Former ‘cult’ members call for Pennsylvania church to be shut down, investigated

WatchFormer 'cult' members call for Pennsylvania church to be shut down, investigatedby Grace Miller

6VIEW ALL PHOTOSColleen Winkel, left, and Kenneth Martin, right, both grew up in Philadelphia's Faith Tabernacle Congregation and said they regard the church as a "cult." (WHP)Comment on this story0CommentShare storySharetopics: Faith-healingCultPennsylvaniaFaith Tabernacle CongregationChild abusePhiladelphiaFBIDistrict AttorneyPHILADELPHIA (WHP) — For Philadelphia native Colleen Winkel, the last 30 years have been full of navigating pain, fear of rejection, and ultimately, healing.

Winkel said she’s still dealing with emotional trauma from Faith Tabernacle Congregation—a church with several branches in Pennsylvania that she, along with several other former members, now call a "cult."

First established in Philadelphia in 1897, Faith Tabernacle Congregation is a faith-healing church with other branches in places like Mechanicsburg, Lebanon, Shippensburg and Altoona. Former congregants and investigators have said members don’t receive medical care or visit doctors, opting instead for the power of prayer.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE | When religion leads to child deaths: Prosecutors set sights on faith-healing church

The organization has made headlines since 1906 for the deaths of children who prosecutors said would have survived had their parents sought medical care. Lebanon County saw a case in April, and Berks County saw a case in 2019.

The Faith Tabernacle Congregation church building sits at 3620 N. 5th St. in Philadelphia. The church has several other buildings across Pennsylvania, including branches in Mechanicsburg and Lebanon. (WHP)

Winkel, who was part of the Philadelphia branch, reached out to CBS 21 after she saw previous coverage, and she wanted to share her story about leaving the church in hopes it might help someone else in the same situation.

“My mom was really ill in 1997,” Winkel said, tearing up during an interview in her New Jersey home. “I begged my dad to take her [to the doctor], and he wouldn't.”

Her mother was 60 when she died. Winkel, now 54, was 23 at the time and said she saw “things come from her body that were absolutely horrific.”

“It took a long time to get those, like, [memories] out of my head, like, fresh,” Winkel said. “I can still remember them, but I cried for a long, long, long time, many years like that.”

Winkel said in the following years, two of her 13 siblings have also died. Her brother died at the age of 60 after coming down with a bad cold or respiratory infection, she said. Her sister passed at 30 while pregnant with her eighth child.

Her mother’s death got her thinking about “control,” Winkel said, and how it felt her family was living by man’s rules instead of God’s word.

Colleen Winkel, 54, grew up in Philadelphia's Faith Tabernacle church and said she's spent the last 30 years recovering from emotional trauma. She told CBS 21 during an interview in her New Jersey home that she wants her story to help other people leave the church. (WHP)

She said it was preached across the pulpit that when someone got sick, they should look within themselves and ask what they did to deserve it.

“I do believe it is a cult,” Winkel said. “A lot of people don't like that word. But when someone can control you to that degree, I think it is. If you're not free to make choices and even fellowship with people that you want to, and they tell you what to wear and they tell you where to go, and they tell you whether or not to buy your home.”

Winkel left the church in 1997, the same year her mother died. She’d just gotten married to her husband, who was also a member of the church at the time. She said she and her husband left the church after leadership ousted a pastor for teaching about “grace.”

“Before I got married, my dad—I’ll never forget—he took me out back on our patio, and he looked at me and he says, ‘do you realize this means your whole family?’ I didn't believe him. I really didn't think that they would shun me,” Winkel said. “And they did.”

She said there were years that followed where she wasn’t invited to family events. Any conversations she had with family members still in the church were surface level.

But to this day, she said, she doesn’t hear from much of her extended family still in the church.

“When any numbers come up on my phone, we know it's either going to be a baby or a death, because that's the only time we get a call,” Winkel said.

She remembers attending the Faith Tabernacle school in Philadelphia as a kid, where she said she wasn’t allowed to play with “outsiders.” She said she remembers telling another kid, “I can’t play with you because you’re worldly.”

The Faith Tabernacle Congregation church building sits at 3620 N. 5th St. in Philadelphia. The church has several other buildings across Pennsylvania, including branches in Mechanicsburg and Lebanon. (WHP)

She said she’s made a different life for her three children, who know freedoms she never had as a kid: her three daughters went through childhood with the option to wear pants and cut their hair, to play with who they want.

“We changed our family tree is what we did,” Winkel said. “The hardest thing ever. Like, I lost all my family in the process, but I wouldn't change anything. My children love the Lord, and they have personal relationships, and they serve in the church.”

She said there are a lot of good values taught in the church, like don’t steal, don’t hate, work hard. Winkel emphasized she’s not trying to bash anyone; she just wants to help others navigate the pain she experienced in the church.

She also still thinks going to church is important, and her relationship with God has only gotten stronger.

“I don't live in fear,” she said. “If I commit sin, His arms are open, ready to receive me and has already forgiven me."

Kenneth Martin, 33, also grew up in Philadelphia's Faith Tabernacle Congregation and used the word “cult” when describing the church.

Like Winkel, Martin said he attended school through Faith Tabernacle. He said he spent 27 years dedicated to the church, changing his work schedule so he could attend services seven days a week.

He said it eventually dawned on him that the pastors were constantly tearing down other churches and their relationships with God—something that eventually led him to leave the church when he was 27.

Kenneth Martin, 33, said he grew in Philadelphia's Faith Tabernacle church and left when he was 27 years old. He sat down with CBS 21 in a nearby park to share his experiences. (WHP)

“One of the guidelines was you do not associate with people who have left. You do not associate with people that do not come to the church,” Martin said. “You don't share if anybody's sick or anything.”

Martin said many of the rules, while they might be well meaning, are confusing and contradictory.

For example, he was taught that you can not go to the doctor, he said, but you can go to the dentist.

“That’s not a big deal for some people, but think of the confusion that people are experiencing when the extreme of this belief is that you don't go to the doctors, and your family members prematurely, so often, ad nauseum, are dying right in front of you. But you can go to the dentist. How confusing is that for people?”

Martin said he reached out to CBS 21 because he’s concerned about the church’s treatment of children and women.

Martin said he was sexually abused by a relative the same year both of his parents died.

He said the incident was never reported to law enforcement, and nobody was ever charged, although he said he confronted the individual several years ago, and they apologized.

He now worries there are other children suffering inside an organization he said values secrecy.

The Faith Tabernacle Congregation church building sits at 3620 N. 5th St. in Philadelphia. The church has several other buildings across Pennsylvania, including branches in Mechanicsburg and Lebanon. (WHP)

“The only reason I would go on the news and say something so deeply personal and traumatic is because I love these people to death,” Martin said. “As a matter of fact, if I were to die, I would come back from my grave to protect those children, no matter how many times I died.”

Other former members of the church also said in interviews with CBS 21 that there was a culture of sexual abuse.

“There are animals that treat other animals of other species better than they treat their own children,” Martin said.

CBS 21 reached out to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the FBI to ask if there are any open investigations into claims of child sex abuse. Neither agency has responded.

Paul Reinert, who is the head pastor of the Philadelphia branch, told CBS 21 over the phone he is not aware of any such abuse within the church.

He also added that the church is not a cult, and nobody is forced to do anything. He said the word is preached, and people are free to do what they want.

But both interviewees described a social pressure to conform to the church’s teachings, which they said stretches outside of church walls and into families, schools and everyday life.

Martin, like Winkel, emphasized that he doesn’t want to paint every person in the church out to be a bad guy. He said there was a lot of support within the church community when it came to praying over the sick and celebrating new births. He also said he understands that some of the pastors and church leadership are doing their best to live what they truly believe to be truth.

He said he just wants to see more accountability when it comes to the wellbeing and protection of kids in church families.

“When we would go on school vacations, people would always marvel,” Martin said. “They would always say, ‘oh, your children are so well-behaved,’ and we were. But at the same time, that same level of obedience and discipline comes with a negative side effect—that means even when you're being abused, you need to keep silent and in order.”

READ MORE TESTIMONIES FROM FORMER MEMBERS | Fear to freedom: Family urges others to leave faith-healing PA church they now call a cult