Word of Faith Fellowship, NC

[Xan]

I'm still reading the book.  (I'm mostly reading in bits and snatches as I wait in school car lines for this or that grandchild so it's going slow.)  Jane Whaley might be the craziest fundie leader yet.  

Today I was reading that she even controls the sex lives of her married followers.  She tells them when they are allowed to get pregnant.  If a young couple marries, they have to get her permission to consummate the marriage.  Sometimes this can take as long as a year.   Couples are only allowed to have sex in the missionary position.  She can even forbid a couple to have sex.

There is a lot of bizarre stuff to digest about this cult but when I came to the part about her controlling sexual relationships, it made me pause.  How do followers allow this?  It's the frog in boiling water all over again.  She starts controlling gradually.  Eventually, you wake up and she's controlling your whole life.

She tells you where you can work and where you can buy or rent a house.  If she wants, she'll put other people in the house with you.  She can even take your kid away and have him or her live with another family if she thinks the child isn't obedient enough.  She allows children to be paddled.  Sometimes she does this herself.

She's quite the monster.

Edited February 26, 2020 by Xan

[smittykins]

Thanks for taking one for the team, @Xan. 

[Xan]

1 hour ago, smittykins said:

Thanks for taking one for the team, @Xan. 

It an interesting but horrifying read.  The have people in the sheriff's office and in the district attorney's office.  That's why so many people who did manage to escape had trouble pressing charges.  Jane Whaley even sued the Child Protective Services office and got them to agree that they aren't allowed to investigate on church property.  It's insane.  CPS ended up paying her money.  The problem was that they threatened the people who had left the church and who pressed charges until they recanted.

[Xan]

One poor guy was frequently beaten as a teenager and finally escaped.  He tried to press charges but the DA and the sheriff's office just told him that it would be too hard to prove and he could file civil charges if he wanted.  He persisted and finally got a grand jury seated only to discover that they had included a Word of Faith Fellowship member on the jury.  It got dismissed.  Before he could file again, his family (still in the cult) called and told him his mother was very ill.  He went to see her (she wasn't in fact ill) and they confiscated his phone and held him captive.  I'm not done with the book yet but, so far, he's still not free.

A lot of the church members are forced to work for higher up church members for free.  They even scammed the federal government during the recession and had workers file for unemployment money while still working for those church members.  And they have a lot of money and use lawyers -- just like Scientology, only smaller scale.

[Jasmar]

I really, really wish religious organizations would lose their tax-exempt status.  It every cult (or abusive church) leader is motivated by money, but a lot of them are. There just is no other way to try to fight this shit in the US, given the constitution.

[Ozlsn]

On 2/26/2020 at 4:07 PM, Xan said:

She can even take your kid away and have him or her live with another family if she thinks the child isn't obedient enough. 

I honestly am having trouble getting my head around this. I know I'm not in the cult headspace, but holy crap how do people manage the mental gymnastics of this?

[Xan]

13 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

I honestly am having trouble getting my head around this. I know I'm not in the cult headspace, but holy crap how do people manage the mental gymnastics of this?

The parents are totally brainwashed.  Jane Whaley just tells the parents that the child "has the unclean" or "has sin" and needs to be watched.  She also doesn't like for the kids to have close friends or be to close to siblings.  For that, she'll separate them so they don't have the "buddy buddy sin" which means to her that they are not focused on Christ.  Like I said, she's a monster.  I'm stunned too that the parents don't instantly revolt.

[Xan]

I finished the book.  If anyone has any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer them.  

Jane Whaley is still the leader of the church/cult which has about 700 members in NC plus satellite churches in Brazil and Ghana.  Some of her underlings were prosecuted for crimes but Jane is still free and in control.  There was a series planned for television through A&E but Whaley got it shut down by using some of the same lawyers that the Scientologists use. 

Some of the members have fled but a lot of them are so damaged that they struggle.  They explained that it was difficult to re-assimilate when you haven't watched tv or movies, you haven't listened to non-religious music, you haven't read papers or magazines, and you've been taught that anything secular is from the devil.  On top of that, they have lost all contact with their families still in the cult.

 

Edited February 29, 2020 by Xan

[ChickenettiLuvr]

I happen to be reading "Answer Them Nothing," the book about bringing down Warren Jeffs.

Apart from polygamy, you'd be amazed how many rules are the same in each group, almost verbatim. 

I'm only one-third through because it's hard to stomach a lot of it, especially that law enforcement was complicit there too. *chilling*

[CyborgKin]

This is kinda small potatoes, but what does Jane have against ginger ale??

[Four is Enough]

9 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

This is kinda small potatoes, but what does Jane have against ginger ale??

It's semi spicy?

[Giraffe]

 https://people.com/crime/word-of-faith-fellowship-cult-new-book/
 

She’s on the top towards the bottom of the first page of People. Good! The more that gets out on her and her henchmen the better!

Edited March 1, 2020 by Giraffe
I was wrong

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’m glad this story was picked up by People Mag. It’s got a large audience and people need to be warned about this group. 

[larrysmom]

On 2/18/2020 at 3:29 PM, quiversR4hunting said:

3. You will be required to smile on command. This is called “keeping your happy face”.

Yeah, no.

[Xan]

On 3/1/2020 at 2:46 AM, CyborgKin said:

This is kinda small potatoes, but what does Jane have against ginger ale??

My guess?  It's got the word "ale" in it and that makes it something "from the devil".  Same goes for "Cheerwine" because it's got the word "wine" in it.  She ordered her congregation to not drink alcohol and to not go to restaurants that serve alcohol.  They can't even eat food that might have wine in it.  She's particularly nutty about things to do with alcohol and with sex.  

Edited March 2, 2020 by Xan

[quiversR4hunting]

2 hours ago, Xan said:

My guess?  It's got the word "ale" in it and that makes it something "from the devil".  Same goes for "Cheerwine" because it's got the word "wine" in it.  She ordered her congregation to not drink alcohol and to not go to restaurants that serve alcohol.  They can't even eat food that might have wine in it.  She's particularly nutty about things to do with alcohol and with sex.  

Which automatically makes me think she is not following what she preaches (my bolding). 

[unsafetydancer]

Wow, just wow!

How is this allowed to happen? America, where are your police and social services? 

An aside, with the objections to alcohol, sex and potentially video games Jane reminds me of my father's mother. She used to ban Disney movies for reasons no one was sure of. The one good side effect of this was that I found a lot of really cool, obscure 80s and 90s kids movies that we were "allowed" to watch at her house as an alternative to Disney. For reasons none of us ever understood The Simpsons was A-OK though. 

I hope that the FBI manages to take this crazy woman down and free the kids.

[Jasmar]

The establishment clause in our constitution makes it extremely tough to go after religious-based organizations (or orgs that claim to be religion, like Scientology). Abuse has to be pretty egregious before law enforcement, the courts, social services, etc, such as they are, will attempt to step in. And our foster system is awful, with not anywhere near enough families to take in foster children. It can be pretty depressing to think about, honestly. 

Theres often not enough that can be done, but once in awhile something changes. In my state we had a rash of child deaths linked to a Christian sect. After enough kids died, the state was finally able to pass laws holding parents accountable for preventable deaths regardless of their religious beliefs. But it took deaths, plural, for that to happen.

[Marmion]

On 3/1/2020 at 2:46 AM, CyborgKin said:

This is kinda small potatoes, but what does Jane have against ginger ale??

I would guess that it would be considered to be a stand in for actual ale , and therefore essentially the same . Sort of like with mint snuff .   

When I mentioned this product to my dad , he compared it to using a minced oath  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath , which a number of strict Christians do not permit themselves to use . { https://comingintheclouds.org/christian-resources/discipleship/christian-living/minced-oaths/ , http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2017/03/march-18-4/ } 

[Xan]

Word of Faith Fellowship also got one of the government loans for between $150,000 and $350,000.

So many people in this country are worried about keeping their kids fed or keeping a roof of their heads and Whaley's cult gets this kind of money.  I'm speechless.