In the past several months, Jerry Falwell, self-proclaimed Christian leader, has made many untrue and defamatory statements about anti-Amway website owners like myself. These remarks have been publicly posted on websites such as the one belonging to Dexter Yager's InterNET Services Corp., and other high-level distributors like Jodi Victor. They have been widely broadcast to thousands of distributors over Amway's Amvox voice messaging system. Here is my response to Falwell's libels.

Dear Mr. Falwell:

It has come to my attention that you have, in the past several months, published articles on the internet and broadcast messages over Amway's Amvox voice messaging system which make certain allegations about yourself, owners of web sites such as this one, and Amway owners and distributors. You state, on the article posted on InterNET Service Corp.’s website, (http://www.internet-services.com/secure/company_info/free_enter.cfm) that you had seen internet sites which contained "slanderous and fallacious criticism" of Amway. You make no attempts to support your claims with any evidence whatsoever, claiming "I later learned that these critics are either actually paid by Amway competitors or are long-time ‘sour grapes’ enemies of Amway."

Perhaps, as a so-called "Christian Leader" you are unaware of the law of the land regarding slander and libel. Are you aware that your statement quoted above would be actionable at law by any of the web site owners who are inclined to reduce themselves to such pettiness? Our "slanderous and fallacious criticism," on the other hand, is well documented. Where is your documentation? Where is your evidence?

I believe that your "evidence" is your personal and financial involvement with the DeVos, Yager, Britt, and other Amway "leaders" and their families. Mr. Falwell, I can certainly be counted as one of Amway’s critics. I am extremely critical of the abuses and excesses of the motivational organizations headed by your friends Yager, Britt, et al, and I am equally critical of Amway’s refusal to enforce its own rules to stop these abuses. I am certainly not a "long-time ‘sour grapes’ enemy of Amway. On the contrary, I was a distributor for over a decade. During nearly five years of that time, I was employed by a Diamond in the Amway business. This is where I learned to distrust the motivational organizations, their leaders, and their claims. My distrust is certainly based on more factual information than your friendships.

I can honestly state that I have never received any payment – in any form – from any of Amway’s competitors for any reason, with the exception of the same discount coupons you get in the mail from manufacturers of cleaning products and similar "competitive" products. Can you say the same, Mr. Falwell? Have you never received any donations to your ministry or to Liberty University from Amway Corp., the DeVos family, the Van Andel family, the Yager family, the Britt family, or other Amway leaders and distributors? I think not! I publish the information on my web site with clean hands. Can you say the same? I would like to know, Mr. Falwell, where you "learned" that I am paid by Amway competitors for maintaining my web site. Contrary to what you state, I maintain it at my own expense, and in my spare time.

I challenge you to an honest exchange here. I have stated honestly my financial involvement with Amway competitors. Why don’t you publicly post the extent of contributions your organizations have received from Amway owners and distributors?

Information on the website of the Institute for First Amendment Studies (http://www.ifas.org/fw/9701/amway.html) states:

"Significant among Amway religious right donors is millionaire Dexter Yeager [sic], an Amway products distributor. Every month, Yeager [sic] gives a whopping $100,000 to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia."

According to my calculations this would amount to $1.2 million per year. How much more do you receive from Amway owners and distributors, Mr. Falwell? How credible does this make your unsubstantiated assertions?

Additionally, your reputation as a liar has apparently been established in not one but two courts of law. In case your memory is faulty, I refer you again to the Institute for First Amendment Studies website, this time to http://www.ifas.org/fw/9409/falwell.html. This article outlines a dispute between Falwell and Jerry Sloan, who attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, with Jerry Falwell.

You claim that site owners like myself charge falsely that Amway is a cult. Many would argue that the Amway business is indeed touted as a religion. Aside from that, the Amway business, as practiced and taught by the Amway Motivational Organizations, meets the definition of a cult. A cult is not defined by its content, which can be religious, political, commercial, or New Age/self-improvement. The determining factors in whether a relationship is cultic have nothing to do with the content or ideology expressed. There are many excellent books on the subject, by people with strong credentials, and I would suggest you read them before making statements which simply betray your ignorance.

You next state that site owners like myself claim that Amway distributors are worshipers of money and preach a prosperity gospel. You then claim this is false, but you present no evidence of any kind to back up your assertion. We, on the contrary, have abundant evidence. For example, let me describe something I came across just this afternoon, on the World Wide Dream Builders website of the Ron Puryear organization. They are promoting a book, written by economist Paul Zane Pilzer, who markets many of his Zane Publishing products through Amway and its distributors. The title of the book? God Wants You to be Rich. The accompanying blurb touts the book as "A theology of economics, this book explores why God wants each of us to be rich in every way – physically, emotionally, and financially – and show the way to prosperity, well-being, and peace of mind."

Is this not prosperity theology? Certainly God does not forbid money. God does indeed state in Scripture that it is the love of money which is the root of all evil. Well, this love of money, which you deny, is what keeps the motivational organizations deceptive and dishonest. If they don't love money, why do they continuously flaunt their worldly possessions? Why do they go deeply into debt to maintain those worldly possession, while preaching the virtues of being debt free? Why do many of them defraud the IRS of legitimate taxes which they owe? Why do they lie to their distributors about the true source of their wealth, which is not from selling Amway products and services and recruiting others to do the same?

Mr. Falwell, you state that "Amway has more dedicated Christians within its ranks, per capita, than any international company I know about." This has nothing at all to do with the frauds and deceptions practiced by Amway’s leaders. In fact, I fully agree that the "rank and file" distributors, or "little people" as the leaders of one organization call them, are well intentioned, well meaning folks, many of whom are strongly committed Christians. This does not prevent their being misled by those they have been instructed to trust.

You claim that the Yager family are all committed Christians. On what do you base that claim? That they have donated large amounts to your ministries? The two are not synonymous.

You remind us that Rich DeVos has spoken to students at Liberty University, and is "admired" by Christian leaders. This admiration certainly was not expressed by leaders of his own Dutch Reformed Church after the Canadian customs fraud debacle, where he and Jay Van Andel paid the largest fine ever paid to the government of Canada for their wrongdoing.

Lastly, you state that "Amway does not damage families or ‘program’ its people." Mr. Falwell, does the contrary testimony of thousands of distributors and former distributors – some at the Emerald and Diamond level even – mean nothing? If you are a reasonable man, a brief visit to any of the sites you criticize, and a reading of the e-mails we’ve all received, would immediately refute that claim. A perusal of the many lawsuits which have been filed against Amway and its high-level distributors would accomplish the same purpose. How can your "Christian" heart be so cold to the heart-rending accounts of divorces entered into on the advice of upline Amway distributors, of parents and children separated by the teaching of the organization, of physical and sexual abuse of downline distributors by their upline? How many of these victims have to cry out before their truths carry more weight than your friendships with rich and powerful Amway leaders?

Read What a Former Distributor Has to Say to Mr. Falwell