What is the "Spindale Sabotage"?

The "Spindale Sabotage" is the true story of many people who were forced to leave a cutting-edge, independent charismatic church when internal infiltrators loyal and obedient to Sam and Jane Whaley took control of the church during a time of crisis and shock over the confessed moral turpitude of one of the leaders of the church. The stories told below via the links and other web pages online depict similiar experiences other people around the globe have experienced at the hands of this modern day Ahab and Jezebel.
 

Note:
This webpage is not affiliated (nor do we desire to be affiliated) with Word of Faith Fellowship and Sam and Jane Whaley. The reason I have placed this statement on this page is due to the fact when I do find a link, etc. in reference to the Whaleys and WOFF, Spindale, NC and attempt to make contact to gather more info for the page, some people are so hurt and have their trust damaged to the point where they actually think that I am a "front"  purposely set up by the Whaleys, these people fear being tracked down by IP address to be sued, invaded, kidnapped, or other scare tactics seen in their past.
 

Purpose:
The purpose of this page is to provide links and resources to provide the following services: 

To expose the sin and cult like activity of Sam and Jane Whaley and Word of Faith Fellowship Church (WOFF) of Spindale, NC and the atrocities done in the name of "God".
 

To provide resources to help people who have left WOFF and other
churches under their grasp to seek counseling, become free in Jesus, etc.
 

To provide resources to influence people caught in the web of WOFF and other churches under their grasp to break free of that cult and manipulation tactics to seek healing and freedom, and true deliverance in Jesus, etc.
 

To keep other churches and people who are being approached to join the submission of WOFF from making the same mistakes many other churches have. Most importantly, to save Sam and Jane Whaley, WOFF, their affiliated churches and their members from future tragedy, judgement, and apparent reckoning down the road.
 

Brief History:
Sam Whaley, a car salesman from Florence, S.C., and Jane Brock Whaley, daughter of a plumbing company owner in Rutherford County, moved to Oklahoma in the mid-1970s. Sam attended Rhema Bible Training Center, established in 1974 by the Rev. Kenneth Hagin, a nationally known minister and considered the father of the "Word of Faith" movement. Although both grew up Baptist, the Whaleys would become promoters of the Word-Faith philosophy, a Bible-based, charismatic movement with more than 300 affiliated churches nationally. Sam Whaley would receive a one-year certificate from Rhema, but Jane developed a more fervent following by starting prayer meetings, complete with faith healing. But, in a clear departure from Hagin's teaching and Word of Faith practices, she also began performing deliverances, designed to rid subjects of the demons she said prevented them from achieving godliness, prosperity and good health.

These unscriptural deliverance sessions, called "blasting," is a form of hands-on, high-pitched screaming prayer (usually in 'tongues') that in many cases involve using ropes to tie down people to prevent them from fleeing and the concept that demons can only leave the human person by the person vomiting the evil spirit out of them in a "puke bucket". Testimonies of many ex-members state that they were forced to endure these blasting sessions for many hours at one time. Upon hearing of the deliverances and their unbiblical twisting of the Scriptures concerning deliverance - in particular the case of a 54-year-old woman having a prescription-drug reaction who was held at WOFF for 13 days while members tried to expel demons - Hagin in the late 1980s distanced himself from the Whaleys and denounced their deliverance teachings. After Brother Hagin disassociated himself with WOFF and the Whaleys, the church grew to approximately 400 members consisting of such diverse careers as farmers, an ex rock and roll musician (many people have e-mailed me to tell me this musician is actually Joe English, the famed drummer who played with Paul McCartney and Wings in the 1970's), politicians, and many business owners. The church out grew their humble beginnings, an old steakhouse known by the locals as the "T-bone Tabernacle" and into a half-dozen church-owned houses and mobile homes around the WOFF complex.

Most of the rest are scattered around Rutherfordton in homes owned by church leaders - as many as five families to a house in communinal style living similiar to the way many "hippies" lived in the 1970's while Sam and Jane Whaley live in a $310,000 house with a swimming pool on 42 acres outside Rutherfordton, NC with the street named after the Whaley's. The Whaley's spread their unscriptural teachings to many cutting edge pastors of independent charismatic assemblies through their Bible schools and colleges, missionary trips, "deliverance teaching sessions", and a special convention always held on Thanksgiving week (even Thanksgiving day) in Spindale, NC. The Whaley's (primary Jane's) influence went into Europe (especially into the Scandanavian countries (especially Sweden and Ulf Ekmann), Brazil, the US (I know of two churches in the coastal area of North Carolina), and many more places worldwide. The Whaleys would attempt to start churches in areas not populated by the major Pentecostal denominations or would infiltrate the leadership of cutting-edge independent Charismatic churches. Over a brief period of time, division and strife would occur and a nasty takeover would occur with Sam and Jane Whaley and their "people" in control to usher forth "deliverance" and "blasting". In many of these churches the leadership was female and men were shunned and in need of "deliverance".
 

I received an e-mail from a female Christian in Sweden who told me this about the Whaley's and Livets Ord "I was in Ulf Ekman's church Word of Life from 1983 to 1997. We did have the Whaleys visiting once or twice a year, in fact their influence was behind Ulf Ekman's founding the church and Bible school called Word of Life (Livets Ord). The last time the Whaleys were allowed to come was October, 1989." I also received a e-mail from a man from Sweden who wrote that "A man by the name of Per Kornhall got a divorce from his ex-wife because of the teachings of Livets Ord and the Whaley's. "Many broken marriages here in Sweden caused by Ulf Ekman and his leadership. My ex-wife thinks that all criticism against Ulf Ekman is caused by demons and spoken by liars." Also it was stated in the same e-mail that : "In the end of the 1980's Sam and Jane Whaley started to come to Word of Life. Their main focus were on demon spirits."

Ulf Ekman was very enthusiastic about them and said to his members that they were sent by God to Sweden with this very important message. Now the church would be truly purified from demons and then the church would be able to produce all kinds of miracles... As it happened the church went mad. Everybody was scared of demons. The meetings eventually interested Swedish national television that made some quite extraordinary documentaries from these meetings. Meetings in which all members of the congregation was throwing demons out from themselves while screaming and producing sounds. Ulf Ekman faced now with the critique started to back from his position and claimed that he had not been a part of the meetings. Swedish national television could easily show that he lied since he was figuring on the films they had taken...They (Whaley's) are no threat in Sweden since even Ulf Ekman now says that they are unbalanced in their teachings and denounced the Whaley's in October of 1989. He has never commented on his own strong support of them though! I have friends who went over to the Whaleys church in the late eighties. This was when Ulf Ekman supported the Whaleys strongly. So they went to learn more about these fantastic things. But when my friends got to Whaleys church they were scared. They could easily see that this was not christianity, but something else. They then wrote a letter to Ulf Ekman to warn him, he never answered to that letter.

When they came back to Sweden they found out that they were no longer members of Word of Life. Ulf Ekman had while they were away decided that since they did not like the Whaleys they could not be members of his church. This happened without any communication between Ulf Ekman and my friends. Their (Whaley's) teaching then was, dangerous from a human point of view, and heretic from a christian, is for me a matter of fact and nothing that I had to discuss in detail. Many Christians credit C. Peter Wagner as the father of the spiritual mapping movement. However, Jane Whaley and others affiliated with her were doing this concept in the early 1990's years before C. Peter Wagner popularized the concept. Known mapping excursions occured on the roads from Spindale, NC to Chicago, Il when the Whaleys attempted to take over (and failed to do so) a cutting edge independent charismatic church in the heart of Chicago. Also, the Whaleys and other affiliated people from the southeast North Carolina area were known back in the early 1990's to procure hotel rooms, drive around, pray, fast, and spiritually map out New Bern, NC, a small town approximately 60 miles north of Camp Lejeune Marine Base to defeat the "spirit of witchcraft and darkness".

Many people affiliated with Spindale would go to New Bern on the weekends having already fasted and repented of sins to perform weekend warfare over the "mapped" city to "break" the spirit of witchcraft over the city because New Bern, NC is a very popular Wicca haven known worldwide within Wicca circles. It was at this time in the early 1990's that WOFF became more isolated from society and became more errant in their teachings and exhibited many characteristic traits of a cult similar to the Jonestown, Guyana and the Branch Dravidians in Waco, Tx. However, in the early 1990's, testimonies from ex-members of WOFF, investigations from the tabloid show Inside Edition, investigations by state law enforcement, newspaper reports, and exposure from countercult groups began shedding the light on the atrocities in the name of God performed by Sam and Jane Whaley. Even though much of the darkness has been brought out to light concerning the blasting, the abuse of children, the deliverance sessions, etc; the practices according to many newspaper stories and testimonies of former members still go on today because court cases are found innocent by "lack of evidence", "legal loopholes", and rumored affluence with politicians within the area.
 
If you are the survivor of WOFF, or a church that was taken over by WOFF and you have left that church and feel that you are in need of and desire to seek professional help and counseling, I have received an e-mail from Mr. Lawrence A. (Larry) Pile who works for the nationally known Wellspring Retreat & Resource Center that is a residential treatment facility that provides a program of counseling and instruction to victims of cultic abuse, religious abuse and/or mind control. Wellspring is a nonprofit corporation and the nation's only residential treatment center for cult victims that also provides consultation to families who have loved ones in cults. Wellspring is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Wellspring also researches and archives information on the various groups in the cult world, researches the cult phenomenon in a clinical setting in conjunction with Ohio University, attends and speaks at national conferences, and conducts phone and on-site consultations for families and friends of cult victims. http://www.wellspringretreat.org

The group has been featured on national television shows 48 hours, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and the Montel Williams show. Mr. Pile has told me that Wellspring has counseled with numerous ex-members of WOFF (even using information from this webpage to better understand the actions of WOFF) in the past with success. For more information about Wellspring, please click on the link to Wellspring in the previous paragraph and if interested, discuss your personal and confidential situation with a member of Wellspring.
 
I have been made aware that Jane Whaley, at one time was affiliated with a church in Illinois called New Wine Fellowship. At this independent Charismatic church, a lady pastor by the name of Donna Auerbach literally manifested the same character traits and manifestations as the Whaleys in reference to the hatred of male authority, "Jezebel", extreme spiritual warfare, nasty church splits, etc. The documentation of this is found on the Survivors of Spiritual Abuse foums page at http://www.sosa.org
 

   According to one source, Ms. Auerbach kicked Jane out for "usurping Ms. Auerbach's authority... but not over Scriptural differences", a popular wickedness constantly manifested by the Whaleys. To tell you how bad this situation has gotten, I received an e-mail from a member of New Wine Fellowship telling me that "I would be very careful how you deal with situations, because you could be touching God's anointed minister." and "You have read website's filled with the bitter gossiping of people who can't take an instruction." and "Since when has God made you judge over mankind?". Typical spiritual abusers trying to scare me. It will not work.

If you are looking at this webpage and you know of any links (especially forums) not listed here that deal with Sam and Jane Whaley, Word of Faith Fellowship of Spindale, NC, Associated churches (whether infiltrated or set up by) of WOFF, Webpages to WOFF, Spindale, NC, Newspaper articles about the WOFF church and/or churches in other parts of the world that were affected by WOFF, Magazine articles, etc, please use the e-mail link at the top of the page and send these links to me. If you have actual newspaper clippings of articles not online dealing with issues listed in the above paragraph, please scan these articles and e-mail them to me along with the actual sources (newspaper/magazine, issue, and writers). If you can not scan these articles but can photocopy the articles, please use the e-mail link to e-mail me for mailing instructions on how to send me the photocopied articles with the sources. We are especially looking for the supposed documented dis-affiliation of Kenneth Hagin with the Whaleys. It is rumored but not confirmed to have been in one of Hagin's monthly magazines sent to Rhema alumni and / or to monthly ministry
partners.