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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 lost its history because its people stopped talking about the founder; and without a history the people believed that there had been no founder. We had always existed.
A Scottish tent preacher named William Irvine invented The Truth in Northern 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. Whether it was the grandeur of his evolving delusion or his time with a woman, William Irvine became persona non grata.
Without discussion and then without awareness of its founder, the church developed a fundamental mythology about its divine origin.
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.