Secretive Gloriavale sect at crossroads following death of founder Hopeful Christian: academic

Gloriavale residents in the TVNZ documentary. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

By Peter Lineham, professor of history and the regional director of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University

Hopeful Christian was a haunting and powerful figure.

He presided over the Springvale Christian Community at Cust near Rangiora and then from the early 1990s the Gloriavale Community on the West Coast of the South Island.

It began to emerge from the early Charismatic Movement in the late 1960s. In many ways it exemplifies the ambiguity of Hopeful Christian (aka Neville Cooper) in his views and values.

The positive side is the impress economic and social success of the community. The large community and its 500 members have made an appreciable difference to the West Coast.

Hopeful Christian drew on the collective labours of the members to build a community that was a great business success.

On the negative side was his conviction and imprisonment on sexual abuse charges, and disturbing tales of an authoritarian community, where participants had minimal freedom and where people who sought to leave had to resort to risk and subterfuge.

What lies ahead for Gloriavale?

It must be emphasised that separatist Christian communities have a long and valid place in the history of Christianity and in religion.

Monks and intentional communities have long worked lands and maintained distinctive religious traditions.

Actually, there are a range of communities, particularly Christian and Buddhist, in this country. They make unusual but positive contributions in their local world.

Gloriavale has the potential to be such a community.

The Amish in Pennsylvania in the United States are strict Mennonites who maintain a closed community with very conservative religious ideas, and there is some evidence that Hopeful Christian was inspired by their story.

They too have stories of those who have struggled to leave them and then struggled to find themselves when they leave – but the outside community finds the Amish quaint rather than fearful.

Gloriavale with its positive view of modern technology could easily be this. But to achieve this, it needs to set its face against sexual abuse, it needs to allow people to leave, it needs to work with its community. The question hanging in the balance is whether it will do this.

• Peter Lineham is a professor of history and the regional director of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University