INTRODUCTION
This is the troubling story of the Word of Faith Fellowship and the lives destroyed by the secretive church in the foothills of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The events depicted in this book come from extensive interviews with more than one hundred former members of the sect, their relatives, advocates, current and retired law enforcement officials, and others. We spent years researching and reporting this story, reviewing thousands of pages of documents ranging from child custody cases to police reports. We reviewed more than one hundred hours of video and audio recordings, many of which were secretly recorded by former congregants. We listened to dozens of tape-recorded sermons by Jane Whaley and other key church leaders from the mid-1990s.
Much of the documentation chronicling the earliest allegations of abuse in the church is based on a damning, 315-page report prepared by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation in 1995. Never publicly released, most of the information in the report is being revealed for the first time.
Information on Word of Faith Fellowship leader Jane Whaley and other ministers is based on dozens of interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy filings, court cases, published material, and a 208-page sworn deposition of Whaley on April 27, 2017. Part of a contentious child custody case, Whaley’s deposition has never been released to the public.
Biographical information on many of the current members and church leaders is based on their own words. Shortly after the Associated Press published its first in a series of articles about the Word of Faith Fellowship in February 2017, some congregants posted videos online to challenge what the church called “media lies.”
And beginning in December 2017, the Word of Faith Fellowship purchased airtime on WCAB, a Rutherfordton, North Carolina–based radio station, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Nearly two hundred members of the Word of Faith Fellowship have used the broadcast to deny allegations made against their church, criticize former members and their advocates, or give glowing “testimonies” about their experiences in the congregation. Videos of the radio programs have been posted on YouTube.com under a channel titled “WFF Speaks Out” as well as on the church’s website.
Church leaders categorically deny that any abuse takes place at the Word of Faith Fellowship. The survivors stand by their stories.
PART ONE
IN THE BEGINNING
PROLOGUE
THE ESCAPE
John David Cooper bounded out the front door with a trash bag in his arms. This had to be the last of it. He was out of breath and out of time. He and his wife, Jessica, had been stuffing their clothes and belongings into their Corolla for what seemed like hours, but really it had been ten minutes. Jessica was headed back inside. John stopped her.
“We gotta leave,” he said.
“But we still have more things.”
“We can get them later.”
She shook her head. She knew that wasn’t true. Once they left, that was it. But if they stayed they’d lose even more.
“One more trip, just to make sure. I won’t take long,” she said. She broke into a run, down the hallway and into the bedroom. John sighed. Stay calm, he thought. He checked his watch.
The Wednesday night church service had just started. In only a matter of minutes they’d realize John and Jessica weren’t there.
“C’mon!” he muttered.
The tree-lined street was utterly quiet, the picture of American middle-class prosperity. John and Jessica shared a tidy home with Jessica’s parents and sister, in a neighborhood of respectable one-and two-story dwellings filled with other Word of Faith Fellowship members. Everyone kept an eye on their neighbors. No one went anywhere or talked to anyone new without someone taking note. Anything odd was immediately reported to a church leader. Anyone who looked the other way, or kept a secret, might well face the wrath of Jane Whaley. She was God’s anointed, a prophet, the spiritual leader of Word of Faith Fellowship.
John and Jessica had planned this day for months, down to the very last detail. It had to be on a Wednesday or Sunday night, when everybody was in church for the 6:30 p.m. service. The house was ten minutes from the church’s thirty-five-acre compound. They’d told Jessica’s mom and dad, Randy and Cynthia Fields, they were heading out to gas up the car before church, just in case they wondered why they were leaving early. They left the house at 6:10 p.m.
At the BP station, they filled the tank. At 6:25 p.m. they returned to the house, parked at the side door, and started loading up their things. At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, everyone—including any stragglers—would be in the sanctuary, starting the first praise choruses. They had only ten minutes to grab everything and get out. Once church members realized they weren’t there, the Word of Faith security team would come looking for them.
John could hear dresser drawers opening and closing. “Come on, Jessica,” he shouted. The car was stuffed. He opened a rear door and jammed his bag inside. Jessica came through the door dragging a final bag, probably the biggest one of all.
“I don’t know how we’re going to find room,” John said.
“Just throw it in,” she said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Just take it!” Her voice wavered.
John shoved the bag into the pile and slammed the door. He was sweating, his blue button-down shirt plastered to his back. He fumbled in his pocket for the car keys. He felt like a bank robber, loaded with loot and ready to make his getaway. Except he wasn’t stealing anything. All they had were their personal belongings. They had to escape this miserable place.
John jammed the key into the ignition, and the car roared to life. Jessica jumped into the passenger seat.
He took a deep breath. Jessica was trembling.
“You OK?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Let’s go.”
* * *
John was eighteen months old when his parents joined Word of Faith Fellowship, an independent evangelical Christian church in tiny Spindale, North Carolina. Throughout his life he had been choked, punched, and beaten to expel the demons they said possessed his soul. He had been publicly humiliated by Jane Whaley from the pulpit and harangued for long hours by ministers and congregants in a discipline they called “blasting.” He was isolated from the outside world, forbidden television, radio, newspapers, and movies. He’d lived for long stretches in ministers’ homes, separated from his parents and most of his eight siblings.
For years, John Cooper did not know this wasn’t normal. Everyone else in his world had been abused in the same ways.
Life inside the church was brutal, but running away was risky, too. Where would he go? Anyone who left Word of Faith would likely never see his friends or family again, as such “attackers” were cut out of the lives of the faithful.