Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
475678110
label
The Way International
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
475678110
contentType
document
title
The Way International
citationUrl
identifierLocal
47
collections
Records of the White House Office of Public Liaison (Reagan Administration)
Morton Blackwell's Religion Liaison Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
475678110
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
0b54835f0c47ae0d
ocrText
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Blackwell, Morton: Files
Folder Title: The Way International
Box: 41
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
17 June 1982
MEMORANDUM FROM DOUGLAS F. MARTIN
1. Nelson Keener at Moral Majority
doesn't know of them personally, but
one of the fellows in his office said
he understood they were a cult.
2. Pat Landrum at the National Association
of Evangelicals said they didn't recog-
nize the diety of Christ, nor the trinity,
and that they tended towards the cult,
and possibility of mind control.
Fairly widely acknowledged as a cult
by those who regularly define cults.
3. Dr. Ray Bringham talked to Rev. Wilbur
Jackson in Cincinatti who said they
were a "cult" with questionable morals.
You can receivethe "Holy" spirit by paying
$200, and it is guaranteed. Wierwille
says he is first to correctly interpret
the scriptures since the Apostles. There
is word in south Ohio area that two
reporters were almost run off road when
they attempted to interview this group.
Ray Bringham's number is 714-728-5020.
WHB028(1346) (1-020081C166) PD 06/15/82 1342
1982 JUN 15 PM 2 49
ICS IPMCZOA COL
AU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 356-697
01037 COLUMBUS oH 297 06-15 231P EDT
PMS MR MORTON BLACKWELL
WHITE HOUSE DC
THE WAY INTERNATIONAL BIBLICAL RESEARCH, TEACHING AND FELLOWSHIP
MINISTRY WILL PRESENT THEIR 40TH ANNIVERSARY BIBLICAL RESEARCH
CLASS ENTITLED "LIVING VICTORIOUSLY™ FROM JUNE 19 - JULY 5, 1982.
THE WAY IS A NON-DENOMINATIONAL CHRISTIAN MINISTRY FOUNDED IN
1942. DR. VICTOR PAUL WIERWILLE, THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, ALONG
WITH
OTHER MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR OUTREACH MINISTRY WILL SHARE FROM THE
INTEGRITY AND ACCURACY OF GOD'S WORD DURING THIS SPECIAL CLASS.
I
THERE WILL BE 8 - 10,000 CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS GATHERED TOGETHER AT
THE WAY INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN OHIO FOR MORE THAN TWO
]
RU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 356-697
WEEKS. THESE CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS ARE COMING TO OHIO FROM EACH OF THE
50 STATES OF THE UNION, FROM WASHINGTON, D.C., AND FROM OVER
25 DIFFERENT NATIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
ON THE OPENING DAY, JUNE 19, 1982, WE WILL START A CONTINUOUS 24
HOURS OF PRAYER THAT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL JULY 5, 1982. WE WANT
THE 40TH PRESIDENT OF THESE our UNITED STATES, RONALD REAGAN, TO KNOW
THAT upon THE OCCASION OF OUR SPECIAL 40TH ANNIVERSARY CLASS FERVENT
PRAYER WILL BE MADE TO THE TRUE GOD ON HIS BEHALF, AND ON THE
BEHALF OF HIS WIFE, CABINET, THE OTHER BRANCHES OF OUR
GOVERNMENT AND THE ENTIRE NATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA. WE PRAY FOR YOUR CONTINUED STRENGTH AND PERSEVERANCE IN
THE PURSUIT OF THE FREEDOM OF THIS NATION, BELIEVING PSALM 33:12
WHICH SAYS, "BLESSED IS THE NATION WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD."
AU.B. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 - 356-697
I AM REQUESTING A RESPONSE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO
DR. AND MRS WIERWILLE AND THE 8-10,000 CLASS PARTICIPANT IN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THEIR PRAYERS AND BELIEVING FOR THE PRESIDENT
AND OUR COUNTRY DURING THIS SPECIAL CLASS AND CONTINUOUS 24 HOURS OF
PRAYER.
ALL COMMUNICATIONS CAN BE MADE THROUGH ME:
C/O REV. ROBERT MIRABITO
5701 CROWN CREST LANE
COLUMBUS OH 43220
(614) 889-2830
AU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 - 356-697
THANK YOU
UNSIGNED
NNNN
mostin: I believe THE WAY TO Be A
BASED ON PARTIA BIBLICAL TRUTH,
Pat CULT, at Bab Dugan's office corfirms this. House shall
we just till them at is too The Banhington White +
WHB028(1346) (1-020081C166) PD 06/15/82 1342 them for their payers?
phata time to get a Presidential messige thank
1982 JUN 15 PM 2 49 C
ICS IPMCZOA COL
*u.s. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 356-697
01037 COLUMBUS oH 297 06-15 231P EDT
PMS MR MORTON BLACKWELL
WHITE HOUSE DC
THE WAY INTERNATIONAL BIBLICAL RESEARCH, TEACHING AND FELLOWSHIP
MINISTRY WILL PRESENT THEIR 40TH ANNIVERSARY BIBLICAL RESEARCH
CLASS ENTITLED "LIVING VICTORIOUSLY™ FROM JUNE 19 - JULY 5, 1982.
THE WAY IS A NON-DENOMINATIONAL CHRISTIAN MINISTRY FOUNDED IN
1942. DR. VICTOR PAUL WIERWILLE, THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, ALONG
WITH
OTHER MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR OUTREACH MINISTRY WILL SHARE FROM THE
INTEGRITY AND ACCURACY OF GOD'S WORD DURING THIS SPECIAL CLASS.
THERE WILL BE 8 - 10,000 CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS GATHERED TOGETHER AT
THE WAY INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN OHIO FOR MORE THAN TWO
AU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 356-697
WEEKS. THESE CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS ARE COMING TO OHIO FROM EACH OF THE
50 STATES OF THE UNION, FROM WASHINGTON, D.C., AND FROM OVER
25 DIFFERENT NATIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
ON THE OPENING DAY, JUNE 19, 1982, WE WILL START A CONTINUOUS 24
HOURS OF PRAYER THAT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL JULY 5, 1982. WE WANT
THE 40TH PRESIDENT OF THESE OUR UNITED STATES, RONALD REAGAN, TO KNOW
THAT UPON THE OCCASION OF OUR SPECIAL 40TH ANNIVERSARY CLASS FERVENT
PRAYER WILL BE MADE TO THE TRUE GOD ON HIS BEHALF, AND ON THE
BEHALF OF HIS WIFE, CABINET, THE OTHER BRANCHES OF our
GOVERNMENT AND THE ENTIRE NATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA. WE PRAY FOR YOUR CONTINUED STRENGTH AND PERSEVERANCE IN
THE PURSUIT OF THE FREEDOM OF THIS NATION, BELIEVING PSALM 33:12
WHICH SAYS, "BLESSED IS THE NATION WHOSE GOD IS THE LORD."
u.s. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 - 355-697
I AM REQUESTING A RESPONSE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO
DR. AND MRS WIERWILLE AND THE 8-10,000 CLASS PARTICIPANT IN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THEIR PRAYERS AND BELIEVING FOR THE PRESIDENT
AND OUR COUNTRY DURING THIS SPECIAL CLASS AND CONTINUOUS 24 HOURS OF
PRAYER.
ALL COMMUNICATIONS CAN BE MADE THROUGH ME:
C/O REV. ROBERT MIRABITO
5701 CROWN CREST LANE
COLUMBUS OH 43220
(614) 889-2830
RU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1981 - 356-697
THANK YOU
UNSIGNED
NNNN
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE 1
LEVEL 1 - - 1 OF 1 STORY
Copyright (c) 1981 The Washington Post
October 13, 1981, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: First Section; A1
LENGTH: 3260 words
HEADLINE: The Way OF Many;
Recruiters for 'The way' Are Active in D.C. and Tidewater Areas;
'The Way' Methods Disturb Congressmen;
Ohio-Based Sect Claims 40,000, Aim Recruiting Efforts Here
BYLINE: By Sandra G. Boodman, Washington Post Staff Writer
DATELINE: NEW KNOXVILLE, Ohio
KEYWORD: THEWAY
BODY:
Hannah Janney, who grew up on a farm in Northern Virginia, remembers feeling
amazed the first time she saw The Way International headquarters rising out of
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
the relentlessly flat Midwestern landscape. Amid endless miles of cornfields
were meticulous gardens, man-made ponds, gurgling white marble fountains and
buildings 50 freshly painted they 'gleamed under the summer sun.
Most impressive, Janney recalls, was the sight of 16,000 brothers and sisters
who had flocked to this tiny hamlet outside-Dayton for an annual week-long
festival, called The Rock of Ages. Like Janney, they were devout members of -The
Way, a little-known fundamentalist Christian sect, which some theologians
believe to be the nation's second largest cult.
The Way now has an estimated 40,000 followers - -- more than Rev. Sun Myung
Moon's Unification Church. "Everybody thinks the Moonies are the big cult
because they've gotten the lion's share' of publicity, but the Way is much bigger
and more pervasive,' says Lowell Streiker, director of San Francisco's anti-cult
Freedom Counseling Center. The only larger cult in the United States, said
Streiker, is The Church of Scientology.
Founded nearly 40 years ago by Victor Paul Wierwille, now 65, The Way
exemplifies the growth of religious cults in American Christianity, a phenomenon
that some religious scholars say tends to accelerate in times of economic and
political stress. "There are times in history when the soil is ripe for the
growth of cults," said Thomas Schafer, a professor at Chicago's McCormick
ICWIS NEWIS IFXIC NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE
3
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
Divinity School. One of the characteristics that distinguishes cults from
religious movements is members' devotion to and obedience of a living leader,
Schafer said.
The Way meets that criterion, combining Wierwille's off-beat brand of
born-again Christianity with survival training, faith healing and speaking in
tongues. Wierwille, an graduate of Princeton Theological Seminiary and a former
minister of the United Church of Christ, has added aggressive Dale Carnegie-like
salesmanship techniques and ultraconservative political views. He teaches
followers to hold regular book-burnings -- former members say they were
encouraged to burn materials not published by the sect -- and instructs them to
read books that call the Nazi Holocaust a hoax perpetrated by Jews and
Communists.
Although The Way has maintained a relatively low profile despite its growth
in the past decade, the sect is attracting the attention of some members of
Congress troubled by its recruiting methods, its now-abandoned firearms training
program and its efforts to attract young, military personnel.
The Way is actively recruiting military members in the Washington suburbs --
where it claims 500 members -- and in Tidewater Virginia, site of major Navy,
Army, and Air Force installations. Law enforcement sources in Ohio said the
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
IRS has been looking into The Way's tax-exempt status for several years,
although the IRS declines comment. Those same sources estimate The Way assets at
$20 to $30 million.
Critics, many of them former members, call The Way dangerous. They tell
stories of firearms training, sleep deprivation, psychological manipulation and
blind allegiance to Wierwille, whom The Way members often compare to Jesus
Christ.
"That's Just a bunch of out and out lies," said Vince Finnegan, The Way's
chief recruiter, who said the lies are spread by Jews "and the adversary, the
Devil, who doesn't want the word to live
When you look within yourself
there's emptiness
there are no answers outside God's word."
Many attracted to the word as The Way interprets it are young, lonely,
depressed or confused, caught in adolescent identity crises, trapped in shaky
marriages. Some are searching for direction and meaning, for more intimacy than
their own families offered.
Harvey John Platig, 25, the son of a Bethesda psychologist and State
Department official, found The Way in 1976. He was playing in a rock band at
Bethesda's Psychedelly and unhappily living a life of "booze, motorcycles and
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE
5
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
dope."
"I used to be really turned off to Christianity," said Platig over lunch in
the cavernous Way cafeteria where a giant banner reads: "The Word of God is the
Will of God."
"I could never understand how if God was all perfect
there could be any
evil. The Way people gave me a straight answer. They said there was more than
one spiritual force at work: the Devil."
Psychiatrists critical of cult methods and former Way members say the
friendship, comfort and sense of purpose The Way offers mask the fact that the
group recruits pliable members who are obedient and help provide The Way
continued financial support.
Because The Way is a homegrown Midwestern sect whose members hold regular
jobs, wear everyday clothes and hairstyles, and do not live in isolation,
Streiker says, the group has avoided the, scrutiny other cults have received.
There is no dispute that The Way and Wierwille, who declined to be
interviewed, have prospered. From his 150-acre family farm and headquarters here
Wierwille presides over a tax-exempt multi-million-dollar religious empire.
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
Since 1974, The Way has bought college campuses in Kansas and Indiana, a
ranch in Colorado and a survival school in New Mexico, acquisitions the group
says have been made possible by the "abundant sharings" of followers who give at
least 10 percent of their salaries to The Way. Many give much more.
Only 15 years ago Wierwille scoured tiny Midwestern hamlets on his
raspberry-colored Harley-Davidson motorcycle, inviting farm families to attend
services in his living room. Today, he maintains an uneasy coexistence with the
800 people of this rural crossroads. He has mostly forsaken his motorcycle,
traveling instead by customized private jet or luxury bus to visit his disciples
in more than 45 countries and all 50 states.
Two years ago, The Way moved into Washington and targeted area suburbs and
Virginia's Tidewater area, with its huge concentration of military personnel, as
fertile territory for recruiting. "There's a lot of interest in The Way in
Washington," said Finnegan. "We do real well there."
Way officials say it has 500 active members in the Washington area and counts
among its members U.S. Court of Claims Judge Robert M. -M. Seto. "Are you aware
that the Mormons are a cult? That the Jewish religion is a cult?" asked Seto.
"The Way believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God."
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE
7
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
The Way spokesman Alison Heaney says Way members are "Bible-toting
pacifists." Until last February, however, Way members received organized
firearms training with .22-caliber pistols and rifles at The Way-owned College
of Emporia in Emporia, Kan, and at Camp Gunnison, the cult's 100-acre ranch in
Colorado.
That training and The Way's interest in military recruitment bothers Rep. G.
William Whitehurst (R-Va.) who represents the Tidewater area. "We're very
concerned," said Whitehurst aide Peter G. Loomis. "Military people are far from
home and they would be ideal recruits for The Way."
"Most of these kids don't know what the bottom line of joining a cult is,"
said Dr. Margaret Singer, a professor of clinical psychology at the University
of California at Berkeley and a cult expert. "The new recruits get "love-bombed"
-- they receive a lot of affection, attention and flattery. Most cults get
people to drop out of school, sever ties with their families and tell them their
salvation and even their life depends on staying in the cult. It's hard to walk
away when you've burned your bridges behind you."
"Going to a Bible study meeting seems 50 innocent and the peer support feels
very good," said Jean Merritt, a Northern Virginia psychologist who counsels
former cult members and their families. "If you're lonely it's a nice way to
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
meet people. It's not like hftting Clyde's."
Hannah Janney, now 23, got involved with The Way in 1977 for precisely those
reasons. "It was the first day of school," she recalled. "I'd just arrived in
Boston, I didn't know anyone and I was sitting on my bed in my dorm room when
this girl down the hall was going door to door
...
She
invited
me
to
go
to
a
fellowship in her room. She never mentioned The Way."
"I wanted to determine my own moral values, said Janney, the youngest of
four children of a close-knit Quaker family. "I was looking for answers." The
Way had them.
Buoyed by the cameraderie she encountered, Janney spent $100 to take
Wierwille's 33-hour videotaped "Power For Abundant Living" course. The class met
four nights a week in a college classroom decorated with Wierwille's picture.
The Way members hugged and kissed new recruits. During the last week of the
class, Janney was taught to speak in tongues -- usually a stream of
unintelligible syllables The Way members and other fundamentalists regard as the
word of God and proof of spiritual rebirth.
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE
9
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
One of The Way's more unusual rituals occurs every March 15 when The Way
members celebrate "Uncle Harry's Day," the anniversary of the death of
Wierwille's beloved older brother who is buried at The Way headquarters. On that
day, members burn books or what The Way members call "Devil-inspired" objects --
clothing, jewelry, records, television sets -- that remind them of their past
lives.
Psychiatrists critical of The Way say that acceptance of such rituals as
speaking in tongues or Uncle Harry's Day is crucial to conditioning that the
critics label "mind control" -- the replacement of past attitudes with new
beliefs tailored to the needs of the cult.
Dr. John G. Clark Jr. of the Harvard Medical School said speaking in tongues
is part of this process because it induces a mind-numbing trance-like state.
Through a combination of peer pressure, constant supervision, "love-bombing" and
the shedding of old friends, family and beliefs, a new personality emerges.
"There's definitely a change in thought," said The Way spokesman Cathy
Crawley. "Sometimes it seems very sudden but it's because people never knew
what was in the Bible."
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
"It's not so much brainwashing," said Streiker, "as people who are willing to
surrender control of their minds for what they get in return." Often what they
get is love or the promise of it.
"I fell in love with the guy who taught the class," said Janney. "He
convinced me that the best way to make people happy was to work for The Way and
move God's word."
Soon her only friends were Way members. She dropped courses and spent her
days "witnessing" -- proselytizing. Her evenings were spent at fellowships. Most
of the money her parents sent her went to The Way, she said.
Janney dropped out of the Boston Conservatory of Music and became one of The
Way's 2,000 missionaries assigned to cities far from their homes at their own
expense. Former members say the traveling further severs family ties and cements
new ones. Way missionaries are supposed to go home only for a funeral.
Sue DuChesne, 20, of Green Bay, W15., joined The Way at 18 and until March
was a missionary in Hyattsville. She lived with three Way members in a shabby
house furnished with cast-offs from Prince George's County trash containers.
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE 11
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
One member ran the house, making sure that each missionary "witnessed" at
least 48 hours a week, found a part-time job and gave at least 10 percent of
that salary to The Way. Of the $85 DuChesne earned each week, she said $60 went
to rent and food. She gave $10 to The Way, leaving $15 for her personal
expenses.
"I was so tired all the time it wasn't funny," DuChesne said. "I would go to
bed at midnight and then get up at 4 a.m. to pray and get ready for work, take
two buses to get to Howard Johnson's, waitress for five hours, take a bus to the
University of Maryland and witness in the student union and dorms." After
witnessing came prayer and house meetings where the group discussed improving
witnessing techniques.
"We were supposed to offer comfort and warmth at exam time, not tell people
right off who we were, just make friends with them, go out for coffee, find out
what they needed and where they were vulnerable, stuff like that."
DuChesne left The Way after awaking one morning to find her eye bleeding, the
result of an infection. "They didn't want me to go to a doctor. They said if I
just believed in God hard enough it would be healed. They said I wasn't
believing enough.
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
"I must have snapped into reality or something," DuChesne said. She called
her grandmother, who wired money for a bus ticket. But when she told her
housemates she was leaving, they angrily told she had lost faith. The local Way
leader came to the house and kept her awake until 3 a.m., telling her not to
leave.
"Finally, I said I would stay," DuChesne recalled.
The next morning, however, she sneaked off to the District bus station ==
where she found several Way members who tried to convince her to stay. When she
got off B bus in Chicago 18 hours later, DuChesne said, more Way members met
her. So did her family.
"That never happened," said Finnegan. "We never force anyone to do anything.
We teach people to have free will."
Janney left The Way two months ago, after her parents paid more than $10,000
to have her "deprogrammed" -- a controversial method designed to reverse the
cult conversion process -- during a rare visit home.
She had been a trusted Way staff member, a veteran of a year's missionary
work in Phoenix, a member of The Way Corps, an elite group from which most Way
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE 13
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
leaders are drawn. Corps members pay $4,300 a year for four years to attend the
unaccredited Way College of Emporia, a school that combines rigorous physical
and survival training with Wierwille's interpretation of the Bible. Because ner
parents refused to support her, Janney's tuition was paid by wealthy Way
members.
At Emporia, Janney said, she received firearms training with a .22-caliber
rifle. Janney and others also prepared a detailed autobiography: "I want the
where, what, who, when, why and how regarding every major decision point in your
life," Wierwille wrote corps members. "For example: I got into sex in the sixth
grade; I started drugs when I was 12; I robbed the local liquor store." Janney
also was required to keep a diary of only positive thoughts. She said it was
subject to unannounced inspection.
"We were supervised all the time," she recalled. "There was never any time to
just be by yourself. You always had to be doing something. I got there just
after Jonestown and Wierwille told us that the U.S. Army had killed those people
and covered it up. We were constantly taught that when the Communists or whoever
took over, we had to be the ones to survive. We always had to have our backpacks
ready, have supplies of canned goods and firewood, never iet the gas tank get
more than half empty."
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
Janney said that in October 1979 Wierwille told corps members to get their
guns ready and prepare to defend themselves against a nuclear attack. "He told
us that God had spoken to him and that the Communists were going to attack," she
recalled. "We were supposed to speak in tongues and pray around the clock and
not tell anyone or else word might leak out. There was just mass panic. I got
ready to go out into the field, but then Wierwille told us that our speaking in
tongues had averted the attack."
Way officials said that never happened either. They said the firearms
training was discontinued this year, the victim of unwarranted negative
publicity. "It was just a hunter's safety course," said The Way's Washington
area director Michael Rood, a former Marine Corps marksman. "We teach people how
to floss their teeth, do jet-style packing and handle guns."
Ten years ago, The Way's approach to life was less systematic. Then it was
known as one of the "garbage cults," because its members foraged food from trash
cans,, said Harvard's Clark.
The Way was founded in 1942 when Wierwille, a recent seminary graduate, said
the word of God was revealed when he saw snow fall on a New Knoxville gas
station in July.
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE 15
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
For years, he tried to spread the word to Midwestern farmers without much
luck. His first major success came in the late 1960s during a visit to San
Francisco's Haight-Asbury district. He returned to Ohio with about 30 followers.
Others stayed behind and founded The Way West, a prototype for local chapters
around the country.
That was followed in 1971 by a foray to the upper-crust Manhattan suburb of
Rye. Life Magazine wrote an article about Wierwille, the man who turned bored
suburban kids onto God. In Rye, Wierwille videotaped his Abundant Living course,
which was later shown on college campuses and drew thousands of recruits.
Alison Heaney, the daughter of a retired General Motors executive, was a Rye
convert and has been a member ever since. "I was 15 and I'd taken mescaline,
smoked dope, done moratoriums and macrobiotic diets and gone to the Unitarian
Church but none of it really worked," said Heaney, now 27.
Today Heaney is one of 400 paid staff members who work at The Way
headquarters, which houses Way Productions, the ministry's music and theater
group that tours high schools and colleges, and Way Publications and American
Christian Press, publishers of a slick bimonthly magazine and Wierwille's books.
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
They are located in a new.$5 million administration building that also houses
a computer center full of IBM equipment and a film production unit. 011
paintings of Wierwille and his wife hang in the lobby of the building over gold
plaques that read "President" and "First Lady." Smaller photographs of Wierwille
adorn desk tops and office walls.^ Buttons and stickers read "Speak in Tongues,"
"Keep Smiling" and "Think About God".
Two miles from headquarters at Neil Armstrong Airport is The Way's new hangar
and its two planes: "Ambassador One." a twin-engine 21-seat turboprop jet bought
in 1977 from Exxon of Libya for $750,000, and "Acts II," a Cessna 210 bought two
years ago for $100,000.
The interior of "Ambassador One," which is reserved for Wierwille's use, is
decorated with teak paneling, blue velvet ármchairs, tape deck, smoked mirrors,
color TV sets, a baby-blue Princess telephone' and silver trays for serving
drinks.
Way officials will not discuss the finances of the group, which is run by a
three-man board that includes Wierwille and his eldest son. Federal tax forms
show The Way declared assets of $1.3 million in 1974 and nearly $10 million in
1978. Ohio law enforcement sources estimate that the group currently has assets
worth $20-$30 million.
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS
Services of Mead Data Central
PAGE 17
(c) 1981 The Washington Post, October 13, 1981
Despite The Way's financial success, its relationship with New Knoxville
residents is edgy -- even though Wierwille places advertisements in a local
newspaper reminding residents that the group spends more than $25,000 a month in
the community. Way members' efforts to enter local politics have made many
people here nervous. Several Way members are now running for town trustee and
the local school board.
Last year, county prosecutor Scott Jarvis, a Way member who also served as
the group's chief lawyer, was defeated for reelection. During his tenure, Jarvis
provoked an uproar by deputizing an armed three-member police force of Way
members called "The Bless Patrol," which has since been disbanded.
But despite the controversy, the criticism and the fears that The Way is
somehow dangerous, its members say they are only interested in spreading the
word of The Way. "We're a horrible failure if we're trying to take over the
world," Heaney said. "But then again, people thought Jesus Christ wanted to
overthrow the government."
GRAPHIC: Picture 1, Victor Paul Wierville, founding father of The Way, By Ed
Roberts -- Dayton Newspapers Inc.; Picture 2, The new $5 million administration
building, headquarters of 'The Way' at New Knoxville, Ohio, houses a publishing
firm, sophisticated computers and a film production unit.; Pictures 3 and 4,
LEXIS NEXIS LEXIS NEXIS