From all over the world, they flocked to a tiny town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, lured by promises of inner peace and eternal life. What many found instead: years of terror – waged in the name of the Lord.
Congregants of the Word of Faith Fellowship, founded in 1979 by Jane Whaley and her husband Sam, were regularly punched, smacked, choked, slammed to the floor or thrown through walls in a violent form of deliverance meant to “purify” sinners by beating out devils, 43 former members told the Associated Press in separate, exclusive interviews.
Victims of the violence included pre-teens and toddlers – even crying babies, who were vigorously shaken, screamed at and sometimes smacked to banish demons.
Katherine Fetachu, 27, spent nearly 17 years in the church. “I saw so many people beaten over the years. Little kids punched in the face, called Satanists,” she said.
Word of Faith also subjected members to a practice called “blasting” – an ear-piercing verbal onslaught often conducted in hours long sessions meant to cast out devils.
As part of its investigation, the AP reviewed hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents, along with hours of conversations with Whaley, the evangelical church’s 77-year-old controlling leader, secretly recorded by followers.
The AP also spent more than a year tracking down dozens of former disciples who scattered after leaving the church.
Those interviewed – most of them raised in the church – say Word of Faith leaders thwarted investigations by strong-arming young victims and their parents to lie, and forbade members to seek outside medical attention for their injuries. Several former followers said some congregants were sexually abused, including minors.
The former members said they were speaking out now due to guilt for not doing more to stop the abuse and because they fear for the safety of the children still in the church, believed to number about 100.
In the past, Whaley has strongly denied that she or other church leaders have ever abused Word of Faith members, and after turning down repeated AP requests for interviews to discuss the fresh allegations from the dozens of former congregants, the church posted a statement on its website calling the allegations false and contending they were made by “certain former members” out to target the church.
The ex-members said the violence was ever-present: Minors were taken from their parents and placed in ministers’ homes, where they were beaten and blasted and sometimes completely cut off from their families for up to a decade.
Males perceived as the worst sinners were kept in a four-room former storage facility in the compound called the Lower Building. They were cut off from their families for up to a year, never knew when they would be released, and endured especially violent, prolonged beatings and blastings, according to more than a dozen of those interviewed.
Teachers in the church’s K-12 school encouraged students to beat their classmates for daydreaming, smiling and other behavior that leaders said proved they were possessed by devils, the former followers said.
U.S. Navy veteran Rick Cooper, 61, spent more than 20 years as a congregant and raised nine children in the church. “It wasn’t enough to yell and scream at the devils. You literally had to beat the devils out of people,” he said.
Those attending the church’s twice-a-year international Bible seminars were encouraged to move to Spindale, a community of 4,300 midway between Charlotte and Asheville. It wasn’t until they sold their homes and settled in North Carolina that the church’s “dark side” gradually emerged, former members said.
By then – isolated from their families and friends, and believing Whaley was a prophet – they were afraid to leave or speak out, they said.
Given what they characterize as Whaley’s record for retribution against those she sees as traitors, the former members said they hope there is strength and protection in speaking out in numbers.
“For most of my life, I lived in fear. I’m not scared anymore,” one of Rick Cooper’s sons, John Cooper said.