April 18, 1997

Dear John Wegter,

I have read with keen interest your contributions to the ex2&2 internet list and appreciate your willingness to forego anonymity.

My relatives are the Abenroth, Goetzinger and Pieper families who professed in the 1920's in NW North Dakota and NE Montana -- Dagmar Convention country. I grew up in a heartily professing circle of family and relatives in Montana, North Dakota and Washington. I spent 10 years in the in the work in Washington from 1961 to 1970, during the tenure of overseers Malcolm Graham and Tharold Sylvester. The last three of those years I was responsible for convention preps at Milltown, Washington. Diane Dahlin and I were married in 1973, and in 1973-74 visited friends and workers for three months in Hawaii, Guam, Ponape, Viet Nam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. We lived in Phoenix from 1973 through 1975, and moved to Walla Walla, Washington where we had meeting and the eldership in our home for about the last 12 or 13 of those years until we left the system of the workers and friends in May, 1995.

I give this short synopsis merely to indicate that the doctrine and workings of the system as been my life. Diane, my wife, had a similar upbringing. She was not in the work, but has two worker sisters, Bonnie Dahlin and Willa Dahlin, the latter no longer in the work.

Because of our history I want to convey two principal themes to you.

First, you are the only worker I have ever heard of who has made an attempt at open, public dialogue with dissenting parties, in a written format. I am very glad for your willingness to do this. It is my hope that your example may cause the overseers of various areas to also commit their doctrinal views to writing. In my view, this would promote accountability and meaningful dialogue and would prevent so much misunderstanding. We know Paul of old identified himself with his writing, including the profound, doctrinal document we know as the Epistle to the Romans.

If, (in promoting the deity of Jesus, the Trinity of God, justification through grace alone, and the true William Irvine origin of the group), in the presence of the older overseeing workers, you have actually been as vocal as your letters seem to suggest, then I am considerably amazed that you have not been censored by the older overseers, particularly those in the westernmost USA and Canada. If this new openness is occurring here in the Pacific Northwest it has all happened in just the last two years since we left the system. In fact, it was just a year ago at Manhattan, MT convention that Dan Hilton, who is currently the worker in the Walla Walla field, declared from the platform, "Beware of the devilish doctrine of theTrinity." I wonder if it is possible that those workers who cleave to the old anti-trinitarian, "from-the-beginning", legalistic teachings of the group will be gradually ignored into isolation and irrelevance.

I would ask you to remember, however, that regardless of whatever degree of openness and acceptance you have been experiencing from the overseeing workers you have mingled with over the years and especially recently, what I have heard from responsible brother workers on convention and special meeting platforms (with two exceptions which I will mention later) has opposed the Trinitarian view, trivialized the principle of salvation through grace alone, has completely avoided any mention of the meaning and ground of justification, and has promoted the "from the beginning" legend. I am in touch with other ex-workers and ex-friends who tell me their experience is similar to mine. Therefore, while you have stated, "...I still do not see where there has been a cover-up," just remember that while this statement reflects your experience it does not reflect the experience of many others of us.

The second theme I want to address is an issue I consider of great importance -- the definition of terms. Two parties cannot communicate effectively unless the key words they use have the same definitions for both parties. I am therefore concerned about how we define such terms as grace, justification, gospel, "preaching of the cross", sanctification, imputed righteousness, way, truth, and others. In this letter I will say a little of what is on my mind about grace.

You have read and heard often the assertion that the workers and friends either do not believe or do not teach that salvation is by grace without works. You have said this assertion is false.

I would suggest that the basis of this disagreement is that two different concepts of grace are involved.

Please tell me if your concept of grace is the same as mine. To start with,I agree with the popular understanding that grace is unmerited favor. My concept of grace also allows no group of people to claim that they alone are the recipients of grace. In other words, grace and exclusivity are incompatible. Why do I think this? Grace originates with God, who dispenses it at His sole discretion as a free gift. On the other hand exclusivity by definition sets conditions which in effect restrict God's gift to only those persons who meet these conditions. In the workers/friends system these conditions, which taken together are unique to the system, are belief in the two and two ministry and belief in the church in the home. These conditions, though often propagated by implication and brief mention in sermons and testimonies, are just as real as if they were shouted from the housetops.

In your email forwarded from Kelley Gary on 4-6-97 is the statement, "'The church in the home' and 'the two and two ministry' are often quoted by our opponents as our principal teachings, with everything else being neglected. It is true that these are elements of our teachings, but in over twenty hours of recent special meetings, these teachings occupied a few minutes at best, with great emphasis being placed on Christ's love, His sacrifice, His divinity, and many aspects of what it means to walk in personal fellowship with Him."

My experience confirms your assertion that teaching "the church in the home" and "the two and two ministry" consumes only a tiny percentage of the actual teaching time of the workers. I have never claimed otherwise. I would not say that "everything else" is neglected.

I would not characterize the "church in the home" and "two and two ministry" as being the "principal" elements in the teachings of the system. The word "principal" may erroneously imply that these two elements occupy a large percentage of the teaching time. Rather, I would characterize these two elements as the "unique" teachings of the system. They are the two elements which, if discarded would destroy the system and would eradicate it's current identity as an exclusive religious movement or group. None of the other teachings of the group, as far as I can recall, are unique to the group. Pick any of the other doctrines taught by the group and I think we can find some or many other small sects or major denominations which teach the same thing. Therefore, the exclusivity of the group is based not on the many teachings which occupy the bulk of it's time and effort, but rather on the two unique elements which are subtly implied and briefly taught, yet are held by the group to be essential, and even indispensable.

In my opinion, since these two elements have the force of law in the group, they stand in contradiction to the definition of grace seen in the context of Rom. 11:6, "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." The principle made clear in this verse is that the basis for justification/salvation is either all grace or all works. Thus,if we imagine grace is to be supplemented with any merit on man's part, then it is not grace.

I know that many workers and friends have superficially stated that we are saved by grace, not works. They think of works as conformity to a Godly code of morality and the Mosaic law. They do not necessarily think of the meeting in the home and the two and two ministry as coming under the classification of works. In the context of justification/salvation there are only two categories of activity. They are grace (God's elective activity and gifts) and works (man's behavior and activity). I would then ask in which category do the two unique elements, meeting in the home and the two and two ministry fall? I think it is obvious these two elements fall under the category of works.

A few paragraphs earlier I mentioned two exceptions to the normal preaching. The two workers I refer to are Robert Darling and Tharold Sylvester.

In about 1967 or 1968 I heard Robert Darling speak at Silverdale, British Columbia Convention. He mentioned William Irvine. One of Robert Darling's texts was Daniel 2: 34, 35 & 45, particularly about the stone "cut out of the mountain without hands," which "filled the whole earth." Do you know who the stone was? Grab hold of your chair! It was William Irvine's sister! She became very ill and died. According to Robert, she supposedly had a dream which she related to William, which deeply stirred him and in some manner supposedly influenced him religiously from then on. Robert Darling's main thesis was this: instead of crediting William Irvine with starting this fellowship we can credit his sister whom God took in death before William Irvine ever started preaching, thus avoiding any accusation that this fellowship is man-made. His sister is therefore "the stone made without hands". I was so shocked by all of this that I arranged a visit with Robert Darling at Olympia Convention grounds a week or two later to confirm that William Irvine was the first worker. He affirmed so.

In about 1985 Tharold, at Richland, Washington Special Meeting mentioned a book called "The Secret Sect", much to my surprise. (I did not actually read the book until about 1993, because of the dire warnings I had heard about it). Obviously his intent was to respond to this book. However, the arguments he used actually corroborated the basic evidence supplied in that book. He did not try to refute the evidence in the book which shows that our fellowship had its beginning with William Irvine. Instead, Tharold's discourse was directed toward claiming a scriptural precedent for William Irvine being what Tharold called "the first fruits of faith" in our day. He spoke of Abraham and Sarah and Zacharias and Elizabeth, claiming that they were "the first fruits of faith" in their day. In effect what Tharold accomplished, perhaps unwittingly, was to refute one false teaching (the teaching that the workers/friends fellowship has existed continuously since the time of Christ) by presenting a second false teaching (the teaching that William Irvine was "the first ruits of faith" in our day and that he was used by God to start the only right way of salvation in our modern world).

It is notable that in the above instances neither Robert Darling nor Tharold Sylvester employed a direct and clear teaching methodology. They used allegory and implication, with the result being that no friends or workers ever commented to me about either incident. I commented to a few about it, but the response I received made me conclude that the significance of both men's pronouncements did not register with most of the folks. There may have been a few like myself who did grasp the implications of those discourses, but who had been so propagandized by the "continuous succession" idea and the "from the beginning" dogma that we were too fearful to ask questions of such powerful men as Tharold, Howard Mooney, Ernest Nelson, or Eldon Tenniswood. Asking questions was in itself considered to be a sign of arrogance and unwillingness. I had spent parts of two years as Malcolm Graham's companion, a man whom I admired in many ways, but whom I often heard express the same sentiment he is on record as having stated from the platform of the 1962 San Diego Convention: "Curiosity has brought lots of suffering. Some people are more concerned about satisfying their curiosity than in building up their spirituality. Sometimes when we go into homes we find people who are anxious to know more about the truth of God, and they ask questions to build them up. There are others who ask questions that have no bearing on their spirituality. God knows the motives that prompt us to do everything we do, and there are no secrets with Him." It was my observation that Malcolm did not tolerate from people any questions which he did not care to answer. I heard a woman once ask him, "Malcolm, why is it that whenever I ask you a question you always answer with a question?"Malcolm replied, "Do I?"

In closing, I would like to express the sense of new liberty and spirituality our family has found in no longer being afraid to ask questions and to study the Bible without trying to filter it through the confines of the worker/friends teachings. I would encourage all of our old friends to ask God for his love and courage to ignore the built-in fear of the system which has been instilled in so many. Rather, as one of our former hymns says, let us "Cease not to worship the Father, and Son, the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." [#239 Hymns Old and New, 1951 book]

I will welcome further messages from you and other workers and friends, even if only on the internet list. I know your life is very busy. Thank you for the time you have already spent in communicating.

Sincerely,

Paul Abenroth

(509) 529-2613