another's work is not copyrighted. (3) Wierwille's methods do not reflect the integrity that the secular world expects, to say nothing of the integrity that God demands.
Yet, there is an even more important issue than integrity. Wierwille not only claims to be a scholar, he also claims to publish original material on the Spirit and that he is taught by God and His Word alone. Wierwille counts his ministry as beginning the day that God audibly assured Wierwille that He Himself would teach him. Wierwille claims in the preface to Receiving the Holy Spirit Today that he used only the Bible as a reference for the book.
Sadly, Wierwille again falls far short of his own claims, of the mark of scholarly integrity, and of God's moral expectations. "
http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_sources.htm
"WAS WIERWILLE A GREAT AUTHOR?
by JOHN P. JUEDES
Members of The Way International hold in high esteem the writings of founder Victor Paul Wierwille. His teachings embody the group's theology and practice, and are the primary rule by which The Way's researchers decide which verses of the Bible may be deleted or revised (The Integrity of the God-Breathed Word, May-June 1975, pg. 7). The courses Wierwille teaches (via video tape), including Power for Abundant Living, for decades were essentially required for acceptance by anyone who wishes to participate in The Way International.
Wierwille's followers produced a book, The Living Word Speaks, which lauded the quality and volume of his writings with a chronological bibliography. His followers also value. his. writings as unique and original in our day, being based entirely on his own biblical research with God Himself as mentor (The Way -- Living In Love, second edition, 1972, pg. 178).
When one understands the nature and origin of Wierwille's writings, one also understands something about him as a man. Further, when one understands the writings, one realizes that Wierwille does not deserve the esteem bestowed upon
him.
Categorizing His Work
Wierwille's writings fall into three categories of character and origin: transcribed sermons and teachings, books actually written by him and books written by others in his name.
The majority fall into the first category, including the Studies in Abundant Living series, Victory in Christ, parts of Jesus Christ is Not God, and most magazine articles. The style is sermonic; Wierwille alternately quotes a few verses of Scripture and then follows with commentary. It is easy to "write" a book in this manner. All Wierwille needed was an audience to discipline him to give regular teachings, a tape recorder and a transcriber. Rhoda Wierwille, Wierwille's secretary since 1947 (and who later became his sister-in-law), remembers transcribing the tapes of his Power for Abundant Living teachings into a 900-page manuscript that later was edited into a book of the same name. Any pastor who preaches regularly could produce a 500-page book every year using this method.
Wierwille made his output seem even larger by printing certain articles several times, as chapters of books and in several different issues of his magazine. This is apparent from identical titles listed in the bibliography of Writings of Victor Paul Wierwille in The Living Word Speaks (1981, pp. xv-xxx).
The greatest weakness of this method is that it is easy to say inaccurate things in a live situation. For instance, when Wierwille gave his Power for Abundant Living teaching on Hebrews 11:5, he stated that the word "see" in Greek is anablepo, which, he said, means to see with one's eyes (see Power for Abundant Living, 1971, pg. 191). Anablepo was changed to eidon some time after the second printing, though the text around the word was left unchanged - a sign that Wierwille's interpretation of the verse would be the same no matter what Greek word was used.
No one has ever found a Greek manuscript with the word anablepo used there. However, Wierwille was using his English Bible, guessed wrong on what the Greek word was and bunt his whole case against the orthodox Interpretation of this passage on a false statement. As one reads some of his teachings, it appears that he did not do any significant research before his presentation. Consequently, Wierwille's exegesis, exposition and applications often are superficial.
Examples in the second category include portions of Receiving the Holy Spirit Today and Are the Dead Alive Now? It takes more time and effort to sit down and write than it does to merely speak and have someone else transcribe a tape, and it usually makes a person more careful in what is put into print.
However, there is a temptation in written work to plagiarize and Wierwille succumbed to it. He copied some parts of J. E. Stiles' book, The Gift of The Holy Spirit, published in 1948, into his Receiving the Holy Spirit Today, published in 1954, almost word for word. Wierwille also incorporated every section of E.W. Bullinger's book, The Giver and His Gifts, published in 1905, into this book, copying some sections almost word for word (see PFO Newsletter, Jan.- Mar., 1983, pp. 1, 10-11). In fact, if one were to delete from Receiving the Holy Spirit Today all the words and ideas that he took from Stiles' and Bullinger's books, little would remain.
Wierwille also included some sections of Bullinger's works in his book, Are the Dead Alive Now? This will be dealt with in more detail In a later article. It is likely that more plagiarism will be brought to light, too. Plagiarisms are most noticeable in the earliest editions of Wierwille's books, before rewritings obscured them.
One cannot overemphasize how dependent Wierwille was on the ideas of other men to fuel his teachings. He absorbed teachings from many men, including Glenn Clark, Albert Cliffe, Rufus Mosely and George Lamsa, none of whom are Christian teachers according to the standards of either evangelicals or The Way International.
The many willing writers found among Way membership as it grew in the 1970s gave birth to the third category of Wierwille writings. Examples are Jesus Christ Our Passover, Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed and portions of Jesus Christ is Not God. One photo in The Way Magazine showed his eight person research team working on a manuscript of Jesus Christ Our Passover (President's Newsletter, The Way Magazine, Nov.- Dec., 1979, pg. 28).
Use of a writing team expedites larger volumes and makes possible deeper treatments of a topic. However, to conform to the rules of scholarly practice, Wierwille should have listed himself as the general editor of these works, rather than author. One is left with the impression that the writing was done by him rather than by others. The material does reflect Wierwille's theology, since he picked the writers, approved the production and contributed material.
Wierwille the Author
All this suggests that Wierwille's primary talents did not lie in writing. Apparently, he rarely took the time or care, or perhaps just did not have the ability. It may be that this also reflects shallow research abilities and a tendency to "shoot from the hip" in teaching, which - led to inaccuracies.
Wierwille combined a lack of original research with a tendency to grab unusual ideas from others and publish them as his own. The most alarming facet of this was Wierwille's plagiarism.
The Way International rests its teaching primarily on the integrity and authority of Wierwille, its founder. When the founder's lack of integrity and authority is demonstrated, it calls the foundation of the group into question. Those wanting to witness to members of The Way should be ready to demonstrate just how faulty a foundation The Way is built upon. "
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WordWolf
One more from Juedes.
http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_stolenrthst.htm
"STOLEN GOODS-- HOW V.P. WIERWILLE PLAGIARIZED FROM OTHERS TO MAKE RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT TODAY
by John Juedes
The Way International (TWI) and its founder Victor Paul Wierwille have long considered themselves to be the sole true source of Biblical research and teaching in the area of teaching people to receive the holy spirit (which TWI does not capitalize, because TWI considers holy spirit to be an impersonal power or ability).
The key book which describes its teaching is Wierwille's Receiving the Holy Spirit Today (RTHST). Wierwille claimed to have hauled all 3,000 of his theological books to the city dump (see Power for Abundant Living, pp. 119-120) and studied the Bible by itself, without referring to men's writings. In the preface to RTHST, Wierwille claims:
"I prayed that I might put aside all I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with The Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook" (RTHST, p.x).
However, in the very book in which he said he "put aside" all he "had heard," he draws thought after thought, indeed, word after word, from two books: E. W. Bullinger's The Giver and His Gifts, and J. E. Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit.
In other writings, we have printed side-by-side columns proving that Wierwille copied long sections of Stiles' and Bullinger's books (see The Integrity and Accuracy of The Way' Word, pp. 43-48 and "Wierwille Borrows-- Challenge to the Originality of Receiving the Holy Spirit Today;" also, Will the Real Author Please Stand Up proves that Wierwille plagiarized other books, too).
Here we will show that nearly every section of RTHST was stolen from Stiles and Bullinger. RTHST is heavily based on the content, wording, structure, terms and general conclusions of these authors. In fact, Wierwille included every section of Bullinger's book into RTHST in some form, and most every chapter of Stiles is represented as well. If Wierwille had never plagiarized Bullinger and Stiles, his "book" RTHST would be hardly the length of a magazine article.
Wierwille never once credited these authors for their work. In fact, he never once mentions their names in RTHST, and never admitted in any other article or book that he used Stiles and Bullinger to compile RTHST. It is clear why he omitted their names-- if he did cite them, it would show that Wierwille's claim to have studied the Bible alone was completely false and fraudulent.
This chart shows the major sections of RTHST and the portions of Stiles and Bullinger's books Wierwille stole them from:
http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_stolenrthst.htm
(the chart is on his site.)
Was Wierwille just an ignorant and naive student, who unknowingly used other men's writings and would have credited them if he'd thought of it? One very revealing portion of RTHST is the preface. In the second edition, Wierwille states that he once was a searcher who learned something from an unnamed source:
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all I had been taught and start anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. It took me seven years to find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that I did not have to omit, deny or change any one passage. He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove, and when you can do that, you can be assured of having truth." (RTHST, 2 ed, p. 8)
While Wierwille admits he learned from someone, he still is intentionally deceptive. First, he never mentions the man's name (though it is clear now that he meant Stiles). Furthermore, Wierwille never says that he took most of the material from Stiles (copying sections almost word for word) and wrote very little of RTHST himself. He clearly leads the reader to believe that he wrote RTHST on his own, even though he clearly plagiarized much of it.
However, in following editions of RTHST, Wierwille deletes his statement that he learned from another man, and states an arrogant lie-- that he did entirely original research, and that none of his teaching came from other men. Note how Wierwille rewrote the same paragraph from the preface to RTHST for the third (and later) edition:
"The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with The Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny or change any passage for, the Word of God being the Will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove." (RTHST, 6 ed, p.x).
The fly leaf of RTHST includes a brief biography of V. P. Wierwille which lists the names of several Bible teachers such as E. Stanley Jones, K. C. Pillai and George Lamsa. While some editions of RTHST say that Wierwille quested "with" them for truth (which infers Wierwille was their peer), others say they aided Wierwille. But none of the editions ever mention Stiles or Bullinger, even though they had far more influence on the content of RTHST than the other men listed. The most likely reason that Bullinger and Stiles were omitted from the fly leaves is that Wierwille wanted to avoid providing his readers any leads to finding that Wierwille had indeed plagiarized huge amounts of Stiles' and Bullinger's books.
This is the point at which V.P. Wierwille apparently turns from a fairly well-meaning searcher who at least partially credits someone he learned from, into a self-promoting liar. Now he promotes himself as the unique, accurate Bible teacher and innovator and excludes any mention of other sources. He not only leads the reader to believe something false (that he's original), but blatantly claims it himself.
The different versions of Wierwille's story of how he heard God speak to him also suggest that he may have fabricated details about his experience in order to inflate his image.
One of the first times the story is published is in the 25th anniversary booklet. In this version, he doesn't claim that audibly spoke to him:
"Father clearly spoke to me one night while I was praying, and He made this promise as He spoke to me: He would teach me the Word as it had not been known since the first century, provided that I would teach what He taught me to others." (Page 9)
While Wierwille still makes the audacious claim that he is the only man in 1,850 years to teach the pure Word of God, he didn't claim outright that God's voice was audible.
However, a few years later Elena Whiteside wrote a book which virtually idolized Wierwille and TWI. In this version, Wierwille insists it was an audible voice:
"I was praying.... And that's when He spoke to me audibly, just like I'm talking to you now. He said he would teach me the Word as it had not been known since the first century if I would teach it to others" (Whiteside, The Way-- Living in Love, p. 178).
Mrs. Wierwille quotes a version of the audible-voice story in her book Born Again to Serve and adds, "Rev. Wierwille never told anyone of this experience until much later when he was teaching The Way Corps. It was a most astounding phenomenon which he kept to himself" (page 43).It may be that Wierwille found that such stories could easily impress the more impressionable young Corps with such stories of his exploits. Whiteside's book is written in that period and includes other examples of Wierwille exaggerating (even lying about) his background, which greatly impresses Whiteside (see examples in From Vesper Chimes to The Way InternationalBy Juedes & Morton).
Plagiarism is serious fraud. It has caused doctoral candidates to be removed from graduate school, journalists to be fired, and public figures to be shamed.
A person better understands the severity of plagiarism when he realizes that plagiarism is both lying and stealing. Ephesians specifically instructs us, "you must put off falsehood" (4:25) and "he who has been stealing must steal no longer" (4:28), while Jesus states that the Adversary is the father of lies. Wierwille stole others' words when he placed them in his books and then lied by placing his own name on the books, asserting that all words in them were his alone. By selling his publications, Wierwille also made money from other men's work. He therefore obtained a degree of prestige and money at others' expense. Many lawsuits initiated by the entertainment industry and business have established that theft of other peoples' words, ideas and work are criminal offenses. Surely Wierwille's extensive plagiarism indicates that he has stolen words and ideas and lied about their source, and even claimed that all his work was orignal. All this demonstrates a lack of integrity.
Dr. John P. Juedes, 1998, Highland, CA www.empirenet.com/~messiah7
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http://www.empirenet.com/~messiah7/vp_wannabe.htm
VP WIERWILLE WAS A "WANNA BE"
Victor Paul Wierwille, founder of The Way International (TWI) wasn't satisfied finding a respectable occupation or goal in life, as most people do. Instead, Wierwille wanted to be the greatest initiator and leader of God's people to live in the last 2,000 years. From promoting himself as "the Man of God" to singlehandedly surviving a communist takeover of the USA, VP thought he was "the best" and could make his followers the same.
But instead of providing "one-stop" shopping for every spiritual and personal need, VP failed at every effort and left thousands of disillusioned followers soured on spiritual leaders to the degree that many still reject legitimate Christian endeavors.
Wierwille's central goal was to take "the Word Over The World (WOW)" and signed up thousands of idealistic, young "WOW Ambassadors" to do the job for him. Some people may think that taking "the Word" meant distributing the Bible to people and cultures absorbed in paganism or telling people about Jesus Christ. But no, "the Word" they sold was a fee-based (costing students from $40-$200), taped class by Wierwille called "Power for Abundant Living." They recruited mainly people who already had Christian background, but who hadn't heard the Word according to Wierwille.
Many students were disillusioned when they found out that Wierwille's teachings weren't original and unique as they thought, but were plagiarized, copied and repackaged from others. Wierwille copied parts of others' books and syllabuses, and virtually reads appendices from the Companion Bible during PFAL, yet never cites his sources during the class or footnotes the quotations in books.
TWI itself lost confidence in the class and replaced it about 25 years after it was taped. Barely .0002% of the American population bought PFAL.
Wierwille also promoted himself as "The Man of God" for our day, and he loved to be called "Doctor" and "The Teacher" (not just "a," but "The"). He encouraged his followers to think of him as the greatest spiritual leader since the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago. Wierwille claimed God spoke audibly to him and promised to teach him the Word "as it has not been know since the first century."
Wierwille saw himself as the One Man who could bring the deluded, tradition-bound Christian church around the world back to the truth. He thought he was a reformer greater than Martin Luther who launched the world-wide Reformation in the 1500s. He portrayed himself as Luther by staging a stunt in which he rode in his custom tour bus to a nearby church and nailed a proclamation reading "Jesus Christ is not God" to its door. Followers wore matching straw hats emblazoned with the same words, and bus horns blared as the great "Reformer" drove off after he posed for the appropriate photos.
TWI has now replaced VP with a new "Man of God," and forbids followers to cite Wierwille anymore.
Wierwille founded TWI to carry out his world-changing plan. VP made himself the President and Founder and declared its anniversary to be not the day of its founding, but the personal experience he claimed he had with God. As one of only three trustees, VP essentially made all the policy, financial and theological decisions in TWI (he bragged that TWI didn't have the tradition-laden practice of membership, thereby making his autocratic control seem beneficent rather than overbearing). Though he flaunted the term "international," TWI's comparative influence around the world has been negligible. By the time he died, he apparently was upset that his successors were ignoring his input.
TWI has lost about 95% of all its followers (those who took the PFAL class) and numbers only about 5,000 today-- barely a shadow of its former self, and hardly a blip of the radar screen of American religion.
Since Wierwille condemned seminaries and colleges that didn't accept his teaching and class, he wanted to start his own college and seminary and ordain his own clergy. In fact, he wanted to ordain his own clergy even while he was the pastor of a very small church, and didn't understand why his denomination considered this to be impertinent and egotistical. Wierwille soon began to ordain his own clergy (under the auspices of "The Way, Incorporated").
Wierwille long wanted to start his own seminary. Since he came to spurn "tradition," he changed the name from "The Way Seminary" to "the Way Corps." Wierwille oversaw all the Corps training, teaching, administration and placement, and required all graduates to appear at his annual "Corps Week" meeting before the "Rock of Ages" gathering. About 95% of the Corps graduates have severed ties with TWI, and it trains just a handful of people now (even though TWI counts children, making its numbers seem higher).
Wierwille also founded "The Way College of Emporia" (Kansas) which he promised would offer bachelors' degrees in liberal arts and theology. Of course, VP was the first president. VP's college never was accredited, never conferred recognized degrees, closed within 15 years and never was replaced by anything better.
Part of Wierwille's teaching on "abundant living" was his claim that he could teach people to "believe" so that they could always be healthy, illness-free and prosperous. This could even drive off the evil devil spirits that he said caused cancer. He and his followers thought he excelled at believing since he was the "Master Teacher."
But his followers were disillusioned again when Wierwille had a series of strokes and eye cancer (which necessitated the removal of one eye) before dying of liver cancer at only age 68. TWI tried to keep his demise as secret as possible (even though he had a stroke while teaching on stage at "the Rock") because of the embarrassment of "The Man of God" being so desperately ill. Many followers were shocked when he "suddenly" died without explanation and were never told the cause. The Corps he left behind today live in nearly pallid conditions, typically sharing a trailer and phones and receiving room, board and a pittance each month.
Wierwille also sought to be a great author. Followers brag that he published a dozen ground-breaking books in his lifetime. Then he truth came out-- Wierwille had plagiarized large sections of his books.
He promoted his book Receiving the Holy Spirit Today as "the most thorough and original" book on the topic. However, more than half of it was copied from EW Bullinger's The Giver and His Gifts and JE Stiles' The Gift of the Holy Spirit. Wierwille not only copied the ideas and general content-- he also copied sections word-for-word. His book Power for Abundant Living (which actually is a transcription of the first third of his class) is drawn largely from Bullinger's Companion Bible. Parts of his other books, magazine articles and classes are copied from Bullinger, Stiles, B.G. Leonard, EW Kenyon, Ernest Martin and others.
Some of VP's longest books weren't even written by him-- they were written by committee, and he put his name on them. While those books allude to his research team, Wierwille's name alone appears on the cover.
While VP promoted himself as a researcher who discovered new truths in the Bible as a result of personal, innovative study of the Bible alone (In PFAL he claimed to have dumped all his books in the city dump and studied the Bible alone), he actually largely let others study the Word for him and copied their work. The wasn't primarily a word craftsman, but a word thief.
Wierwille also sought to defend the free world from communism (Wierwille politically was a conservative capitalist). He told his followers to be prepared to survive a communist takeover of the USA. They were to have supplies on hand, be armed, and have at least a half tank of gas at all times. He started the LEAD outdoor academy to train them in survival skills. There even was one aborted attempt by a Wayer (who was an ex-Marine) to train Corps to survive prison camps. As history shows, the USSR fell, not America, and TWI's survival training is now defunct.
Along the way, Wierwille also started his own police force, "The Way International Police Department," with its own officers, cruisers and insignia. The state of Ohio saw this abuse of power and used legislation to shut down TWI's police within 18 months.
Wierwille also wanted to make TWI grounds (which had been his parents' farm) into a successful agriculture and fur-raising business. He also had an idea of designing a snow-climbing machine.
VP Wierwille had grand visions of changing the world forever through the force of his own will, intelligence, anointing from God, revelation and knowledge of the Word of God.
Instead, Wierwille was just a "wanna be." All of his grand ideas were impotent and fell to ruin within about 20 years. As hard as his devoted, well-meaning followers worked, VP's designs were shown to be "the worst," not "the best."
Above all, VP Wierwille lacked humility and apparently didn't apply Romans 12:3 to himself, "do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement." He also lacked respect for the work of Christian leaders, teachings and the Church at large, and became one of these who "will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30).
Sadly, his followers have paid a greater price than he. While he saw many of his feeble endeavors begin to fail, he died before they turned completely to ruin. But his followers were greatly disillusioned, felt their efforts were mostly in vain, and still find it hard to be involved in Christian ministries because of how he drummed into them the idea that they were all deluded by "tradition."
Wierwille's successor, Martindale, on the other hand, has given up on Wierwille's grandiose ideas. He has sold property, forced honest critics out of TWI, closed the college, and so forth. In part, he seems to delude himself into thinking that the grand decline of TWI is somehow an advance. Although PFAL never reached more than an infintisimal fraction of North America's population (to say nothing of the world), Martindale declared that the goal of getting the "word over the world" had already been accomplished. He teaches that the 95% of TWI's followers who left were all spiritually corrupt and had to go in order to have a "clean" Way household.
Martindale (and The Way International) isn't a wannabe-- he's a "has-been" who thinks he "is."
Dr. John Juedes, 1999, www.empirenet.com/-messiah7
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So_crates
Some how it seems fit the "shovel ready" Man of God, should design a snow-climbing machine. He needed something to get over all that snow he was shoveling.
SoCrates
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skyrider
Just a point to help clarify.....
Two Family Corps men, Tom K. and Al G., were assigned to this project. Not sure how much wierwille added to this project, but these men were highly talented with extensive backgrounds in hydraulics, welding, engineering, etc.
Officially named the Sno-way........similar to a small snowcat [click here]
Don't really remember the final outcome, but think it was unacceptable. Others might know more.
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So_crates
Judging by the text, in typical Saint Vic fashion, he took credit for the whole project.
Sno-way. Way. Sno-way. Way. Snooooooooo-way. Way.
SoCrates
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So_crates
In the same vane as Maggie Muggin, Snowball Pete was a 1914 comedy (source)
SoCrates
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mstar1
Not to get too far off topic but since we are there, Johnny Jumpup is an old Irish term for very potent home distilled 'cider' akin to american moonshine
Lyrics
More importnatly--Good Work Wolf
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Broken Arrow
You have all heard, haven't you, that Wierwille claimed that he was the one who originally had the idea for fast food restaurants?
The story is that he shared "the revelation" with some Christian businessmen who didn't have the "believing" to see it through. Then, once it was known in the senses world, the devil took the idea and gave it to one of his men. I personally didn't hear Wierwille himself say this. I did hear Martindale say it though in 1975 at Emporia.
I mean, think of how this story must have come about. Can't you just see Wierwille sitting around a fire at a night owl one night, after having downed a fifth of drambuie, someone's talking about how blessed they were to pull weeds in 95-degree weather and how doing so helped them see the greatness of The Book of Ephesians when suddenly Wierwille blurts out, "Yep! I was the first one to think of fast food! Couldn't say anything until now because no one could handle it (hic-cup)!"
I realize this is off-topic, I was just inspired by the talk about the "snow climbing machine".
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So_crates
Bet he helped create the internet, too.
SoCrates
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waysider
I heard him say something similar at the Advanced Class in 1973, but I don't remember the details.
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So_crates
Yep, more snow from Saint Vic the Phleabitten, patron saint of black snowstorms, plagerist, BS, and Drambuie.
SoCrates
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Broken Arrow
He probably had the original idea for it but it never went anywhere because YOU didn't see it big enough!
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So_crates
But then of course the devil gave the idea to Al Gore.
SoCrates
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Twinky
You must be wrong about VPW having had the idea for the internet. Because the internet, you will know from reliable sources like LCM, is full of devil spirits and evil information (like how he abused women).
Or maybe the internet as it is currently is just another cunning counterfeit?
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Broken Arrow
Well there you go! Socrates and I didn't have the believing to see it through. Since it was in the senses world, the devil gave the idea to Al Gore. Now look at the mess, all because of me and Socrates!
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T-Bone
~~
ok way
Time for a station break…..
This plagiarism stuff and vp's ineptness reminds me of a joke I heard about an old economics professor who traveled by his long-time chauffeur around the country giving lectures at universities on the history of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in America.
He had been doing this for such a long time that one day his chauffeur said "i've heard your spiel for so long I think I could get up at the lectern and do your whole bit – even when you open it up to questions by the students. Those kids always ask the same questions."
Perhaps out of boredom, the professor said "okay – how about you handling my next lecture this afternoon." So they arrived at the university with the professor posing as the mere chauffeur and the driver as the professor.
The chauffeur delivered the lecture perfectly. He then opened it up for questions and answered each one from memory of how the professor answered it before….. Until – one student asked a very complicated question, that no one had ever asked before - on the levels of impact specific crisis events like 9/11 and the collapse of Wall Street had on the way business was conducted and how it may change in the near future.
After a long pause, the chauffeur smiled and said, "hmmm, good question – and on the surface seems like a tough one – but actually if you had followed anything I have said today you could answer that for yourself. Why…[raising his hand to gesture toward the back where the professor stood by the door] I bet even my driver could answer that one....Hey, old chum, be a good fellow and answer this student's question. "
ba dum bum….seriously folks, it's really great to be here.
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waysider
Between my brother and I, we know the answer to every question ever posed.
Please be kind and refrain from asking me the ones that he knows.
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T-Bone
does that make you the chauffeur?
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waysider
That's one of the answers my brother knows.
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