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

SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) — 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.

Sometimes even that wasn't enough for redemption.