2x2 Definitions + Explications
Definitions and explications of 2x2 terminologies and language from the perspective of an ex2x2.
Quick notes.
These are my own definitions and have absolutely not been blessed by anyone, nor did I run them by others who might want to weigh in. At the same time, I do not think myself the ultimate arbiter to define and explain.
That said, this truth is mine—a slippery concept we’ll dissect later.Two-by-Two rules and definitions shift by region. What follows are from western Canada in the 80s and 90s.
2x2s or more aptly, 2x2 Cult
1. what you might know them by, and how members are referred to by outsiders. Not used or accepted by members.
Variations incl. the church with no name1, Cooneyites, The No-Name Church, and most often, The 2x2 Religion
The Truth/The Way
1. how 2x2 members refer to their group; The Truth, and sometimes The Way, but only as a necessary shorthand to describe it. Members do not sanction either as official names and, in fact, reject external naming, strongly asserting there is no name.2
Think of these as natural shorthand; evolved for the people who collectively and rigorously refuse to name their organized pseudo-Christian gatherings.
Usage: “I’m so grateful to have found The Truth;” references both the group itself, and the overarching truth of its teachings.
Note: when speaking of The Truth or The Way (actually, this applies to most words and concepts defined here), terms are infused with capital letters, but members do not accept these as proper names; these phrases cede to spoken language demands for symbols to reference things.
The Friends
1. members refer to each other as The Friends, a quick way of establishing in and out; defining membership in a religion who swears itself unorganized and benignly identifies as merely a group of like-minded people who come together for fellowship.
i.e. Who, us? they say to anyone who asks. We simply gather to study scripture. No religion here, nothing official! More frequently, queries on name are deflected with questions.
Friends are—like many 2x2 rules—defined against literally everyone else who fit neatly into the pejorative World, as used in cautionary tales regarding Worldly People.
Aside: I’m getting a strong sense of why, exactly, I dislike extraneous capital letters.
The World; Worldly
1. positioning words and quick definers; as in of The World, Worldly people, Worldly things, Worldly wants, ad nauseam.
Basically, Worldly is Satan-informed, and there’s a strong dichotomy between Worldly and not.
Usage: When I was in the 2x2s, I was not of The World, and I avoided Worldly things and Worldly people.
Worldly includes everything not 2x2 informed, so pretty much every thing and every person.
The Word
1. the word of God. Spoken with reverence, funneled direct via his “still, small voice.”
Workers
1. what might be in other religious orgs called preachers or ministers; Workers go out two by two to share The Word; are “called to the work” (by, of course, that still, small voice of God).
Essentially, workers self-select (I crossed out some mean stuff here). These men and women go out in sex-segregated pairs, remain single and homeless, and do God’s most important work of reminding everyone that “This is a narrow way, and if we swerve on this way, we could go into the ditch.”3
Most (all?) workers are high-school educated at best and are not trained in any way to be spiritual leaders. Imagine what power means as these uneducated, self-identified messengers hold court over entire communities, dictating who can do (or more often, not do) what, sanctioning (or more often, not sanctioning) events, and offering endless and terrible advice that is often sought, and also often, not sought.
Worker Stanley Sharpe said it himself in 1985 or 1986 at Aylesbury Convention:4
He got part of it right.
The 2x2 Origin Story
1. The Truth is a seamless continuation of the apostles sent by Jesus to preach in pairs. No origin story here! History-free. Doing what Jesus commanded the Apostles do back in the day.
Yup! Amazeballs.
The Truth is a direct lineage from the New Testament, with Workers setting out just like the disciples. Fascinating, how accepted this origin story was (and is) as fact.
Overseers of established areas around the world assign Worker pairs to lead regions (hence the 2x2 moniker). These Head Workers then assign Worker pairs to cities and towns, moving them around based on things the faithful are not privy to know (and in the case of reported childhood sexual assaults, moving accused and even prosecuted and convicted pedophiles to other geographic locations.)5
Redundant, but the origin story is bullshit. It feels silly to say it, but it’s important, I think, to be clear.
It’s important because its acceptance stems in part from the abject refusal to discuss origins combined with the rigid control exerted by Workers—nearly complete control over topics and conversations.
Subtle but rigidly deployed management of 2x2 members means most never engage in questions. Even when knowledge—about how and when the 2x2s originated, became widespread—believers mostly outright rejected facts presented by the brave few who had left the 2x2s and discovered and publicized its history.6
If you’ve ever asked a 2x2 a direct question about their faith, you’ll know what I mean.
Digression and redirection, coupled with responding with another question are tactics to divert giving answers that in fact, members often don’t have.
Members who eventually (unwillingly) accepted updated and correct 2x2 origins often engaged, as my Dad finally did, in serious mental gymnastics to cede to the possibility the original version was still somehow correct, and asserted any manmade involvement had been mitigated by the purity of The Truth since.
It’s all a bit boring, but in a nutshell, the 2x2s derived in the late 1800s from some offshoot of some other new religion. Evidence and discussions on this abound online, if you’re interested. I’m not particularly anymore, but recommend Wikipedia or one of the many sites organized around unpacking the 2x2s.
Workers renounce possessions and money and are instead provided for by 2x2 members.
They live with the families assigned to supply this room and board (a troubling method in some of the poverty-stricken lands where they preach) and move frequently from one home to another, travelling with the one small suitcase of clothing and toiletries allotted to each, at the behest of the head worker for their region. The name for these head workers varies across the globe, but typically, is some variation on Overseer.7
At the various gatherings attended by The Friends, Workers preach what they state is the word of God. They ex-communicate, set rules—some spoken, most implied, but all crystal clear—hide criminal acts of other Workers and guard finances carefully as the ultimate leaders in this authoritarian, high control group.
At the 1985 or ‘86 Regina Special Meeting8, Sister Worker Mable Jacobs railed against the ever-present temptation to “go back into bondage, perhaps because of a loved one who is still in bondage.”
I can’t be certain that message was directed to my family, but my mother’s refusal to join the 2x2s was a sore spot for the 2x2s and remained as such for the duration of my time with them, and likely long past me leaving.
My mom’s choice to remain in the bondage of the Lutheran church—the one in which she’d been raised, the church where I’d been baptized and had attended my whole life alongside my grandma, cousins, and friends—meant, according to the Workers, that our home was Divided.
A girl who had been born into The Truth explained the concept when I asked her if we could play.
“My mother told me I’m not supposed to spend time with you,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re from a divided home.”
A parental or other family member’s refusal to attend meetings meant the members who did were at risk, and by extension, anyone who consorted with those family members assumed risk simply by associating with them.
Mom’s short hair, her earrings and lipstick, the TV only she watched—all of it implied temptation, and most Professing (Professing? Oh snap! The definitions are endless! Up next!) families kept my family at a distance.
Dad had made the right choice—the only choice, in fact—by seeking The Truth, and by committing himself and his three children to it.
But without his wife by his side, we were not considered fully immersed in The Truth.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized we would never have been fully accepted. Born and raised, or B&R, was the only way to full acceptance.
Professing
1. is a 2x2’s ongoing, public commitment, signifying membership that was never, ever called membership.
To be referred to as Professing, one first had to profess. At a Sunday night Gospel Meeting or during the five-day summer Convention (the barn!), Workers test a meeting by announcing that if anyone has been called by God and wants to answer that call, to share their commitment by standing during the final verse of the next hymn.
I admit being on tenterhooks when meetings were tested. Nothing exciting, or even remotely interesting, ever happened at any meeting, and I don’t think I’m lying to say most of us craned our necks to see who stood.
Of course, longtime attendees had ideas as to who might stand (or who should), but I was amazed by this public demonstration of fidelity. Once this step had been taken, the person was now referred to as Professing, and I noticed the reverence with which the question was asked.
“Is she professing,” followed by yes or no, was imbued with unambiguous tone, and it was obvious which was preferred.
Professing didn’t much appeal to me (of course, I eventually succumbed). Professing people prayed seated and by turn, during the weekly Sunday Morning Gospel Meetings and Wednesday Night Bible Studies and enjoyed the option of standing to pray by turn in front of hundreds at Convention (the barn!).
But Professing wasn’t only prayer. More importantly, Professing people were expected to Give Testimony.
Giving, or Sharing, Testimony
1. standing up by turn, reading a Bible verse selected from the person’s private studies (or on Wednesday, from the assigned Bible reading), followed with explication of the person’s understanding of said verse and, crucially, the meaning they derived from it.
This was all, of course, informed by the “still, small voice of God,” which was a regular occurrence, according to the Workers and Professing people’s Testimonies. These soliloquies ranged from the shortest possible statements delivered rapid-fire to inaudible mumbling to the most painfully long and rambling versions of convoluted thinking even I, a child, frequently identified as gibberish.
Workers minister to members of The Truth, understandable as the congregations who attend meetings and conventions, who are known as those In the Way.
In the Way/In the Truth
1. another quick and dirty method of establishing if a person is one of The Friends or Of the World, the only two possible categories a person could be in.
In the Way of Jesus, In the Way of righteousness, blah blah blah.
There are more of these definitions and I’ll get to them, but it’s a bit tedious, no? Necessary, though, I imagine.
The thing about redefining language? It bothered me then and still bothers me now.
I’d far rather the engrams and anatens and enthetas of scientology because if you left, you could reasonably expect to never hear those words again.
But truth? Friends? The world?
I had to take them back, a thing that got easier with time, but is still work (work!) to do, and always small but constant reminders I am not in the way, that I’ve chosen bondage.
It’s okay. I made that decision long ago. If the choice is hell or the 2x2s?
I’ll take hell. And choose it every single day.
I disliked the church with no name in particular, as a big grocery chain had newly branded a line of discount products called “no name,” and it felt like I was in the discount version of Christianity.
Easily disproved in court and business documents but even then, explained as conforming to man-made rules and not truly names. (i.e. Christian Conventions or something like that.)
Exact quote. People took copious notes at any meeting, ostensibly to refer to later. I did not refer to them later. I did, however, take excellent notes, and—other than spelling errors—am impressed by my verbatim renderings.
Ditch = Hell.
So.Many.Metaphors.For.Hell.
Convention. The barn! The 5 day summer gathering. Underway in North America over summer months, uncertain as to dates in AUS, NZ etc. as seasonal.
Before the internet, almost all unsuspecting members had no idea the fresh new face in charge of their spiritual health was a convicted pedophile, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Thank you, Cheri and others. Your efforts? Meant the world to me then, mean the world to me now.
In districts like Alberta, Workers applied for social assistance they then turned over to the Head Worker. There are websites detailing the heartbreak from countries where 2x2 Workers took gross advantage of people already struggling financially.
A one-day gathering in December with guest Workers. Bring your lunch and enjoy a full-day at a local high school while everyone else succumbs to Worldly Christmas celebrations.
Convention in Australia typically happened between Nov - Jan, depends on the state. We always seemed to attend Convention over Xmas (conveniently as Xmas was seen as worldly), so we never really celebrated Xmas in our family.