The truth about "The Truth"

I grew up in one of the Protestant Christian sects that formed around the turn of the previous century.

We called it "The Truth." It's not as freaky as it sounds if one accepts other religions. But it's reasonably freaky, even in that context.

A Scottish man named William Irvine started the church in the late 1890's in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

When I was growing up, my family did not know this fact. This deficit, indeed — typical of members during those years — helps to explain the incredible subtle power of this tiny, secretive evangelistic religion.

I only learned in the early 90's, when I was in my late 20's, that this church even had a terrestrial history.

William Irvine had been kicked out of his own church. People stopped talking to him. Then they stopped talking about him.

Then we had ourselves a real old-fashioned always-been-here kind of religion. Well, the only one, according to what we believed.

One truly odd and incomprehensible fact is that in the early second decade of the 21st century the congregation appears to be unswayed by twenty years of widespread (or at least easily-accessible) knowledge of the church's founding. They — those who haven't left in search of the "real Jesus" — appear to be standing ground as the only true path to God and eternal life.

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