Who/how many of you (or others you were directly aware of) gave much (or any) thought to ancillary (non-biblical) literature promoted by TWI and/or Wierwille in the 1970s?

[penworks]

On 12/18/2023 at 5:57 PM, oldiesman said:

The Challenging Counterfeit

Babylon Mystery Religion

The Thirteenth Tribe

None Dare Call It Conspiracy

Dale Carnegie Books

The Myth of the Six Million

The Way Living in Love

 

I remember all of these books being sold in The Way Bookstore while I was involved during the 70s and 80s.

Here's something I wrote about The Myth of the Six Million. I didn't include the following in its entirety, but did put parts of it in my memoir, Undertow. 

Worldly news

On staff it was easy to pay no attention to news from the outside world. We lived in what has been termed by former followers as, “Way world.” All that mattered was what the ministry did. On the larger stage of the world in the spring of 1986 just before my co-worker, Joe, was fired and about a month before Geer read his PoP letter that shattered Way world into a million mini-way worlds, on March 4, 1986, the New York Times reporter John Tagliabue published a report revealing that Austrian president Kurt Waldheim he had been a Nazi army officer.

      Note: That issue of the NYT is unavailable to me now, but there is mention of his German army ties in this Britannica entry: Kurt Waldheim | Biography, Achievements, & Facts | Britannica

In The Way, such a news item, if known by ministry leadership, would have been hushed up. At the time, the Way fellowships in Europe were growing fast with a Way Corps training site in Gartmore, Scotland, which to us proved we were serious about getting the Word over the World (The goal Wierwille aimed for, describing it as making his bible classes available to everyone in every community in the world).

To most people it would matter that the president of a European country had had Nazi ties, but not to Way leaders. Why? Wierwille was a Nazi sympathizer. He’d said to some Way Corps members that Hitler just “had a PR problem.” (a reliable source who heard him say this told me.)

Victor Paul Wierwille denied the holocaust, claimed reports of Jews being killed were exaggerated. Although he did not publically make statements that could get him in hot water, he did on occasion make them to Way Corps graduates. Once at a summer biblical research meeting I attended in the Outreach Services Center at Way headquarters in Ohio, somehow he got on the topic of the Jews. He said he knew some Jews were out to kill him but he was not scared of them. They had been the killers of Jesus Christ, and would have to answer to God for their rejection and murder of Jesus Christ. The Word of God had already judged them. At the time, I felt scared for Wierwille, since I still revered him as my “father in The Word.” I failed to understand he was antisemitic. It took me some more years before I could face that fact.

I did see that Wierwille avoided teaching the Scriptural evidence that the Romans allowed Jesus to be put to death [The gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, for instance]. According to archaeological finds, textual research, etc. a PBS special, “From Jesus to Christ,” unveils this:

"Jesus was most likely arrested and executed by Roman authorities whose principal concern was to keep the peace. The Romans had little tolerance for those it judged disruptive of the Pax Romana, punishing them in many ways, including crucifixion. The death of Jesus was a Roman act; there was little if any notice taken by Jewish people. Jesus was another victim of the Pax Romana... Jesus was born before 4 B.C.E. and died around 30 C. E (C.E. means "of the common era," the equivalent of A.D)."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/view/#ixzz1aOsuV29F

 

Wierwille, however, did not exactly keep his views about the Jews a secret from the thousands of Way followers. Anyone could have seen he denied the Holocaust if they looked in The Way bookstore. At the time I was involved with The Way during the 1970s and 1980s, he sold books such as, The Myth of the Six Million. I bought a copy and kept it until I left The Way in 1987, ashamed that I had ever been involved with Wierwille’s organization. The following is some background information about that book from the website linked at the end of the quote.

"The Mazal Holocaust Collection includes a large number of books and pamphlets by authors denying the Holocaust. One of the first such books written in English was The Myth of the Six Million, first published anonymously in 1969 by Noontide Press (the Mazal copy is a 1974 edition), founded by the right-wing conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. The book has been attributed to David Hoggan, a Harvard-trained historian and writer who died in 1988. The Myth of the Six Million, Anonymous (1974 printing) | Innovations in Jewish Life Collections | University of Colorado Boulder "

[Charity]

1 hour ago, penworks said:

I remember all of these books being sold in The Way Bookstore while I was involved during the 70s and 80s.

Here's something I wrote about The Myth of the Six Million. I didn't include the following in its entirety, but did put parts of it in my memoir, Undertow. 

Worldly news

On staff it was easy to pay no attention to news from the outside world. We lived in what has been termed by former followers as, “Way world.” All that mattered was what the ministry did. On the larger stage of the world in the spring of 1986 just before my co-worker, Joe, was fired and about a month before Geer read his PoP letter that shattered Way world into a million mini-way worlds, on March 4, 1986, the New York Times reporter John Tagliabue published a report revealing that Austrian president Kurt Waldheim he had been a Nazi army officer.

      Note: That issue of the NYT is unavailable to me now, but there is mention of his German army ties in this Britannica entry: Kurt Waldheim | Biography, Achievements, & Facts | Britannica

In The Way, such a news item, if known by ministry leadership, would have been hushed up. At the time, the Way fellowships in Europe were growing fast with a Way Corps training site in Gartmore, Scotland, which to us proved we were serious about getting the Word over the World (The goal Wierwille aimed for, describing it as making his bible classes available to everyone in every community in the world).

To most people it would matter that the president of a European country had had Nazi ties, but not to Way leaders. Why? Wierwille was a Nazi sympathizer. He’d said to some Way Corps members that Hitler just “had a PR problem.” (a reliable source who heard him say this told me.)

Victor Paul Wierwille denied the holocaust, claimed reports of Jews being killed were exaggerated. Although he did not publically make statements that could get him in hot water, he did on occasion make them to Way Corps graduates. Once at a summer biblical research meeting I attended in the Outreach Services Center at Way headquarters in Ohio, somehow he got on the topic of the Jews. He said he knew some Jews were out to kill him but he was not scared of them. They had been the killers of Jesus Christ, and would have to answer to God for their rejection and murder of Jesus Christ. The Word of God had already judged them. At the time, I felt scared for Wierwille, since I still revered him as my “father in The Word.” I failed to understand he was antisemitic. It took me some more years before I could face that fact.

I did see that Wierwille avoided teaching the Scriptural evidence that the Romans allowed Jesus to be put to death [The gospel of Matthew, chapter 27, for instance]. According to archaeological finds, textual research, etc. a PBS special, “From Jesus to Christ,” unveils this:

"Jesus was most likely arrested and executed by Roman authorities whose principal concern was to keep the peace. The Romans had little tolerance for those it judged disruptive of the Pax Romana, punishing them in many ways, including crucifixion. The death of Jesus was a Roman act; there was little if any notice taken by Jewish people. Jesus was another victim of the Pax Romana... Jesus was born before 4 B.C.E. and died around 30 C. E (C.E. means "of the common era," the equivalent of A.D)."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/view/#ixzz1aOsuV29F

 

Wierwille, however, did not exactly keep his views about the Jews a secret from the thousands of Way followers. Anyone could have seen he denied the Holocaust if they looked in The Way bookstore. At the time I was involved with The Way during the 1970s and 1980s, he sold books such as, The Myth of the Six Million. I bought a copy and kept it until I left The Way in 1987, ashamed that I had ever been involved with Wierwille’s organization. The following is some background information about that book from the website linked at the end of the quote.

"The Mazal Holocaust Collection includes a large number of books and pamphlets by authors denying the Holocaust. One of the first such books written in English was The Myth of the Six Million, first published anonymously in 1969 by Noontide Press (the Mazal copy is a 1974 edition), founded by the right-wing conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. The book has been attributed to David Hoggan, a Harvard-trained historian and writer who died in 1988. The Myth of the Six Million, Anonymous (1974 printing) | Innovations in Jewish Life Collections | University of Colorado Boulder "

Timely post penworks considering that similar arguments are being shared openly today. Changing history allows the lessons it taught to be lost and the evil of its past to be repeated which they presently are.

Edited Saturday at 03:58 PM by Charity

[waysider]

In FellowLaborers (mid 1970s), most of the houses didn't even have T.V.s or phones. Not that we would have had time to pay attention to the outside world anyway. There wasn't any time to explore anything that hadn't been approved or at least suggested by leadership. It's really kinda scary to realize just how oblivious we must have been. Isolation is a powerful tool.

[Rocky]

16 minutes ago, waysider said:

In FellowLaborers (mid 1970s), most of the houses didn't even have T.V.s or phones. Not that we would have had time to pay attention to the outside world anyway. There wasn't any time to explore anything that hadn't been approved or at least suggested by leadership. It's really kinda scary to realize just how oblivious we must have been. Isolation is a powerful tool.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/cocoon

A cocoon is a silky web spun around the larvae of many insects. Caterpillars emerge from their cocoons as beautiful butterflies.

The word cocoon can also refer to a form of self-protection for humans. For some people, their house is a cocoon, a cozy retreat from which they can escape the world. They cocoon themselves away for a whole weekend,

Thanks waysider for mentioning this notion. In the religious world, some have "retreats." In wayworld, we had "advances." Not that many got the connection with cocooning themselves away. These days I just see it as the contrarian nature of wayworld. 

[oldiesman]

Martin Luther, A Life

Think and Grow Rich

The Hoax of the Twentieth Century

Life is Tremendous

 

 

[waysider]

47 minutes ago, oldiesman said:

The Hoax of the Twentieth Century

An In-depth Look At The History Of The Way International

(Coloring book worksheets available for Childrens' Fellowship coordinators)

 

 

[penworks]

Part of TWI's history is how a wide-spread American belief helped shape VPW's teachings: that America was founded to be a Christian nation. VPW used non-biblical sources (of course) to back up his belief in this. The belief today is held by most Christian Nationalists in America. 

Many ago, I examined this belief in a paper I wrote for a creative writing class at what was then called Valencia Community College in Orlando, FL.

I've attached my paper here for anyone interested in the fundamentalist aspect of TWI. It's the fundamentalism aspect of Wierwille's teachings that you see when he calls Scripture "inerrant" and that is "fits like a hand in a glove." He made it LOOK that way using fundamentalist methods of interpretation that he took from other mens' work.

Note - my name at the time I wrote the attached paper was Charlene Bishop. I was still married to my first husband, T*m Bish*p, from the Rye, NY fellowship. We married the day after we graduated from the Second Corps in 1973.

In Undertow, I gave Tim the alias of Ed.

We divorced in 1991.

Cheers!

Fund to Freedom_C_Edge.pdf

Edited Sunday at 02:00 PM by penworks