Gloriavale: The daily life, the dark side and uncertain future explained

Friday, 19 March 2021

EXPLAINER: A closed religious group has been thriving since the 1960s, despite many controversies and the death of its founder. As unhappy members leave, and scrutiny from the outside world intensifies, Amy Wright takes a closer look at Gloriavale.

Virginia Courage had a wonderful childhood. She rode horses, swam in a river near her home, explored wild bush and lived happily alongside dozens of people she loved and trusted.

Courage, 41, was born into the Springbank Christian Community at Cust, in North Canterbury. Her mother joined at 15 after her own father died. Courage’s father joined Springbank as a 19-year-old from Southland.

In the early 1990s, the Springbank community relocated to Lake Haupiri on the West Coast. The community, including Courage, her parents and her 12 siblings set about building a life on the remote farmland. They named their new home Gloriavale.

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Curious West Coasters began to notice new arrivals who dressed in blue, hand-made uniforms and kept to themselves. They were led by an outspoken Australian missionary called Neville Cooper, who was also known as Hopeful Christian.

Who was Neville Cooper? What kind of world did he create for his hundreds of devoted followers? What is life like at Gloriavale? And what does its future hold?

How did Gloriavale start?

Cooper was a travelling evangelist who came to New Zealand in the 1960s as Pentecostalism, or the charismatic ‘New Life’ movement, arrived here from the United States. The new life movement focused on spirit-based experiences, such as divine healing and speaking in tongues.

Cooper eventually settled his family in Canterbury, where he became associated with the Christchurch Revival Centre, who were running outreach meetings at Rangiora.

Over time, he took control of the Rangiora meetings, eventually leading a split away to establish his own congregation.

Cooper’s church became known as ‘The Christian Church at Springbank’, and adherents began sharing resources like money and food equally amongst themselves. Two of Cooper’s daughters married into a local family and inherited a farm at Cust that was donated to the church.

A school and church was built on the farm and members became self-sufficient, making their own bread, butter and cheese. Animals and crops were farmed and other businesses staffed by members were successfully established.

Cooper drew more followers and Springbank thrived.

A Country Calendar episode in 1982 featured the community, and shows a young, vibrant Cooper speaking of children helping to drive nails in as the congregation constructed their first building.

“And it grew from there, as God added to us … it seems like everything came just in time. Did you notice that? We got our dairy established before the price of milk went silly,” he says.

More followers joined and babies arrived (Cooper considered birth control to be murder) and land was purchased at Lake Haupiri for the expanding community.

Over a five-year period, members relocated to Gloriavale, which had been named for Cooper’s first wife Gloria Cooper who died in 1990.

The community again established successful farms and businesses including honey production, trophy hunting, health food supplements, harvesting of sphagnum moss, and an offal plant, all staffed by Cooper’s followers.

What was life like at Gloriavale?

Gloriavale’s population exploded. Couples were expected to marry young and raise large families.

Hostels with shared bathrooms were built for the residents to live alongside each other. Meals were eaten together. No one had their own money. All residents, including small children, were expected to work.

Courage describes her childhood at Springbank and the early days of Gloriavale as like a “fairytale”.

“You're surrounded by so many people that you know, you've got lots of friends, people that genuinely care for you. And that makes your life really nice. You've always got people to do fun stuff with.

“It was amazing. We rode horses, we went swimming in the river, it was this untamed West Coast bush. It was great fun.”

As Courage got older, she began noticing things that troubled her.

Despite Gloriavale’s claims that all members are equal, special treatment was given to Cooper’s extended family, who were considered ‘high-status’. Cooper’s family always had the best accommodation and perks, such as dental care.

Because members were taught that their life on earth is not important, they didn’t feel they could question any unfair treatment, Courage says

“People [were] taught to put on a smile. They're taught to just think ‘OK, God's going to look after me. I'm not staying on this earth forever. So my life is great.

“That's the dilemma of trying to explain Gloriavale to someone, because some people are happy, but their happiness is due to their lack of knowledge and experience. There are people in there that are unhappy in ways they don't even realise because they've never been allowed to express it,” she says.

“They don't know any better. They don’t know that they should be allowed freedom and the right to communicate with whom they want, and the right to go where they want in the world and educate their children where they want.”

Children are viewed as a blessing from God, and women have no say in the number of children they produce.

“You can have ladies that almost die from any of the numerous complications with pregnancy and birth. And two years later, they'll have another one. They just put a smile on their face. And they don't say anything.”

Courage had 10 children. With each child she recalled getting “tireder and tireder”.

“And the machine just never stops. Never stops.

“They need you to work.”

After giving birth mothers are given about a week to recover, then they are expected to get back to work. The mother will be given a radio to notify her when to return to the child care centre to breastfeed before returning to her job.

Jobs are generally divided by gender. The women work in the commercial-scale kitchens, laundries and child care centres. The men are assigned jobs on the dairy, sheep and deer farms and other outdoor labour.

The secrets to Gloriavale’s success

Gloriavale has proven to be a savvy business enterprise. The church moved to the West Coast when land was cheap.

Massey University religion expert Peter Lineham says this was no accident. It allowed the church to exploit its most abundant resource - a ready workforce of unpaid labourers.

“They were already farming commercially in north Canterbury. They chose the location in rural Westland because the land was cheap and needed investment in agricultural pursuits.”

Despite its conservative ethos, Gloriavale has embraced modern technology when its business interests were at stake, Lineham says. It invested wisely and had good succession planning in place.

Lineham has kept an eye on Cooper and his flock for decades – ever since a university friend was recruited into Springbank and “never heard from again”.

Gloriavale has succeeded because it struck the right balance of enjoyment, loyalty, fear and faith, he says.

Residents are either making the best of the situation they were born into or, if they are unhappy, they lack the financial means to leave anyway.

“No community can last for this long simply by coercion.”

Why are people leaving Gloriavale now?

For decades Cooper was the driving force behind Gloriavale. He provided the initial vision for the community and inspired loyalty in his followers through his charismatic evangelism. In 2018, he died, aged 92.

Since then, the community has been run by a group of elders. But the new leaders do not possess Cooper’s powers of persuasion, some say.

“Even though Hopeful Christian did have a lot of strange ideas, he did have a lot of charisma. He had a way of manipulating people to make it feel like it was your choice. The other leaders don’t have that ability,” Courage says.

Disquiet about the new leadership has driven the exodus from Gloriavale in recent years. When one family member decided to leave, others often followed.

Liz Gregory, who manages the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust, which helps ex-members start over, says the departures really picked up when a second-generation family – one where both parents had been born into Gloriavale – left and moved to South Canterbury. Much of their extended family then left and joined them.

Gregory says 185 people have left Gloriavale since 2013, amid increasing unease and calls for change.

“A significant number of those 185 people who left were booted out, some left because they were discontented and realised they hadn’t been told the truth, some left because wrong things have happened, but they weren’t dealt with properly.

“Quite a large number have left for their faith – they weren’t allowed to have freedom of belief, and they disagreed with the leaders’ interpretation of the Bible but weren't allowed to challenge or hold any other opinion. They left so they could pursue their Christian faith with a clean conscience.”

Gregory says Gloriavale’s community ethos of “think the same way, eat the same way, dress the same way, believe the same way and act the same way” has backfired as more and more followers see the flaws in Cooper’s utopian vision.

“It’s a lie that you can live a life of perfect equality – a socialist life. Show me a country where it works – where people are not abused or exploited.”

South Canterbury has become a hub for leavers, who embrace their independence and are left with a “sensitive radar” to any form of control.

“Leaving Gloriavale is very difficult psychologically and emotionally,” Gregory says.

“It's the estrangement of families, it’s grief and loss. For some it’s trauma. One thing in common is they don’t regret leaving, some families have said their biggest regret is not leaving earlier.”

Courage, her husband and their children left Gloriavale in October 2019. It was no longer the fairytale place that Courage enjoyed as a child. The horses were gone and there were more and more petty rules. The elders even controlled how far you could wade into the water when visiting the beach.

Ultimately Courage and her husband felt the leaders were not truthfully following the Word of God.

“They want you to be a person that's just going to obey and trust them so that they can tell you what God wants you to do. When you're in there, you genuinely, full-heartedly believe that if you're not inside Gloriavale, you and your children will go to hell. And that is probably the number one fear that traps people in there.

“It just got to the point where we just decided we don't really think this place is safe any more.”

Courage and her family love their new life in Timaru.

“I didn't actually know how horrible my life was in Gloriavale. It was extreme exhaustion. All I practically did was my entire life was just work, work, work. I didn't realise that as a mother with ten kids there were actually other things to life.”

Allegations of abuse

Running alongside the growing disillusionment of many followers has been a string of very public allegations of abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation at Gloriavale.

There was the death of Prayer Ready – a child with Down Syndrome who choked to death while locked in an isolation room.

Police, supported by Oranga Tamariki, have been investigating sex abuse at Gloriavale since July 2020.

Faithful Pilgrim, Gloriavale’s former school principal, is under investigation by the New Zealand Teaching Council over allegations he had failed to act on a teacher abusing a child.

Worker exploitation at Gloriavale is also being investigated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). The community is also on the radar of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, with lawyers speaking to former members about their experiences there.

Ex-member John Ready, who was banished from Gloriavale more than three years ago, has also launched a civil claim at the High Court. Ready wants the courts to remove the board of trustees of the Christian Church Community Trust – the registered charity behind Gloriavale – and have them replaced.

Back in 2015, Charities Services also investigated whether Gloriavale should keep its charitable status, eventually ruling it could. Concerns had been raised by former members over allegations of sexual and physical abuse, forced marriage, forced separation of families and a controlling environment.

What is the future of Gloriavale?

Gregory says the leadership of Gloriavale is under immense pressure to change. But the community’s leaders refuse to accept they could be wrong, she says.

“It’s a regime that has been built over 50 years. It’s extremely unlikely they will repent and apologise and turn from their ways.”

Lineham believes Gloriavale has two options. One is to broaden their church. Relax the rules to retain the loyalty of wavering members.

“Something like that… letting people go out of the community and then choose to come back would be one option, which in my opinion, would be a smart option.

“But the other and more likely option is that the community becomes sterner. And then there's a power struggle, and it falls apart.”

Courage believes the sheer volume of investigations into Gloriavale could finally bring about the end of the community.

“It depends on how resistant the leaders are to change. If they lived the scriptures and were willing to change, God would bless them. It’s very sad.

“Pride will be their downfall.”

Stuff approached Gloriavale to comment on this piece. They declined.