NC church forbids even married couples from having sex without permission: 'You can only kiss on wedding night'
Two investigative journalists have delved deep into the functioning of one of America's most dangerous church cults. Named 'Word of Faith', the church cult was started in 1979 by one Jane Whaley and her husband Sam, in a small former mill town in the Northern Carolina foothills.
The two journalists, Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr, spent years acquiring secret recordings, videos, and documents for their tell-all book 'Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship' and they are getting former members of the cult to speak out.
Weiss told People, "Unlike some other cults that have been written about — the People’s Temple, Jim Jones, David Koresh — those are all gone, right? Those cults have disbanded because of things that have happened; they’ve ended in tragedy. But in this case, this cult still continues, and law enforcement is still looking the other way."
Bizarre Rules and Regulations
The church requires members to maintain very strict rules and live a certain way. They have to attend three or more services per week and their children all attended the fellowship's private school. Members are not to watch television, read newspapers or any book except the Bible. Members cannot purchase a house or car without taking permission from the church. Youngsters are made to 'help out' at businesses owned by other members with little or no pay.
Once children hit puberty, boys and girls are taught in separate classes and don't mingle with each other outside their homes. Marriages are highly encouraged and are often arranged by the church around the age of 18 to prevent members from deserting the faith. Once married, couples can't have sex or children without taking permission from the church. According to former members, a wedding night was restricted to a kiss and a hug.
Survivor Stories
Survivor John Cooper is one among a handful of people who have been profiled in the book. Cooper recalls the first time he saw the cult's leader Jane Whaley and how she was screaming very loudly into a mic. "The volume of the noise terrified me. But that’s my first memory of her, at the podium, just screaming at this woman in the congregation that she was upset with," Cooper shared.
Another former member, Matthew Fenner, shared that he was beaten up for being gay. Another member and Cooper's cousin, Danielle Cordes, had spoken of child abuse when she was only 10 years old. Former member Jamey Anderson spoke about how he was abused and held in isolation for around a year.
Some members of the Cooper family and other members also spoke of Whaley's practice of a form of prayer referred to as 'blasting'. In this process, church members loudly shout and allegedly verbally and physically assault others with the aim to free them of perceived demons.
Ex-member Christina Bryant was only 11 years old when she, her mother, and siblings went to join the cult. She recalled seeing her younger 2-year-old brother become a target for 'blasting'. "He started screaming hysterically. He was terrified. And they told my mom that those were the devils in him, and they held him down, and I’ll never forget his face being covered in sweat, him being beet-red, crying until he passed out, and I just remember thinking if I fight this, this is gonna happen to me, so I might as well start making sounds like they are."
"You have the sheriff. You have the district attorney. You have all these people who have looked the other way, who know what's going on, and they're just not doing their job. This church now is thriving," Weiss said.