Gloriavale leader captured on secret recording telling senior member to say he is 'nothing' and 'nobody'

Monday, 7 March 2022

Gloriavale leader Howard Temple, known as the Overseeing Shepherd, tells members to completely surrender or leave the community. (Video first published in March 2022)

A secret audio recording has captured Gloriavale leader Howard Temple saying workers at the community are “nothing” and “nobody” who need to completely obey everything the leaders say, or leave.

The audio, released to Stuff by the Employment Court, was recorded by a Gloriavale family in a meeting with the community’s senior leaders – known as shepherds and servants – before the family left Gloriavale.

Zion and Gloriana Pilgrim left the community with their 12 children in December 2020 after Zion Pilgrim, then a servant, wrote a letter asking for changes in the community including reporting allegations of sexual offending to police.

He showed Temple the letter who rejected it as “rubbish” at a two-hour meeting.

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Hunting guide Zion Pilgrim says he left Gloriavale to protect his family from abuse and exploitation.

The recording of the meeting was presented to the Employment Court during a hearing to decide whether Gloriavale members are employees or volunteers.

Allegations were aired that Gloriavale residents were forced to work in dangerous jobs for long hours with no pay, and at times denied sleep and food in fear of beatings and public humiliation.

Three former members of Gloriavale took their claims to the court not only against the Gloriavale leaders, but also against the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment after its Labour Inspectorate investigations in 2020 and 2021 found Gloriavale workers were volunteers and therefore employment laws did not apply.

Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis reserved her decision after the two-week hearing.

Gloriavale is a community of about 500 people in Haupiri, some 60km from Greymouth. Leavers have long reported being berated for hours for any perceived wrongdoings in meetings with shepherds and servants.

The secret recording of the meeting begins with Zion Pilgrim telling the senior leaders that he wants to stay in the community, be a Christian and “walk humbly”.

Over the next two hours the 16 servants and shepherds discuss the Bible, the community’s foundational document “What We Believe” – which says members must submit to the leaders in all areas of faith, practical life and work – and Pilgrim's letter.

They tell Pilgrim he is covetous and that the couple were being tricked by the devil trying to destroy souls and tear the church down by spreading division.

Temple’s son, Salem, accuses Gloriana Pilgrim of “talking pretty strongly to some of the ladies around the place about where the leaders are wrong and what we should be doing”.

“I don't see any place in the scripture where a woman should be voicing her opinion strongly about what the church should and shouldn't be doing,” he says.

Gloriavale Christian Community Overseeing Shepherd (leader) Howard Temple.

Another shepherd Enoch Upright says: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Howard Temple gives the couple, and their 20-year-old son Daniel, a choice: To completely submit to the leaders and tell themselves they are “nothing” suggesting they would be owned as a “vehicle” of the church, or leave.

“If you come back here and say yes, you're saying, ‘Yes, I will humble myself before these brethren. I will be one of these brethren. I'll be one of the fellows out here. One of the workers. I'm nothing. I'm nobody’.

“Your vehicle would come back in the church. It would be the church's vehicle. The whole thing. You'll just be one with the men. You got to come back that way. Totally and completely surrender. Forsake it all. Nothing else is acceptable,” he said.

29062012 NEWS Photo:SUPPLIED Screengrabs from Christchurch filmmaker Cody Packer's documentary on a reclusive West Coast religious community, Gloriavale, which will be shown at the Chicago International Film Festival in October.

Stephen Standfast, a shepherd, says if Daniel Pilgrim chooses to leave, Zion and Gloriana must reject him.

“If Daniel won't receive these things either, the cutting off of contact with people outside, the beliefs, the doctrines, and everything, you will have to reject him as well. But that is a price that will have to be paid,” he tells the couple.

At the end of the meeting Temple gets angry and threatens the couple to submit and stay quiet or be kicked out of the community and be “damned”.

“If I hear one whisper among any of these brethren, I will not lie. You'll go. No more discussion. No more debate. No more nothing. Now get that through your head,” he said.

“We've said enough. It will be yes, or it will be a no. That will be final. And you will accept. You will come back with the understanding that you will accept any decision, any teaching that goes on to you.”

Pilgrim told Stuff he could not agree to completely surrender and reject everything he was trying to achieve by writing the letter.

“We knew that was an impossible thing to do. We just started packing up and left the next morning,” he said.

“It was very difficult, very emotional for us. Basically you lose everything, your family, financial security, your life. That’s what they hold over you.”

Since 2012, the Charities Services, police, Oranga Tamariki, IRD, Teaching Council and the Labour Inspectorate have all investigated the community.

A police investigation into sexual offending against children has resulted in several people being charged and is ongoing. So far it has identified more than 60 people as having been involved in harmful sexual behaviour as either children, young people, or young adults.