'People Being Programmed': Inside New Zealand’s Gloriavale Religious Cult

In Haupiri, on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, live close to 600 people, crammed in bunk beds and shared living quarters with little to no contact with the outside world. 

Outfitted modestly and in blue – the women in long dresses with handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads, the men in buttoned up shirts and long trousers – they wake each day to follow a doctrinal book called “What We Believe”. In its pages are scriptures cherry-picked from the bible. Their life revolves around a fundamentalist Christian mindset, where the only true salvation comes through a faith in Jesus Christ. 

They refer to themselves as the Gloriavale Christian Community.

On the surface, the group professes an idyllic maintenance of life: various families living and working together peacefully, within several ventures that sustain the community like farming and dairying. Underneath, however, are accusations of child sexual assault, work exploitation and religious control. 

This year, the community became the central story to Fergus Grady and Noel Smyth’s documentary, Gloriavale; an observational look into the lives of members – excommunicated and still existing – as they battle to bring to light the abuse and manipulation they say they suffered through the hands of the group’s “shepherds”. 

Following legal battles and court proceedings – of which there are now 7 – former members have the assistance of a team of lawyers campaigning for the dismantlement of Gloriavale’s hierarchical system.

“We were contacted by Steve Patterson,” Noel Smyth tells VICE. A “investigator and human rights expert”, assisting the lawyers on the case.

“He basically reached out and said he was looking at starting court proceedings against the cult. Steve was the perfect conduit between us and trying to get access to the community who have traditionally never spoken to the media. From there we spoke to Virginia who had such an incredible perspective on a female’s experience.”

The documentary makes clear that on the totem pole of power, women sit at the very bottom. An experience that ex-cult member Virginia Courage – who lived her entire life within the community – says is encouraged from birth.

“You’re reared in those thoughts where it’s like I owe the system something. ‘Actually: I owe them my life’,” she told VICE.

For Virginia, it all came down to one man: the group’s founder, Hopeful Christian, originally born as Neville Cooper. The Australia-born preacher created the group in 1969 under the premise that people needed saving from “an ungodly world”. What began as gatherings to spread the word of God, soon grew into a community that became self-sufficient. In its beginning, the incomes of church followers went into a “common purse” funding the expansion as it slowly grew over the next few decades. 

In 1991, they were forced to relocate to the South Island of New Zealand after it became  apparent their followers were growing past the point of sustainability. They now own 1700 hectares of land. 

“Hopeful would actually get people to stand up and express their obligation by saying things like, ‘Thank you to my parents who chose this life. Thank you to the teachings of the church because without them I wouldn’t have been born’,” Virginia says.

“Just some really sneaky techniques of people being programmed.” 

The overarching system that enforced the hierarchy tread “shepherds” – exclusively men – and “servants – everyone else.

One of the most telling scenes in the documentary follows two ex-cult members, Zion Pilgrim and his wife Gloriana. After innocuously sending a letter out from the community, the two are called into a meeting, one Zion secretly films.

“I put all the blame on you for this, you’ve been sowing seeds of discord among the brethren,” says one of the Shepherds.

“You’re trying to dismantle the authority that God puts in the church.”

When Gloriana stands to speak, she is swiftly quietened, “We need to understand God’s word. That’s actually what we’re asking for.”

“I don’t see any place in the scripture where a woman should be voicing her opinions strongly about what the church should and shouldn’t be doing. The scripture’s clear: I suffer not a woman to teach nor do you serve authority over the man but to be in silence, this is how the devil works.”

It’s one of Smyth’s favourite scenes.

“That was a breakthrough moment, interviewing Zion.” he says.

“We’d been speaking to him and didn’t realise the recording existed. But he mentioned it off the cuff. It makes me angry hearing how they speak down to people, how they speak about women.”

Accusations of exploitation within the group have surged in recent years, ranging from child sexual assault to slave-like working conditions. From 2020 to 2022, there have been multiple allegations and indictments of sexual abuse, many of those incidents involving teachers and children at the local school. Court documents have now revealed that 60 people have been involved in “harmful sexual behaviour”.

Virginia, who says she was assaulted as a child while sleeping in her own bed, has a number of theories as to why the problem is so widespread.

“The man that started the community [Hopeful Christian] was arrested and charged with sexual assault in the mid-90’s. He covered it behind his christianity, behind his ability as a public speaker. And I think his own dark demon integrated subtly through everything he talked about,” she said.

“There’s a few core teachings that he often spoke of publicly and privately. One was that a man cannot control his sexual drive. So it’s up to the mother, the girls, and the wife to satisfy her husband.”

“And then there’s another layer where all the perpetrator has to do is repent – and then the victim says, ‘I forgive you’. Now it has never happened and God washes away our sins.”

When a member joins Gloriavale, all of their assets are given to the community. Nobody owns or holds anything. 

In the film, we hear that as a wider business unit, the charitable trust of Gloriavale now owns a defunct airline, various farms, 4000 heads of cattle, a honey business, as well as oil well exploration. 

One of the 7 court proceedings currently involving the Gloriavale community is underway in the Employment Court, where Virgina Courage, alongside other women from the community, have alleged “slave-like conditions”. According to them, They’d receive one morning off in 8-days, with one week of leave a year. They were also never paid. 

A court document detailing their claims also posited that refusal of “chores” would result in corporal punishment, the denial of food, expulsion from the community and eternal damnation.

“My plan is just to be able to support anyone who’s needing to go through anything to do with the courts and be willing to play my part,” says Virginia.

“It’s not always easy to get people who are actually willing to stand-up and speak. I’m definitely up there on Gloriavale’s top 10 percent of people they hate at the moment.”

“That’s something I’m willing to wear with honour.”

For filmmakers Grady and Smyth, they can only hope that their film can bring about the awareness it takes to lay bare a community many believe is in need of change.

“There’s clear human rights injustices,” says Smyth.

“We went in hoping to make a film that could affect some kind of change. I don’t think it’s as simple as a film coming out and everything being fixed, but hopefully it can raise awareness. We’ve been working really hard to get it in front of New Zealand policy-makers and government officials.”

“It all just adds to this trickle down effect of more media attention and more pressure on people in power who can actually make that change.”

‘Gloriavale’ will be released in Australian cinemas on November 3rd.

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