Note: This article on resistance to change was written by a long-serving WINGS admin. and originally published at https://mindmuser.wordpress.com/2024/10/06/why-the-fw-fellowship-struggles-to-change-for-the-good/
This article is of primary interest to current and former members of the church known as “The Truth”, “2×2’s, “The Fellowship” etc. There are various names because there is no official adoption of a name.
Readers who are familiar with this group will also be aware of the cataclysmic events of 2023. It started in March with the revelation that a senior, highly respected top leader was found (post mortem) to have engaged in a sordid secret life of sexual activity, some of it allegedly criminal. This rocked everyone who heard it, and led to a chain reaction of survivors of child sexual abuse and other abuses bravely stepping up to reveal a systemic problem of widespread abuse.
As reports kept coming in, mostly to a newly formed group called Advocates for the Truth (AFTT) https://www.advocatesforthetruth.com/ headed up by ex-members, one of whom is a professional investigator. The numbers of alleged perpetrators are staggering, considering the relatively small number base across the world (well under 100,000 today and shrinking quickly over the last 1 1/2 years). It is estimated that the rate of offenses in this group is significantly higher than other established church groups, and somewhere around 3-4X the rate of the Roman Catholic Church. There are many reasons why abuse is worse in this group but that is another large subject.
As an early board member in 2009 of a group called WINGS for Truth https://wingsfortruth.info/ which advocates for child protection standards as well as working to support survivors, educate, and raise awareness, I wasn’t shocked at these events and revelations. We already knew that this was a huge systemic problem and as a group, we put in countless hours to raise awareness and offer solutions. While I wasn’t shocked, I did register some surprise that the problem is somewhat bigger than what I expected.
Reports resulted in the fall of many leaders, some at the top of regions, others were senior well known leaders both in the ministry group and in the congregant group. Almost all alleged criminals and abusers were men, but there were a small number of women. Many of them were connected at the senior level, enough to raise suspicion that there was an active conspiracy to advance child sexual abuse (CSA), sexual abuse (SA) and other abuses.
While it is doubtful that there was a formal sex ring but what is almost certain is that there was(is) a lot of “I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me”. Secrecy and cover-up is embedded in the culture of this group and this is normal practice everywhere at all levels. I won’t explain how I see the way this culture developed as it is out of the scope of this article, and it is a subject with a lot of detail. Needless to say, transparency and accountability is foreign to this group and strongly resisted.
Then, the media picked up on this. A couple of smaller media outlets produced articles. Then the BBC (UK) published a well written article on it with a case study and the credibility of the issue soared. Major stories by the CBC (Canada) came out and was on The National, their national TV broadcast. ABC (US) did a piece on it. There have been many other publications by the media in North America, New Zealand and Australia with more to come.
All of this resulted in the establishment of a US-wide FBI investigation with a call to receive reports. https://forms.fbi.gov/2×2 The FBI is taking reports from around the world and will share with their partners in other countries.
In 2023, we observed a wide variety of responses from the upper leadership. It was a spectrum from trying to evade the subject completely, to perfunctory response, to minimal effort to reform, to some very good work headed up by two top leaders in the US. The latter two were supported by professionals in developing child safety guidelines and some excellent work was the result.
It was our hope that these two regions would lead the way to enacting child safety practices, from which other regions would follow. By December 2023, it was all rejected by the leadership everywhere in North America. The leadership then took a defensive posture of even more opaqueness than ever, presumably waiting for the storm to blow over and things could get back to the way they were. Somehow, in spite of all the light shone on this, the forces of darkness prevailed. How can that be?
The reasons why all the revelations and efforts to reform changed nothing and became even more regressive is related to two things: one is the patriarchal structure of the group, and the other is certain unique doctrines that are deeply held by most members.
Here is the organizational structure:
The Ministry:
Male overseer, male minister, female minister
The Laity:
Male elder, male deacon, male member, female member
Sexual abuse practices and crimes are vastly dominated by males, so such a deeply patriarchal system is inherently conducive to the perpetuation of these crimes. After I touch on the doctrinal issues, I will circle back to this structure and explain how the resistance to change actually works.
The main doctrinal item that is not only the root cause of many problems in this group but also the main factor in resistance to change is the “exclusivity doctrine”. That is, only people who meet and become approved by this ministry group are saved and will go to heaven. Most readers will recognize that a doctrine like this is a huge tool for potential abuse on members, but I want to explain how it is also a barrier to change.
Among the most fervent believers in this group, mostly the ministry group and a large minority of the laity, will do almost anything to protect the delusion that they are the only saved people in the world and that the group must be protected at all costs. When this becomes the main priority of the core of the group, then virtues such as compassion, justice, truth, humility and others become at best secondary, and often discarded to protect the system and structure. Any change threatens the core belief so it is deeply resisted.
One other belief that causes resistance to reform is that this group started out in 1897 as a very loose, “spirit led” group with little organization and little interest in money. It is a fascinating history best recorded by the meticulous owner of the website Telling The Truth: https://www.tellingthetruth.info/home/ .“No organization, no money” became a deeply held tenet, and a matter of righteous pride.
In spite of the fact that the group became more and more organized and more money oriented, the core believers today still adhere strongly that “we are not an organization like all the ‘false’ churches”. Any document, no matter how sound or professionally produced, is anathema to this core group as it smacks of organization to them and makes them too much like the “false” churches. It attacks their core beliefs.
Now back to the organization. The ministry and the laity have a sort of symbiotic relationship. The ministry approves the laity for admission to the fellowship and effectively, heaven. The laity in turn provides the accommodations and money for the ministry to do its activities. When the progressive members seeking child safety guidelines were rejected, it wasn’t a matter of the sole rejection by the ministry leadership. There is a significant hardcore of members and elders who rejected the efforts to keep children safe. Evidence suggests that they applied enormous pressure on the ministry group to reject reform. These members are the ones who, even if all the progressive members left, would keep the ministry in operation. So rejection became an existential matter for the ministry. Hence the rejection of changes that would help keep children safe.
The end result of this is that no changes are visible as far off into the future that we can project. The conditions for a high probability of abuse remain firmly in place, perhaps even worse than before.
My main hope now is that our efforts to educate and raise awareness will inform parents to be very vigilant and alert to grooming practices that so often lead to catastrophic abuses that destroy vulnerable children. Parents, please be informed and teach your children.
Bruce Murdoch
WINGS Board Member
October 7, 2024