I highly recommend Gloriavale

By which I mean I recommend watching a new documentary called “Gloriavale”, which focuses on the infamous religious group. I most definitely don't recommend converting to their religion and moving to the Gloriavale compound on the South Island. I went to a Film Festival viewing of the documentary yesterday, before general release to cinemas next week, and there was also a fascinating Question and Answer session afterwards with some of the filmmakers and subjects of the documentary. Here's the trailer:

For those who don't know about Gloriavale, it was started in 1969 by an Australian man called Neville Cooper, who renamed himself Hopeful Christian. The group setup on the South island, and are currently around 600 strong and living on a large piece of land near Greymouth. The group is very isolated and insular, teaching a strict version of Christianity and an absolute obedience to their leadership, including control over people's finances, relationships and even what they wear. Because the group has been around for so long now, most of the members were born into the group and have never known a life outside of Gloriavale.

Hopeful Christian with some of his faithful flock

The documentary focuses on legal efforts to effect change in Gloriavale from outside, involving ex-members, and some very brave current members who risk being shunned by their community, to help bring change about by being witnesses in hearings. Through this focus, the documentary shines a light on just how bad it can be for people living in Gloriavale.

For ex members, those who either choose to leave or are kicked out, they find themselves disconnected from their families. This is a common tactic used by many of the stricter religious groups in the world - using the threat of being unable to see your family to try to keep people inside the group, or bring them back into the fold. It's used extensively by Scientology, the Amish and Jehovah's Witnesses, and is also used sometimes by religious groups such as Orthodox Judaism and Bahai.

One of the lawyers helping ex-members believes that the conditions the women at Gloriavale find themselves in is a form of modern day slavery. Women often get out of bed way before dawn to start working, and work through until late in the evening. They are told that they need to work these long hours because that is what God requires of them, and that they must trust the male leadership of the group who decide what God wants of everyone.

Most people in the group live communally, with buildings that have communal living areas and large bedrooms. Families are usually assigned a single bedroom inside one of these communal buildings - and this looks to be pretty cramped, as the commune promotes having lots of children.

The community has always suffered from an issue of sexual abuse of children, again as is the case with many tight-knit religious groups. In this case the problem goes back to their founder, Hopeful Christian, who was jailed for abuse back in 1995. Apparently in Gloriavale this communal living has led to the problem being exacerbated - as anyone is free to walk into any of the living quarters, and because the women are often busy elsewhere working, those who have been abusing children in the community have easy access to children.

It's interesting to see the tactic used by the lawyers in the documentary, of trying any avenue they can think of to expose the awful conditions for those living in this community - bringing lawsuits based on human rights, employment law, financial regulations, etc. One thing that the question and answer session after the documentary made clear was that the government is reluctant to do anything about the issue. I can only presume that this is part of a wider reluctance to be seen meddling in people's religious lives - it's not a good look when an election is coming up to be upsetting part of your voter base.

Although I accept that people's own beliefs are their own business, when those beliefs mean restricting the rights of others I think the government should step in to protect those who are vulnerable. And in this case the vulnerable are hundreds of young people who have never known anything except for poor living conditions, strict rules of behaviour, long working hours, and an almost total lack of liberty - all controlled by a few old white men, known as “shepherds”.

I'd highly recommend watching this documentary, as it's fascinating to see the current efforts going on to help those who are trapped in an oppressive, abusive cult. Sadly many of them don't even realise that their lives could be much better, as this is all they've known. The Gloriavale Leavers Trust is doing great work to help those who have left and those who are still inside, as well as trying to make the public more aware of just how bad the situation is.

I had a chat with one of the Trust members after the showing, and we're hoping to get someone to come and talk with us at our Skeptics conference this year - it'll be interesting to hear more about the difficulties people face when leaving a place like Gloriavale, and slowly coming to grips with the fact that what they have believed for so long is a lie.

I'd suggest getting some background information on Gloriavale before watching the documentary if you don't already know much about them - the Wikipedia page is well written, and there are also a few TV documentaries that have been made about Gloriavale that you can find online, although some of them are a bit of a whitewash so I'd suggest watching them with a critical eye. After all, Gloriavale is well known as a group that's able to put on a smiling face when outsiders come in to watch them, especially for camera crews and events like their annual open days.