Broken Faith - Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America's Most Dangerous Cults - Mitch Weiss Page 0,1

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.

After today John would be dead to his family. He had been bracing himself for that reality. He wasn’t sure Jessica was ready for that. She was close to her family, especially her mother.

Jessica probably still believed that Whaley was a prophet. They’d been taught that anyone who left the church would face the wrath of God. They’d die a slow death from cancer, or be killed in a car accident, or be struck by lightning. Their souls would be damned for eternity.

John had stopped believing that nonsense a long time ago. But Jessica? She had been talking more and more about what might happen to them if Whaley really did have mystical powers. It had to be nerves, he thought. Jane Whaley was a fraud. That would come clear to Jessica once they were on the outside, around normal people. Their lives were going to get better. He was starting medical school. Their futures were bright. All they had to do was head east, to Charlotte. Out of Whaley’s reach.

John glanced at his watch. It was 6:40 p.m. The two-lane wound down to US 74. He’d traveled it hundreds of times. Every second counted. He hit the gas.

“Slow down,” Jessica said.

“I’m going the speed limit.”

Jessica’s phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was her mother. Her parents knew. Whaley knew. The police probably knew, too.

“Don’t answer it,” John said.

This was part of the escape plan. They’d agreed they wouldn’t answer their phones.

Jessica looked ahead, staring at the white lines on the road. Only a few more miles and they’d jump on the highway and leave Rutherford County behind. But a car appeared in the rearview mirror, speeding in their direction. Could it be the security team?

They couldn’t stop. Their future depended on it.

1

MOVING DAY,

SEPTEMBER 19, 1993

Suzanne Cooper checked off the last item on her list. The boxes were labeled and loaded in the vehicles just outside the door. She’d make one last sweep of the house to be sure nothing was left. Someone tugged on her pant leg: Benjamin, grinning the gap-toothed grin of a seven-year-old. “Mom, when are we leaving?”

Suzanne sighed. “Real soon.”

“Can we still play?”

“Yes. Keep an eye on your little brothers.”

Benjamin bolted to the front yard to join his older siblings, Jeffrey and Lena. Five-year-old Peter was trying to keep up with them. Meanwhile,