About WOW!

David M. Wasmundt
            

Word on Wings publications and ministries was born of my personal necessity to deal with some areas of spiritual abuse within both independent and denominational religious circles.  After thirty years of ministry as a senior pastor, I began to have a spiritual epiphany of the doctrine of grace that try as I may, I could not reconcile with what I was increasingly seeing and hearing within the circle of my religious affiliation.  It seemed to me that many religious groups had begun to slowly replace the weekly distribution of foundational Biblical guidance with injections of their own denominational dogmas and sectarian traditions.  In some cases, these traditions become a point of fellowship as well as a source of spiritual abuse and exploitation. 

I personally know how much pain can evolve and how difficult it is to escape the control of a manipulative, well oiled and synchronized religious organization.  The negative effects of spiritual abuse can be devastating and life altering. My exit from a committed life-time investment in organized religion began in the fall of 1992 when the church I was raised in, The United Pentecostal Church International, decided to require its ministers to sign a pledge that they would not only teach, but believe certain ambiguous traditions that had evolved within the church.  For example, according to their denominational rules, women were to be prevented from using make up, wearing women's pants or cutting their hair.  These Biblically bare rules were slowly elevated to salvaic as well as membership requirements in a somewhat cultish attempt to establish more control and unanimity over its members.  I had observed the damage that this paradigm had created in various churches through the years and would not sign such a statement of affirmation. It was clear to me that the group that I had associated with for over forty years may have finally stepped over the line from their inception statement of faith, latitude and unity into the erroneous confines of a skin-outward focus and a mind inward censorship.    

Some time during this process, I decided to set aside denominational books and study directly from the Bible with regard to these and other issues. I was surprised at the lack of scriptural support for what I termed "Hairsplitting Theologies," and began to document my findings. The culmination of that spiritual odyssey was what became my first book "Neo-Phariseeism- An Inside Look At Hairsplitting Theologies." I initially wrote what I believed to be a book possibly for my local congregation and a few friends. I had no idea that the book was destined to reach beyond my church and even the UPCI into other denominations and regions of the world.

Without the usual marketing advantages, the book has been reprinted six times and translated into three foreign languages and continues to attract thousands of people that are searching for relief from the unnecessary yokes of religious tradition. Using scripture, history and personal experience, I attempted to chronicle the evolution of various non-salvaic prescripts and rules, some of which may have had some relevance years ago, but today are causing emotional abuse in the lives of many including an increasing number of young people who are conflicted about religious prohibitions that are well beyond the teachings of the main stream evangelical Christian community.  Most estimates put over eighty per cent of young people leaving groups such as the UPCI, as they are unable to reconcile the matrix of present day church traditions and doctrines with Biblical support. In time, I also discovered that similar traditions and attitudes were not restricted to the UPCI alone but are firmly ensconced in portions of Christianity.  

It should be understood that I am not speaking of those within the Christian community that appear to have "thrown the baby out with the bath water" in their quest to oppose and undermine basic Christian principles of morality, including the sanctity of life and the institution of marriage with their support of social liberalism which is equally destructive and non-Biblical.  The abuse I speak of is the same variety distributed by the Pharisees as recorded in Matthew, chapters fifteen and twenty three.  These chapters clearly reveal that the Pharisees were guilty of adding their own unnecessary preferences in addition to the protective laws and principles of God that govern the universe.  Today it is the same.  By legislating non-relevant and non-Biblical doctrines for the sake of preserving historical observances within religious denominations, many members eventually become disillusioned and their faith is hindered even though they continue because of fear.  Then there are the lost and untold people who never even attempt to scale the high walls that men and religion have erected simply because these non-gospel walls smacks of religious incoherence to them instead of the gospel that Jesus proclaimed would focus on God centered good news.   

And so many Christian believers are confronting the fact that through the years, many of these man-instituted "yokes" have become heavier and heavier and the result has only produced spiritual exhaustion, phariseeism, and the shutting up of the kingdom of God to those in need. Word on Wings is dedicated to opening closed doors for people trapped in various types of abusive religious systems.

If you have questions about spiritual abuse in general and need some examples of religious  autocracy, I would suggest that you read Neo-Phariseeism for yourself and then in prayer decide the authenticity of its content.

Now from this "single issue" beginning, this ministry has now expanded to address new and broader issues that are affecting the entire body of Christ throughout the world.