The Way International / Victor Paul Wierwille

The Way International was founded in 1942 in New Knoxville, Ohio by Victor Paul Wierwille (1916–1985), an Evangelical and Reformed Church minister who claimed direct revelation from God in 1942 instructing him to teach 'the Word as it has not been known since the first century.' The organisation initially operated as a small Bible-research ministry and grew dramatically in the 1960s-1970s through the Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) class — a multi-week introductory course teaching Wierwille's distinctive biblical interpretation. By the late 1970s the organisation operated the Way College in Emporia, Kansas; the Way College of Emporia branch in Indiana; the Way Productions ministry-of-the-air radio operation; and Word-Over-the-World (WOW) ambassador-teams of young members sent on mission for one-to-two-year terms.

Distinctive doctrines include: (1) anti-Trinitarianism: Wierwille taught Jesus Christ was the son of God but not God Himself, drawing on Greek and Aramaic textual analysis; (2) the Word-of-Knowledge / speaking-in-tongues / interpretation triad as evidence of holy-spirit presence; (3) biblical inerrancy in the 'received text' (Stephanus 1550 / Aramaic Peshitta) tradition; (4) Wierwille as 'the man of God for this hour' uniquely commissioned to restore lost first-century apostolic Christianity.

Documented coercive-control patterns include: (a) the PFAL course's intensive 36-hour multi-day instructional format with documented thought-reform characteristics (Lifton's eight criteria substantially present); (b) Wierwille's documented sexual abuse of multiple female members, including (per the Captive Hearts, Captive Minds documentary 1994 and the academic Elena Whiteside material) abuse beginning in the 1960s and continuing until Wierwille's death in 1985; (c) total identity-replacement during WOW ambassador years; (d) financial extraction via expected 10%+ of gross income tithing ('abundant sharing') plus class fees; (e) severance from non-Way family members documented in 1970s-80s deprogramming-era literature including Margaret Singer's clinical case files.

Wierwille died in May 1985. Internal leadership disputes erupted immediately. Successor L Craig Martindale (1985-2000) led through a violent leadership purge in 1989 — 'the Fog' — that produced a mass exit of perhaps half the organisation's membership and the splinter formation of approximately a dozen offshoot organisations (Christian Educational Services, The Living Word Fellowship, Christian Family Church, etc., already partly covered in the dataset). Martindale was forced out in 2000 following Linda and Paul Allen's civil suit alleging sexual abuse and racketeering; the case settled. Current leadership under Rosalie Rivenbark continues to operate the New Knoxville headquarters and the substantially reduced PFAL programme; estimated 10,000 active members.

The CLCI 32 (Extreme, lower boundary) reflects the documented Wierwille sexual abuse, the post-1989 'Fog' leadership-purge pattern, the continuing high-control PFAL course methodology, and the substantial 1970s-2020s exit-literature documenting severance, financial extraction, and identity-replacement patterns. The Way International is one of the canonical 1970s-80s high-control Bible-based groups of the cult-studies field and is referenced extensively in Singer, Hassan, Lifton, and Lalich's foundational work.