N.C. man says church confined him for being gay

"They kept us as slaves": AP reveals claims against church

SPINDALE, N.C. — When Andre Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders — for safekeeping, he said he was told.
Trapped in a foreign land, he said he was forced to work 15 hours a day, usually for no pay, first cleaning warehouses for the secretive evangelical church and later toiling at businesses owned by senior ministers. Any deviation from the rules risked the wrath of church leaders, he said, ranging from beatings to shaming from the pulpit.
"They trafficked us up here. They knew what they were doing. They needed labor and we were cheap labor — hell, free labor," Oliveira said.

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[h=1]Brazil church rejects abuse claims detailed in AP stories[/h]RIO DE JANEIRO — One of Word of Faith Fellowship's two churches in Brazil has rejected claims made by former members that they were subjected to physical and verbal abuse at the hands of ministers and that young congregants were sent to the mother church in North Carolina and forced to work without pay.

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Ex-members of church urge overturning of court agreement

Spindale NC — Former members of a controversial North Carolina-based church want the state to take legal action to overturn a court-ordered compromise they say has crippled child abuse investigations involving the sect.

The former congregants of Word of Faith Fellowship also want Rutherford County child protection agency director John Carroll to resign, saying he pushed for the 2005 settlement and has failed to protect children from abusive practices inside the church.

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'Nobody saved us': Man describes childhood in abusive 'cult'

SPINDALE, NC — Jamey Anderson vividly recalls being a skinny kid trembling on the floor of a dank, windowless storage room, waiting in terror for the next adult to open the door.

He was bruised and exhausted after being held down while a group of Word of Faith Fellowship congregants — including his mother and future stepfather — beat him with a wooden paddle, he said. As with most punishments at the secretive Christian church, Anderson said, it was prompted by some vague accusation: He had sin in his heart, or he had given in to the "unclean." The attacks could last for hours until he confessed to something, anything, and cried out to Jesus, he said.

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borndem said:

From WRAL, Raleigh, NC via AP

http://www.wral.com/brazilians-funn...email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=wral

Can nothing be done about the abuses in this church? SMH

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Family of ex-church member denies claims of childhood abuse
Posted 4:48 p.m. todaySPINDALE, North Carolina — Family members of a man who broke with a controversial church based in rural North Carolina have released a video disputing that he was physically and emotionally abused throughout his childhood in the sect.
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"I'm here today because Jamey has gone to The Associated Press and what he has said, even though he is very articulate and may be believable to you, but what he says is lies. There's
nothing that he says that's true," Dolan said, flanked by Anderson's grandmother and stepsister.

Word of Faith Fellowship is a secretive Christian sect founded in 1979 in Spindale, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It has grown to a congregation of nearly 750 people in North Carolina, with hundreds more followers extending to Brazil, Ghana and other countries.

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