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Willie Jamieson (center,) and William Irvine (right.) Jamieson was a senior "worker." Irvine was and is a suppressed memory. |
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A small church stopped talking about its founder. It's people came to believe that there had been no founder. Without a history, it became the church that had always existed, in the minds of believers.
A Scottish tent preacher named William Irvine invented The Truth in Ireland around 1897. It was the original Way, he said - the one true church established by Jesus, who represented God the creator and ruler of the universe.
After a few years, Irvine fell out of favor within the organization. Whether it was the grandeur of his evolving delusion or his time with a woman, William Irvine became persona non grata. The church people stopped talking to him, and about him.
Without awareness of its founder, the church quickly developed a divine-origin mythology.
By the late 20th century, "The Truth" had become the one true way, a nameless Biblical church without origin. It was, in the teaching, the church that Jesus had established as told in the Bible.
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The Australian writers Doug and Helen Parker showed Irvine's historical role in the church in their book Secret Sect, 1982. Other books deriviative of this work were dispersed about a decade later in the US. This information had no notable effect on the church.
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In 2024, a regional overseer named Dean Bruer died with criminal material on his laptop and phone. Church leadership tried to suppress the evidence but was not able. The development opened a discussion that has involved many child sexual abuse allegations and a decline in membership.