Jewish Community Warned to Beware of Campaign by a Culi Organization

The Task Force on Missionary Activity of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York is warning the Jewish community to beware of a new major campaign currently being launched by the cult group, The Way International.

The campaign, entitled, “Take A Stand Caravan – 1980,” was initiated in January by the group’s founder, Victor Paul Wierille. Their stated purpose, according to the Task Force, is to “Win new people for (their) Power For Abundant Living (PFAL) classes and sign up World Over World (WOW) ambassadors.”

According to Dr. Seymour Lachman, chairman of the Task Force, the group is reported to be virulently anti-Semitic. Some of the recommended reading suggested by the sect includes “The Myth of the Six Million,” and “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century,” both of which attempt to prove that the Holocaust never took place. “This is particularly frightening,” lachman stated, “in light of the fact that among the claimed 50,000 members, many are Jews.”

OPERATION OF GROUP DESCRIBED

Potential members are required to take the PFAL classes which, according to a former Way member, “mollify the mind, and prevent (students) from differentiating right from wrong.” According to the Task Force, these classes run at a cost of $200-$300 per course, and students who fail are encouraged to repeat these courses over and over again.

The Task Force added that members are required to give over their material possessions to The Way, while supporting themselves and paying for the mandatory high-priced classes through part-time work. Those individuals who suddenly Find themselves incapable of contributing to the cult are dropped and are often left with lasting psychological problems.

Wierille, a former minister of the United Church of Christ, is quoted by the Task Force as claiming that his is the “accurate version of Christianity, “while the other churches are misinformed. According to the group’s lawyer, Stephen Cea, the sect is involved primarily in Biblical research and that members teach, but do not recruit or program people. However according to John Desmond, a former Way follower, corps members, particularly those in the advanced classes, are taught that religious and political leaders not involved with The Way are demon-possessed.

The group, which has its headquarters in New Knoxville, Ohio, is not known to have any congregations or churches. However, according to an article in The New York Time on Jan. 21, the group does have a college in Emporia, Kansas. The article noted that the college reportedly enrolled its student body and faculty in marksmanship and weapons safety classes at Emporia’s National Guard. More than 500 people took the 10-hour course, using 22 caliber rifles. The group claimed these to be “merely hunters’ safety classes.”

The Times also reported that The Way maintains an armed police force at its headquarters, authorized by a judge under a 104-year-old state law providing for security at church gatherings. The group justifies this force as a way to “merely prevent vandalism of its property,” The Times reported.

SPREADING ANTI-SEMITIC VIEWS

The JCRC’s Task Force noted that though the sect was founded in 1942 by Wierille, it has just recently been brought to the attention of the Jewish public. A spokeswoman for the Task Force attributed this to the fact that the group is now touring college campuses, spreading their anti-Semitic views to the general public. A case in point was an incident at the University of California in Berkeley, where two students were thrown out of one of The Way’s “Weekend in the World” meetings because they wanted to set up a table to show the Jewish view of the Holocaust.

This year’s Way campaign has already appeared in Trenton, New Jersey, and White Plains, New York. The group appeared in Syracuse, New York yesterday and is due in Buffalo, New York today. The Task Force is urging all organizations, youth groups, rabbis, and Jewish community councils to alert their respective members to the dangers — psychological, religious, physical and financial — passed by this cultist group.