The "Way" movement is causing considerable confusion in some communities. This article shows that it is a different way of salvation than the Biblical way taught by traditional Christianity.

1. The Founder⤒🔗

The founder of The Way International is Victor Paul Wierwille, who was born in 1917 and raised in the Evangelical and Reformed Church. He claims that God spoke to him audibly in 1942 telling him that He would teach Wierwille "the Word as it had not been known since the first century" if he would teach it to others. In 1953, he learned to "receive the holy spirit into manifestation," that is, he learned to speak in tongues.

2. The Foundation←⤒🔗

The Word of God "rightly divided" is the foundation on which The Way movement rests. Wierwille, as a modern apostle who believes he was chosen by God to bring new light to the present generation, is held by his followers to be the present day spiritual leader who can "rightly divide" the Word. Present day versions and translations of the Bible are considered inaccurate and believed to contain errors. When interpreted and "corrected" by the spiritual leader, Wierwille, the Bible then becomes the "accurate" Word of God which followers can also "rightly divide."

3. The Structure←⤒🔗

The way is structured like a tree. The Board of Directors is the root. The Headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio, is the trunk. State organizations constitute the limbs, while city groups are the branches. Bible study groups in homes and on campuses are the twigs, and individual members of such groups are the leaves. Since 1953 when Wierwille began his first PFAL (Power for Abundant Living) class, this Tree has grown into an organization which sends thousands of followers out each year throughout the United States and other nations as ambassadors to advance its cause. Especially since 1968, its growth has accelerated greatly.

4. View of God←⤒🔗

This is similar to the ancient Arian heresy. The Way rejects the doctrine of the Trinity (that there is one supreme Being consisting of three distinct Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Rather, the supreme Being of God is believed to consist of only one Person. God is called Father in relation to His creation of Jesus Christ in a unique way. He is called Holy Spirit when He is viewed as the Giver of holy spirit, which is "impersonal power from on high." So The Way's view of God is a form of Unitarianism.

5. View of Man & Sin←⤒🔗

Prehistoric man is believed to have existed during the time of a first earth. This first earth may have lasted for trillions of years before it "became without form and void." The creation of man as we know him took place after the second earth was brought into being. Man was then created as a tripartite being or creature. God formed man's body, made his soul, and created his spirit.

Man sinned by choosing to let his bodily senses rule his mind instead of receiving divine communications and being ruled by the spirit within him. As a result man lost his spirit and reverted to being only a body and soul creature. By so doing, Adam transferred his legal rights to rule the world to Satan. He also suffered the loss of fellowship with God which can only take place through the spirit which he lost when he sinned. Sin, therefore, consists mainly of choosing the wrong option and thereby forfeiting legal rights and losing the ability to have fellowship with God.

6. View of Christ←⤒🔗

Jesus Christ is not God. This is one of the most emphatic assertions of The Way movement. He may be called "The Son of God" because of the special way in which God brought him into being. Prior to his conception and birth, Jesus only existed in the foreknowledge of God. To bring about his birth, God created the sperm and impregnated Mary with it by overshadowing her. Such overshadowing, Wierwille has stated, took place in much the same way a bull covers a cow to bring about conception.

Because Jesus had no human father through whose sperm sin is believed to be transmitted, he could remain sinless. Being sinless, he was a tripartite man with body, soul and spirit. Therefore, he could communicate with God through his spirit; and by means of his senses he could communicate with man what he had learned from God. In this way he could bring man to faith — to believing. Also as a sinless man with body, soul and spirit, he won back the legal rights needed for man's restoration.

So according to The Way, Jesus is a sinless man brought into existence by God. He is no more than a man. Yet he can be called Son of God because God created and implanted the sperm by means of which he was conceived.

7. View of Salvation←⤒🔗

Salvation involves restoration of legal rights which Adam forfeited to Satan. By shedding sinless blood, Jesus bought back these legal rights. In order to receive these legal rights on an individual basis, a person must act. He must believe and obey. Otherwise God's hands are tied and He can not save that person.

By confessing Jesus as Lord, and believing God raised him from the dead, God creates a new spirit in that person. So that person becomes a new creature having a body, soul and spirit. With this new spirit the believer can have fellowship with God.

It is choosing the right seed which determines whether a person will or will not believe and thus receive the new spirit. This freedom to choose God's seed or the devil's seed determines a person's destiny. Some people go all through life without ever making a choice. What becomes of them is not stated.

In Old Testament times, God adopted people to be His children because the seed was not available for them to choose. After Pentecost the seed was available and people become heirs of God by choosing the Father's seed. Thus they become children of God by birth rather than adoption.

To have fellowship with God, a believer must continually renew his mind. If this is not done, even though that person is saved, fellowship with God is lost and that person leads a defeated life. This is the category in which most non-Way Christians are thought to be living.

8. View of the Holy Spirit←⤒🔗

The Holy Spirit is another designation for God. He is not believed to be another Person in the Godhead, but only is a different name for God which is used when God is viewed as the Giver of holy spirit. This gift of holy spirit is impersonal power from on high. For spiritual growth to take place, a believer must manifest holy spirit. This is done by speaking in tongues. By speaking in tongues, which any believer can do, the spirit is edified, true worship takes place, and unselfish prayer is offered. By praying to receive holy spirit, and then moving the lips, tongue and throat so as to make sounds and form words, the Holy Spirit (God) will give the utterance. This is, therefore, a mechanical process. It is a deep-breathing exercise which initiates the manifestation of holy spirit.

9. View of the Church and Sacraments←⤒🔗

The Way has formulated a peculiar form of dispensationalism which ties in with its view of two different kinds of children of God — by adoption (pre-Pentecost) and by birth (post-Pentecost). Pre-Pentecost, adopted children of God, belonged to the Bride of Christ. This is a church held in abeyance during the present dispensation of Grace. During the Age of Grace, from Pentecost on, both Jews and Gentiles who believe belong to the Body of Christ.

Bride of Christ (adopted) believers are people without spirits. They have only souls and bodies because spirit was not yet available when they were adopted to be God's children. After Pentecost, when holy spirit became available, believers became members of a different Church called the Body of Christ. The Church of the Body comes to expression in the supervised meetings in private homes which are supervised by a pastor or head elder. Unneeded possessions are to be turned over to the Church for the work of ministry. Private opinions are forbidden in the Church of the Body. No one may differ from the primary spiritual leader, Victor Paul Wierwille, who is looked upon as the modern day apostle.

Water baptism is not for members of the Body of Christ. It was only for members of the Bride of Christ. On Pentecost, baptism with holy spirit replaced water baptism which belonged to the dispensation of Law.

In the Lord's Supper, the two elements have different purposes. One is for physical welfare, the other for spiritual welfare. By way of the cup, a believer receives remission and/or forgiveness of sins. Partaking of the bread brings about physical healing. If a believer ingests the bread believingly, he need never be sick. This is exercising one of the believer's legal rights.

10. View of the Hereafter←⤒🔗

When a Christian dies, he goes to hades, to gravedom. The belief that a believer's soul goes to heaven to be with Christ when his body dies is declared an erroneous doctrine inspired by Satan. The time from death to resurrection is a time of great void for the believer. Nothing significant happens to him before the return of Christ.

The return (parousia) of Christ is in two stages. The first part is the gathering together in which Christ comes for his Church of the Body. He then raises all body, soul and spirit (tripartite) believers with incorruptible bodies, and believers still living put on immortality. In the second part of the parousia, Christ comes with his Church of the Body. When this happens, then pre-Pentecost (body and soul only) believers are raised. Sometime later unbelievers are also raised. This happens during the apokalupsis (apocalypse). This resurrection of unbelievers is only temporary. They will later meet a second and final death. What happens to unbelievers between the apocalypse (when they are raised) and the time of their second death is not spelled out. Nor does The Way, as yet, seem to have dealt with the question of what happens to those who never make a choice as to whether to be born of the Father's seed, or of the devil's seed. There are, therefore, gaps in The Way's teachings on the last things (eschatology).

Conclusion←⤒🔗

From a careful study of the teachings of The Way International it can be seen that its views are derived from old heresies and from peculiar twists given to current fundamental, dispensational and pre-millennial teachings. There is even a touch of Calvinism which has also been perverted. As a whole, it adds up to a man-made, do-it-yourself religion. Its most dangerous aspects are the denial of the true Being of God (rejecting the Trinity) and degrading of the Lord Jesus Christ (claiming that he is not God). It also disparages and changes many of the Biblical concepts of salvation held by Christians everywhere. It constitutes a real danger to those whose knowledge of the Bible is superficial, as well as for those whose relationship to the organized Church is strained.

Those who feel drawn to The Way movement, whose founder arbitrarily changes or explains away basic passages and teachings of the Bible itself, do well to be aware of the warning found in Revelation 22:18, 19:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and of the holy city, which are described in this book.New International Version

Wierwille's Way of salvation is based on freely adding to and arbitrarily taking away from Scripture. All sincere Christians ought to be aware of this and be on their guard against accepting the views of such a man. Like the Bereans of the first century, Christians should examine the Scriptures every day "...to see if what Paul said was true..." (Acts 17:11b). If they do this, they will find that much of what Victor Paul (Wierwille) says is not true.