Of the many different appellations the members of the 2×2 Fellowship use to identify themselves, one of the most common is “The Way”; less commonly used terminology includes “God’s Way, the “Gospel Way” and the “Way of the Lord”. An essential dogma in “The Way” is the belief that a person is saved only by hearing the gospel preached by a Worker, and the term for this is known as The Living Witness Doctrine (LWD). This belief was not present at the beginning of their movement - it was Worker Joe Kerr who later introduced this idea which was ultimately accepted by William Irvine, and by 1907 the LWD had become a foundational component of 2×2 teaching. Cherie Kropp-Ehrig describes the consequences of this doctrinal development in her book Preserving the Truth:

“concluding that the Scripture by itself could not give spiritual life, they made Irvine the spiritual progenitor of the Christians of their generation, the Father of a latter-day spiritual family, outside whose genealogy there was little hope of salvation” (151)

The conceptual roots for the Living Witness Doctrine can be found in Henry Drummond’s influential book Natural Law in the Spiritual World published in 1883. Decades prior Charles Darwin had published his book On the Origin of the Species, and his new theory of evolution by natural selection raised difficult questions about the literal interpretation of the Bible, God’s divine design and the historical understanding of creation itself. Its publication in 1859 triggered vigorous public debate among scientists and theologians, since many Christians regarded Darwin's theory as a direct assault on biblical authority and a challenge to orthodox doctrine.

Rather than viewing new scientific discovery as a threat to religion, Drummond argued that the same laws governing the natural world could also provide illuminating analogies for the spiritual world. His book became an international bestseller because it offered Christians a framework for harmonizing 19th century scientific thought with traditional theology. The most relevant chapter, entitled “Biogenesis”, expounded on the concept that “life begets life”. By this time period, contemporary biology had already largely abandoned the ancient theory of spontaneous generation in favor of the principle that life arises only from pre-existing life. Drummond took this biological principle and applied it as an illustration of the Christian doctrine of regeneration, arguing that spiritual life likewise originates only through God, saying:

“We do not pretend that Science can define this Life to be Christ. It has no definition to give even of its own life, much less of this. But there are converging lines which point, at least, in the direction that it is Christ. There was One whom history acknowledges to have been the Truth. One of His claims was this, "I am the Life." According to the doctrine of Biogenesis, life can only come from life. It was His additional claim that His function in the world was to give men Life. "I am come that ye might have Life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." This could not refer to the natural life, for men had that already. He that hath the Son hath another Life. "Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you.” (Natural Law in the Spiritual World by Henry Drummond, at Project Gutenberg)

Although Drummond’s argument was intended as an apologetic defense of the supernatural character of spiritual new birth, Joe Kerr perceived an opportunity to apply the concept in a new way that became known as the Living Witness Doctrine. Exclusivism followed not far behind, since the LWD essentially delivered supreme authority to the Workers. By 1905 Kerr had even preached publicly that no outside clergy were saved, and William Irvine defended him (Kropp-Ehrig, 149; TTT). The result was that “the Workers were essential for salvation - they were God’s only conduit to spiritual life. This reasoning provided Irvine’s staff monopoly on salvation” (Kropp-Ehrig, 151). Consequently, the empowerment of the laity that was characterized through the reaction against institutional clergy and emphasis on their active participation in evangelism was effectively reversed, as the authority for proclaiming the saving gospel was once again confined to a distinct clerical class - the Workers.

The logical implications of such a doctrine are obvious. Its conclusion is inescapable. If salvation is only possible by hearing the gospel preached by someone known as a Worker in some group that only came into existence in 1897, what happened to all the believers in Christ for the first nearly 1,900 years of Christianity? For that matter, how was William Irvine himself saved, since he was the founder of the 2×2 Fellowship? In addition to the unavoidable logical flaws with the LWD, there are scriptural problems as well. The Workers used the passage in Romans 10:13-15 as their biblical proof-text:

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher. And how shall they preach unless they be sent…?”

The surrounding context of this passage shows that Paul is addressing Israel’s unbelief (chapters 9-11). He is pointing out that Israel has, in fact, heard the gospel which has been preached, so their continued unbelief cannot be blamed on ignorance. This becomes clear just three verses later as Paul says, "But I say: Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world..” (Rom 10:18).

Paul is explaining the ordinary means by which God brings people to faith through the proclamation of the gospel. Although it is the normal means of evangelization, it is not the only conceivable means by which God can work. More importantly, this passage was never meant to identify a uniquely qualified ministry called “Workers”. Even though the gospel has been sufficiently proclaimed to Israel, the Jews have not always adequately understood or received God’s plan. Regardless, the “him who is heard” is not the person who is preaching the gospel, it is God. Instead of saying “heard about Him, Paul is saying that it is Jesus who speaks to people through the preached gospel. This is consistent with Paul’s other writings that show that the power lies in the gospel itself, not the preacher/Worker, as in 1 Cor 3:6-7: “I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase.Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase”. Unlike Workers who, through the LWD, elevate themselves to divine arbiters of who gets to be saved, Paul also humbly said, "For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus." (2 Cor 4:5).

The Workers’ fixation on this passage from Romans is particularly ironic when the story of Paul’s own spiritual conversion is considered. His experience while traveling the road to Damascus is one of the strongest biblical counterexamples to a strict version of the Living Witness Doctrine. While traveling to Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus was suddenly surrounded by a brilliant light from heaven. He fell to the ground and heard the voice of the risen Christ saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" When Saul asked who was speaking, the voice replied, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." Struck blind by the encounter, he was led into Damascus, where he remained without sight for three days, fasting and praying. (Acts 9:1–19; 22:3–16; 26:9–18). To make it even more clear who was responsible for his conversion, Paul later informed the Galatians, “For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:12).

In other words, if the Living Witness Doctrine uses Paul’s letter to the Roman’s to prove that God cannot save apart from a Worker, then the conversion experience of that very same writer flatly disproves this universal claim because Christ Himself converted Paul before any human interaction. Leaving aside the unequivocal fact that 2×2 Workers did not exist during Paul’s time, his conversion is not the only example where God acts prior to, or independently of, ordinary human preaching. In Acts 10:1-8 God prepared the centurion Cornelius through visions before Peter arrived. In Acts 16:14 God opened Lydia of Thyatira’s heart to respond to Paul’s gospel message. These accounts reinforce that while God ordinarily uses human messengers, the efficacy belongs to God, not to the messenger .

By around 10 years after the founding of the 2×2 Fellowship the Living Witness Doctrine had become firmly established as a pillar of their belief system. There was no salvation outside of hearing a Worker preach. This contributed to the sectarian exclusivism that runs rampant within the 2×2 Fellowship even to this day, even though the actual term is not formally recognized by current members. The Veterans of Truth Archive has a collection of statements made by former members confirming this fact. Kropp-Ehrig summarizes it succinctly:

“They began preaching a Way, meaning a way of going to preach, a way of meeting together; a way of excluding outsiders. Rather than preaching a person [Jesus], they went about making proselytes to their way (method).” (152; emphasis added by me)

Semantic satiation is the psychological phenomenon in which repeated exposure to a word causes it to lose its immediate sense of meaning. While the phenomenon is ordinarily temporary, it provides a fitting metaphor for the 2×2 Fellowship's use of the term The Way. In the New Testament, "the Way" (Acts 24:14) referred to the life and teachings of Christ, and the Christian faith was centered only upon Him. Within the 2×2 Fellowship, however, this expression gradually became synonymous with the Living Witness Doctrine as the only path to salvation. Consequently, the 2×2 movement that arose in reaction to the perceived hollow clericalism of mainstream Christianity in an attempt to restore the gospel message for the benefit of the all, ultimately ended up replacing those same outside “false teachers” with Workers who eclipsed the Message in favor of themselves as messengers.

Kropp-Ehrig, Cherie. Preserving the Truth: The Church without a Name and Its Founder, William Irvine. Clarion Call Publishing, 2022.