Robinson to hold fundraiser with NC church previously investigated for slavery, child abuse

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is planning a campaign fundraiser Tuesday with a secretive religious group that for years has been publicly accused of wielding cult-like control over its followers and of engaging in criminal behavior including slave labor, financial fraud and the sexual and physical abuse of children.

The fundraiser backed by leaders of Word of Faith Fellowship, based in rural Rutherford County in western North Carolina, has raised questions among critics about Robinson’s connections to the group, which has given him thousands of dollars in campaign donations. Some of the accusations against the church have resulted in criminal convictions; church leaders deny the rest.

Robinson has long espoused conservative Christian values and has made speaking at churches a key part of his campaign for governor. The practice has come under scrutiny because of the secular nature of his role in the state’s second-highest executive office — and because of the hardline nature of Robinson’s comments during those sermons.

His speeches at church visits have focused on topics including his opposition to gay rights, his opposition to abortion, his support for traditional gender roles and, last month, a declaration that “some people need killing.” The latter was a reference to World War II, according to his campaign, although critics saw it as endorsing present-day political violence.

But those speeches typically happen at mainstream churches that haven’t faced years of scrutiny from local and national media, anti-cult activists and state and federal prosecutors.

Robinson’s campaign declined to comment on a list of questions about the fundraiser with Word of Faith, his opinion on the church, its teachings and the accusations it faces.

A handful of leaders at Word of Faith Fellowship have faced criminal charges over the years, ranging from fraud to assault and molestation, according to news reports. Some were convicted; others weren’t. There are also accusations that church members with powerful positions in the community helped cover up child abuse — including one of the lead hosts of Robinson’s fundraiser, who told WRAL he denies the allegations.

Robinson’s main opponent in the race for governor is Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic Party’s nominee to replace term-limited Gov. Roy Cooper. A Stein campaign spokesperson said associating with Word of Faith should show that Robinson is “too extreme and dangerous to be governor.”

“It is disturbing, but unsurprising, that Mark Robinson would raise money from leaders of a group alleged to have engaged in child abuse,” Stein campaign spokesperson Morgan Hopkins said.

Church denies abuse allegations

The Associated Press reported in 2017 that church founder Jane Whaley — who is also listed as principal of the Word of Faith Christian School — was secretly recorded saying she knew of at least three children who had been sexually abused, but she didn’t report it to authorities. Another secret recording showed Whaley blaming the 13-year-old girl whose molestation led to the conviction of a church leader in 1995, the AP reported.

Whaley’s son-in-law Frank Webster was a local prosecutor until 2017, when the Associated Press reported that he and another prosecutor and church member, Chris Back, “helped disrupt a social services investigation into child abuse in 2015, and had attended meetings where Whaley warned congregants to lie to investigators about abuse incidents.”

Webster is listed as a main sponsor of Robinson’s fundraiser Tuesday; Back is listed as a patron.

“None of the allegations are true,” Webster told WRAL. “Chris and I were investigated by the NC SBI over these claims and we were cleared a long time ago.”

A State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson said the records related to the investigation aren’t public. Webster's lawyer, Noelle Tin, said the fact that Webster has never been prosecuted should prove that the accusations were false all along.

"The fact that these sensational accusations have not made it to any courtroom in the past seven years proves that they were and are fabricated," he said.

In an undated statement on the church website, another local attorney and church member Josh Farmer writes that any claims made against the church are false. “Our church has been the target of religious bigotry and persecution for several decades,” Farmer wrote. “One-sided media stories with salacious headlines established the narrative and attempted to hang us on the ‘cult’ label.”

Farmer, who has acted as a spokesperson for the church, didn’t respond to specific questions about the organization’s practices and past allegations. But he sent WRAL a general statement denying all accusations. “The allegations you reference are lies,” Farmer said. “Our church has been investigated multiple times based on false claims that were made. None of the allegations have ever been substantiated.”

Due to the confidential nature of criminal investigations, it’s unclear how many investigations into the church remain active. But not all have been disproven. One recent federal investigation netted convictions of multiple church ministers for an unemployment benefits fraud scheme that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in ill-gotten gains.

Robinson’s church speeches draw praise, scrutiny

Aligning with evangelical Christian organizations is a big part of Robinson’s political strategy. His campaign has put a heavy emphasis on crisscrossing the state to visit churches that invite him to speak to their congregations.

Those speeches — which are forcefully delivered, famously drawing comparisons to Martin Luther King Jr. — often contain statements illustrating his most hardline views, particularly on LGBTQ people and the role of women in society.

Last year, Robinson said during a church service outside Charlotte that “God formed me” to fight against the push for LGBTQ rights and visibility, which he says is turning America into a “hellhole.”

In 2022, he told another Charlotte-area congregation that Christians are “called to be led by men” and that “when it was time to face down Goliath, [He] sent David. Not Davida. David,” and pointed out that God sent Moses to lead the Israelites — “Not Momma Moses,” he said. “Daddy Moses.”

In 2021, Robinson told a Winston-Salem church audience that he believes homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals, saying they serve no purpose.

Robinson’s anti-gay rhetoric has made him popular in evangelical circles and helped spur his meteoric rise in GOP politics, from laid-off factory worker to being publicly lauded by former President Donald Trump — and now just months away from potentially becoming the state’s first-ever Black governor.

But his most socially conservative views could turn off the moderate or undecided voters who often decide statewide elections in North Carolina, political scientists and strategists have said. Catawba College political scientist Michael Bitzer said politicians often must choose between whether they’ll try connecting with moderates, or whether they’d prefer to fire up their base.

“What I think Robinson is doing is certainly gearing his campaign towards mobilizing, energizing those reliable base voters and providing them with the kind of rhetorical red meat that they want in their candidates,” Bitzer said.

Meredith College political scientist David McLennan echoed Bitzer: “It doesn't seem like he's at all counting on independent voters to come out in great numbers,” McLennan said of Robinson. “He thinks they can win: If Trump can win, he can win.”

That strategy didn’t work for Republicans in 2016 or 2020 when voters statewide backed Trump for president but Cooper, a Democrat, for governor.

Cooper is no longer on the ticket, though. And it remains to be seen if the moderates and old-school conservative Democrats who backed him will also back Stein.

Allegations of violence masked as prayer

Word of Faith is perhaps best known for its “blasting” sessions. It describes the practice on its website as praying, singing, speaking in tongues or “any strong demonstration of the Holy Spirit … against the temptations of the devil.”

Former members say it often involves a group of people surrounding someone accused of being gay, or of questioning church leaders, or facing any other suspicion — and then hitting, shaking, choking or screaming at them, sometimes for hours at a time.

“Victims of the violence included pre-teens and toddlers — even crying babies, who were vigorously shaken, screamed at and sometimes smacked to banish demons,” the Associated Press reported in a 2017 article, based on interviews with 43 former members of the church.

Brooke Covington, who has been described as a top lieutenant of Whaley’s, was one of five people charged in 2017 for the “blasting” session beating of Matthew Fenner — a teenage church member suspected of being gay.

Covington’s 2017 trial ended in a mistrial in Rutherford County. Four other defendants had their cases transferred to Buncombe County, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported. WRAL was unable to determine the status of those cases. The Buncombe County District Attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Associated Press reported at the time that part of Covington’s legal defense was to say that Fenner requested the “blasting” session, he knew what would happen when he did, and he only later brought charges to try to punish the church for its anti-gay stances.

Covington and her husband Kent Covington — a minister at the church prior to his conviction in the fraud scheme involving businesses run by church members, and who was released from federal prison in 2021 — are listed as patrons of Robinson’s fundraiser Tuesday.

Two of Brooke Covington’s attorneys didn’t respond to requests for comment; Kent Covington’s attorney Steve Cash praised him as an “honest and caring” man.

“Kent pleaded guilty for a single count of wire fraud,” Cash said. “This after an investigation that took over two years and included over 100 witness interviews of at least 95 witnesses located on three continents.”

The church has been accused of using missionary work in South America and Africa to lure foreign pilgrims to its compound in Rutherford County — then turning them into what some former Brazilian followers have called slave laborers for the church and businesses owned by its members. The Associated Press reported in 2017 that the U.S. government and the Brazilian government had begun investigating those allegations of immigration fraud and forced labor. It’s unclear whether those investigations are still underway.

Church leaders involved in politics

Word of Faith is a nonprofit organization. Federal tax laws prohibit nonprofit churches from endorsing candidates, and there’s no indication that the organization has explicitly endorsed Robinson. But its leaders have given to his campaign as individuals, which is allowed under federal campaign finance laws.

Church leaders and followers have already given tens of thousands of dollars to Robinson’s 2024 campaign, state records show, including at least $2,000 each from Whaley, Webster and Farmer.

Robinson isn’t the only politician Word of Faith leaders support. But he does appear to be the biggest target of their political giving — even before counting any funds he raises during Tuesday’s fundraiser.

A WRAL analysis of state records shows that some of those involved in Tuesday’s fundraiser, as well as other Word of Faith leaders, have given at least $85,000 to various state-level politicians and political groups of the last three decades, with their political contributions ramping up in recent years. About one-third of the total identified by WRAL, more than $28,000, has gone to Robinson in the past two years.

They’ve given $0 to Stein. Records show the church leaders have almost exclusively backed Republicans; the only exception was hometown politician Walter Dalton, a Democrat from Rutherford County who served as lieutenant governor from 2009-13.

Much of the rest of the financial support has gone to Hal Weatherman — the GOP’s 2024 nominee to replace Robinson as lieutenant governor — and to Weatherman’s former boss, Dan Forest, the former Republican lieutenant governor who ran for governor in 2020. Forest also faced controversy for hosting a fundraiser attended by Word of Faith leaders in 2017, shortly after the Associated Press’ lengthy expose was published.

Church leaders have also given more than $25,000 to federal political campaigns in recent years, largely to former Republican President Donald Trump and a political action committee associated with former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Whaley and other church leaders are also common fixtures at Trump rallies — news articles show photos of them cheering at Trump rallies from Charlotte to Miami to Oklahoma, often in the front row.

Robinson and 'conspiracy theorists'

The upcoming Word of Faith fundraiser isn’t Robinson’s only interaction with a controversial Christian group whose critics describe it as a cult.

In 2019 while running for lieutenant governor Robinson appeared on a podcast hosted by Sean Moon, a rapper and pastor known for wearing a crown made of bullets during religious ceremonies that revolve around AR-15 rifles.

During that podcast Moon raised the antisemitic trope that a secret cabal of Jewish bankers is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Robinson responded that he was “exactly right.”

"It’s amazing to me that we live in this age of information where you can go online and you can find all this information, and it’s not hidden from anybody,” Robinson added.

Last year, Robinson appeared to double down on similar beliefs during a church sermon he delivered at a Mooresville church led by Mark Harris, who is now the GOP nominee for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives stretching from Charlotte to Lumberton.

“Folks will get mad and say ‘Oh you’re just a conspiracy theorist,’” Robinson said in that 2023 sermon, WRAL reported. “OK, I’m going to tell you right now, conspiracy theorists are 42-0. We’re undefeated right now, folks.”

Robinson, who has also previously appeared to question the Holocaust and make negative remarks about Jewish control of media, has since put forward more pro-Israel stances as he runs for governor.

Mike Longergan, a spokesman for Robinson’s campaign, previously responded to accusations against Robinson of antisemitism by noting that Robinson’s “first item as acting governor was to support Israel.” With Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper out of the country in October, Robinson used his role as acting governor to call for a week of solidarity with Israel. Days later, he joined a Christian political group on a three-day trip to Israel.

“To call Lt. Gov. Robinson antisemitic is absurd,” Lonergan said in November. “He stands with Israel and the Jewish people, as do the vast majority of North Carolinians.”