 | |
|
Willie Jamieson (center,) and William Irvine (right.) Jamieson was a senior "worker." Irvine was and is a suppressed memory. |
| |
| |
| |
|
A small church stopped talking about its founder. Soon, its people believed that there had been no founder and that the church had always existed. It all happened within a couple of generations.
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.
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. He went to Jerusalem to meet Jesus. People stopped talking to him, and then 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.
-
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.
-
In 2022, a regional overseer named Dean Bruer died with criminal material on his laptop and phone. Church leadership tried to suppress the evidence but were not able. The development opened a discussion that has involved many allegations of child sexual abuse and a decline in membership.