Controversy FAQ Interview Question 33

Why is there defamatory material against you written on the internet?

Why is there defamatory material written about Billy Graham, Campus Crusade, or anybody else? Some people don't like us. We have had some bumps in the road, like any organization. As to the broader issue, why is there information about us on the internet? It's there because we live in a country that honors free speech, even when the speech is questionable or even when the speech is wrong or inaccurate. That is one of the fundamental premises of the culture in which we live. Further, our work is an interruption to the normal cultural drift. Our work is not designed to support the maintenance of status quo; it's designed to generate radical growth, and as CS Lewis says, anything that's designed to produce transformation must in some way take on the nature of doing violence. The nature of any culture is to knock down anything that goes against the standard drift of the culture. Look at Jesus…they killed him! It's not only true with us, it's true with others. If we're making a radical difference in the culture and introducing people into an experience of God and others that's far beyond the normal despair and resignation that people live in, that generates resistance in the culture. Jesus made a big difference and they killed him for that, so there is precedent for this kind of reaction.

As to the specifics of the original defamatory material on the internet, John Jeudes, who writes about us in his site, is an ex-The Way guy, and he sought out people who did the training who had been affiliated with The Way. He developed his accusations and misinformation from those relationships. He sought out about six to ten people from The Way that were dissatisfied, angry, didn't get what they wanted, and publicized their testimonies on the web. Then other organizations picked up and used that as research.

But even on the internet, it would be a challenge to find testimonies that are negative. There's less than ten people on the internet that we've found, and there's no information that is less than ten years old in regards to training participants being upset with us. The information is all old, it's from less than ten people, and those are the source of the defamatory internet content.

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