Hush Patrol (an excerpt)

Below is an excerpt from Part Three of my Way story.
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From the latter 1980s through the 1990s The Way became more and more controlling, step by step meddling deeper and deeper into followers' personal lives. This widespread progressive micromanagement - especially regarding time, personal finances, commitment and obedience to the Ministry, and shunning those who left - was due mainly to control tactics and doctrines gradually instigated during L. Craig Martindale's tenure as the second president of The Way, a position he held from 1982 until 2000.

Toward the latter part of 1999 micromanaging and verbal abuse in The Way were relaxed. Yes, the reigns were loosened. But the emotional, psychological, spiritual, verbal, and financial abuses were never adequately discussed or addressed. It was as if they never occurred. I'm not alone when I say there was an air of hush making these abuses taboo to discuss. We were to heed the exhortation of Philippians 3:13 in the Bible; that is, to "forget the past, declaring it null and void." For years after leaving The Way that hush bothered me, especially that I had allowed myself to succumb to the muzzle.

Within a few months of the loosened grip, Martindale resigned as President after his public admission to Way believers that he had been involved in a "consensual affair" and due to a legal suit regarding (in part) sexual harassment. (That suit was later settled out of court.) Within a year or so of Martindale's confession and dismissal, he quietly disappeared from The Way, out of sight to the faithful. Questions were discouraged which was standard when anyone departed - an uneasy silence with a pretense that nothing had happened and all was okay. (Click here to read a memoir piece about an incident depicting one way that The Way manipulated the hush regarding Martindale.)

From 2000 onward The Way became stagnant. I have described my last few years with The Way as "a flat tortilla shell with no substance."

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Around 2004 my husband and I read online that the "affair" Martindale had confessed to followers in 2000 was not consensual nor an affair. It was clergy sexual abuse, and there were multiple sexual encounters with different followers. After I left in 2005 we learned that other top leaders had been aware of or involved with the abuse of authority in regard to sex. We later learned that it had been rampant among the inner circle of top leaders. Yet, Martindale took the full brunt of the fall while some of those other top leaders stayed or rose in their positions. (Click here to read a memoir piece recording some of my thoughts and feelings when I first began to learn about the Way's dark underbelly.)

As of 2005, outside of Martindale's so-called "consensual affair," most loyal followers were unaware of the many illicit sexual allegations involving other top leaders including the founder, Victor Paul Wierwille, who died in 1985. My husband and I had been unaware of the many. We had previously heard of some, but not the many. And we had greatly doubted the some. Until after I left, we were unaware of the number of abortions women in The Way had received.

If followers heard the sexual allegations, we dismissed them as lies or rumors or innuendo directed by the adversary - that is the devil, the accuser of the brethren - and spread by people who were influenced by or possessed with devil spirits. Beginning in the late 1990s followers were charged to stay off any sites on the internet that were critical of The Way. Fear of becoming possessed or influenced by devil spirits was one controlling factor. We had been well indoctrinated regarding the spiritual battle/competition and the devil-spirit realm; it had been Martindale's focal subject through the years of his presidency.

As of 2006 Way believers I had spoken with blamed solely Martindale, once highly respected and loved by followers, for The Way's 1999/2000 upheaval which led to losing more followers. From my viewpoint, top Way leaders used Martindale's fall as an opportunity to save their own faces in the eyes of followers. Martindale was their scapegoat, though he was also guilty. (Link: Why Didn't We Know About Leaders' Sexual Advances?)

Since 2000 Way leadership appears to have kept itself clean in regard to sexual abuses.

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Excerpt Series: Part Three of my Way story
1984 and onward: Loyalty ~ Exit ~ Aftermath ~ Life

Crossroads
Hush Patrol
The Deal Breaker
Aftermath
Post-exit

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In the excerpt above I mention Martindale's focus on, and Way believers' indoctrination regarding, devil spirits. Below is a Youtube compilation clip from Athletes of the Spirit, a mid-1980's dance production of The Way performed in The Word Over the World Auditorium (now named the Victor Paul Wierwille Prevailing Word Auditorium) at Way Headquarters in Ohio.

Athletes of the Spirit is an example of Martindale's fixation on the devil-spirit realm (not to mention an example of his arrogance and megalomania). In my opinion (since relinquishing Way beliefs), the devil-spirit doctrine served as a tool for information control, silencing, and to help keep believers in check.

The Youtube compilation contains scenes from the production that portray devil spirits and their influence on humanity, and devil spirits grooming a human (played by the woman dressed in red) to become "born of the seed of the serpent," that is of the devil. That seed implantation is depicted at 4 minutes, 55 seconds.

Martindale, not shown in this compilation clip, was Executive Producer of the production and was a lead dancer portraying the Minister who pastored and taught believers how to compete in the spiritual competition. I'm almost certain that everyone involved in making the production was a Way believer, and most likely Way Corps.

At the time of the production, Martindale and other leaders were continuing to abuse their positions of trust secretly engaging in rampant, illicit, sexual encounters with Way followers.





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Following are pictures from the 35-page, glossy-print program. It is a nice program; "nice" in that it is professional and complete. Mine still has the price tag on it - $1.00.

On page 34 is a letter from Martindale that ends in bold, italic, slightly larger print, "PS: Be ready for Athletes II!" But Athletes II never became. Instead, The Way began to crumble.

Front cover

Page 4

Scene synopsis. Page 11.

Martindale as the Minister. Page 15.

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