THE WAY INTERNATIONAL

The Way is a worldwide, nondenominational Biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry headquartered in rural Ohio.

CENTRAL TEACHING

The Way is a practical teaching ministry concerned with teaching people how to transform their lives from negative and fear filled to positive and joyous.

FOUNDER

The founder is Victor Paul Wierwille. His belief is that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God and Messiah but not a persona of the Christian God or a pre-existent being.

History

On October 3, 1942, Victor Paul Wierwille, an Evangelical and Reformed Church pastor, began a live radio program dubbed "Vesper Chimes." In October 1953, Wierwille began teaching his first class, called "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today", which he based on a series he attended earlier that year in Calgary, Alberta.

Wierwille incorporated under the name "The Way" in 1955, and resigned employment in the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1957.

THERE IS SOME DOCTRINES WHEREIN THEY DIFFER FROM MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY:

Untitled Slide

• Rejection of the Trinity: Unlike God, Jesus is not omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent.
• Jesus did not exist before his birth except in the foreknowledge of God; at his birth, God created the sperm to fertilize Mary's ovum, and is the literal father of Jesus.
• There are nine manifestations of the holy spirit and every born again Christian can inherently operate all nine.

Untitled Slide

• There were four people crucified with Jesus, (on a Wednesday) rejecting the standard interpretation which holds that there were two.
• The dead do not immediately go to heaven or hell, rather death is a continuing state which will end at the tribulation.
• Once a person is born again, they receive holy spirit and cannot lose it through any sinful acts.

IS THE WAY INTERNATIONAL A CULT?

The Way International was founded in 1942 by Victor Paul Wierwille as a radio program, then was renamed the Chimes Hour Youth Caravan in 1947. The name became “The Way” in 1955, no doubt a reference to Jesus’ statement that He is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). In spite of its name, however, The Way International is not a Christian denomination. By all rational tests, it fits the definition of a cult.

Salvation

Rather than emphasizing salvation through faith in Christ, Wierwille artificially separated “faith” from “believing.” He taught a very mechanical view of faith in Christ – a mere intellectual or mental assent to biblical, historical facts.

He also redefined repentance as just confession and belief. Thus, salvation does not involve repentance of sins but only doing “the will of God.”15 Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Way also teaches that the soul is the body’s life force which is in the blood and that the dead cease to exist.

Biblical response

While much of the Way’s theology contains serious errors and deviations from traditional evangelical beliefs, of greatest concern is their denial of the Trinity doctrine through their rejection of the deity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit.