Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America's Most Dangerous Cults

by Mitch Weiss, Holbrook Mohr

Overview

*An NPR Best Book of the Year*

A PopSugar Best True Crime Book of 2020

“I can’t imagine a more important book.”—Jeff Guinn, New York Times bestselling author

An explosive investigation into Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical cult whose charismatic female leader is a master of manipulation

In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around.

In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. In their eyes she’s a prophet. And to disobey her means eternal damnation.

The control Whaley exerts is absolute: she decides what her followers study, where they work, whom they can marry—even when they can have sex.

Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations, and thousands of pages of documents, Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr’s Broken Faith is a terrifying portrait of life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335145239
Publisher:	Hanover Square Press
Publication date:	02/18/2020
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	446,610
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Mitch Weiss is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist for the Associated Press and the coauthor of numerous books, most recently The Heart of Hell: The Untold Story of Courage and Sacrifice in the Shadow of Iwo Jima. He lives in South Carolina.


Holbrook Mohr is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Associated Press. He has covered natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, judicial bribery schemes, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and mass shootings. He lives in Mississippi.

Table of Contents

Quote 17

Introduction 19

Part 1 In the Beginning 21

Prologue: The Escape 23

1 Moving Day, September 19, 1993 27

2 Settling In 35

3 A Fox in the Flock 52

4 Busted 64

5 The Attack 76

6 The Investigation 90

7 Little House in the Country 104

Part 2 Children of the Damned 117

8 Doubting the Word 119

9 No Escape 127

10 The Five Boys 138

11 "Happy Are the Children" 147

12 Surrogate Parents 153

13 Money and Influence 160

14 Religious Freedom 173

15 "We Won. We Won!" 180

16 The "Slaves" 190

17 The Loneliest Day 207

Part 3 The Advocates 227

18 Saving Michael Lowry 229

19 A Little Help from His Friends 243

20 The Ruse 257

21 Matthew Fenner 273

22 Danielle's Salvation 288

23 The Wedding 298

24 The Fight for Justice 306

25 The Escape 316

26 Perseverance and Redemption 333

27 The Reunion 348

Epilogue 358

Acknowledgments 383

Glossary 385

Notes on Sources 387

Books 407

Newspapers 409

Editorial Reviews

12/16/2019

Journalists Weiss and Mohr provide a fast-paced, harrowing exposé of the Word of Faith Fellowship, an evangelical Christian ministry. Weiss and Mohr explore the appeal of the North Carolina church and its charismatic leader Jane Whaley by following the experiences of Rick and Suzanne Cooper, who joined the church with their six children in 1993. The Coopers grew increasingly devoted, even as Whaley exerted ever more control over the family, including forcing their children to live away from the family in Word of Faith housing and dictating when the couple could have more children. Whaley preaches a strict vision of spiritual warfare in which she singles out individuals at each service for “blasting”: long session of being violently berated and sometimes hit by other congregants in order to force the demons out, particularly accusing members of not sufficiently suppressing sexual desires. Defectors, including Suzanne’s sister, face orchestrated efforts to lure them back and discredit them. In 2014, after over two decades as congregants of Word of Faith, the Coopers left the church. The ballooning number of characters and some unresolved trajectories can make the narrative feel jumbled, but the stories of prolonged abuse and powerful control tactics are transfixing. This is catnip for readers who enjoy investigative reporting on shadowy organizations. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Broken Faith is a gripping, meticulously reported account of a cult leader's grip on a small southern community. It is also a prescient story of systemic abuse where the victims seek—and fail to find—justice from the very institutions that were meant to protect them." —Ethan Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Murder in The Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?


“A tour de force of investigative journalism and storytelling. This is the kind of book that inspires the next generation of journalists and reminds working reporters why they do the job.”—Kevin Maurer, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of No Easy Day


"In light of current events, I can't imagine a more important book than Broken Faith by outstanding investigative journalists Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr. Their chilling description of North Carolina's Word of Faith Fellowship and professed Christianity gone horribly awry is unsettlingly parallel to events involving Peoples Temple and its demagogic leader Jim Jones. Much credit is due to the courageous former Word of Faith members who share their shattering stories in Broken Faith. If you care at all about religious abuse and the destructive means by which charismatic leaders exert despotic control of their well-meaning followers' lives, read this book."—Jeff Guinn, New York Times bestselling author of Manson and The Road To Jonestown


“…Fascinating and deeply researched… Compelling in its evidence, this shocking narrative examines the bonds of family, the limits of endurance, and how far people will go to save their souls.” —Booklist STARRED review


“A compelling examination of a Christianist cabal whose crimes are evident but whose power seems, for the moment, unbreakable.”—Kirkus Reviews


“A fast-paced, harrowing exposé…transfixing.”—Publishers Weekly


A page-turner for any fans of the Wild Wild Country Netflix series… will leave a lasting impression on readers for years to come.”—PopSugar


“Those interested in cults and true crime will be enthralled by this account.”—Library Journal


“A harrowing picture of faith gone horribly astray…Broken Faith makes for compelling drama, with a vision of healing and renewal at the end.”—StarNews


“An important and carefully sourced rendering of how founders of religious sects can become tyrants, ruling by fear and threats of eternal hellfire for those who disobey… reads like a thriller.” —Associated Press

From the Publisher

02/01/2020

The Word of Faith Fellowship, an independent evangelical church, has thousands of members spread across three continents. Despite their numbers, the inner workings of the church are secretive and hidden to outsiders. Jane Whaley founded the church which is based in Spindale, NC, in 1979, and church members view Whaley as a prophet. She exerts total control over members lives, deciding who gets rewarded or punished. This punishment can mean separation from family for weeks, or "blasting," which consists of church members yelling, screaming, pushing, slapping, and hitting people to drive out demons and evil spirits. Journalists Weiss (The Heart of Hell) and Mohr detail how a local sheriff and county prosecutors refused to investigate or file reports naming church members, and advised church leaders on the status of lawsuits. The authors rely on interviews with former members, court documents, and secretly recorded conversations to paint a truly terrifying picture of life inside this cult, and the price paid by former members to escape. VERDICT Those interested in cults and true crime will be enthralled by this account, which should be read in conjunction with Susan Ashline's Without a Prayer. —Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH

Library Journal

2019-11-10
A fly-on-the-wall account of a religious cult and its discontents.

Headquartered in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, the Word of Faith Fellowship has a long pedigree—and has long attracted the interest of law enforcement, write Associated Press reporters Weiss (The Heart of Hell: The Untold Story of Courage and Sacrifice in the Shadow of Iwo Jima, 2016, etc.) and Mohr. The founder, Jane Whaley, is "a godlike figure who professe[s] to have all the answers," a woman quick to disappear with the collection plate—and who, the authors charge, was instrumental in the disappearance of an emerald so rare that the Brazilian government has been trying to retrieve it, the consequence of the church's expansion not just into that country but also in other entrepôts around the world. The authors open with the daring escape, literally, of a church member and his wife, two refugees among 100 or so who have fled from the church and whose testimony provides the basis for this book—in addition to several law enforcement reports. Interestingly and ominously, some of those reports were never filed, and some were never even written thanks to the intercession of officials sympathetic to or supported by the WFF. Whaley, a charismatic leader surrounded by vulnerable followers and strong-arm lieutenants, has since sheltered herself in several ways, including forging political ties to the Trump administration and the Republican hierarchy in North Carolina. Meanwhile, amid such cultlike activities as dictating whom church members are allowed to marry, preaching a doctrine in which "sex is evil and demonic" and only the missionary position is acceptable, administering beatings to suspected apostates, and so forth, Whaley "has amassed millions." Ominously, the authors note at the end, one church higher-up has lately acquired a license to transport cyanide, the potential recipe for another Jonestown.

A compelling examination of a Christianist cabal whose crimes are evident but whose power seems, for the moment, unbreakable.

Kirkus Reviews