01x02 - Sins of the Father

[bunniefuu]

[ethereal music]

♪

- Although our promised land is heaven,

God has still given us such a wonderful place

to sojourn on this Earth.

This is Gloriavale.

What more could somebody ask for?

- I'm praying and I'm asking God for a land

where people can pioneer.

- This was Hopeful's vision years ago.

[children chattering]

Big families. A heritage for your future.

[tense music]

But it does cost you.

It costs you to give up yourself to serve others,

and that's what we're all about.

Selah, are you all right?

- Yes.

- We do have a strong enemy that is at us continually.

That's really difficult to shake off.

- OK.

All right, let's get going.

♪

- [sighs]

The evidence from Gloriavale is,

this will end their way of life.

And I just say straight-- the government has got

its pants down here, badly.

I do not believe that this is a Christian community.

The reality is, they're pretending to be Christian

when what they're actually doing is the opposite.

- Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

- Isolating their victims, teaching them,

don't go to the police, brainwashing them to,

this is the beautiful life.

It is that cynical.

- You want to call that a zealot?

No, I call it passionate.

I need to destroy them.

[somber music]

♪

- Heavenly Father, we thank You today

for the way that You've been working amongst us.

We thank You, Father, for Your will,

for different ways and different times

and places of our lives, Lord.

- We have our breakfast all together

out in the dining room.

People volunteer every morning,

and they make the porridge.

That's a benefit that, if you live in the community,

everybody helps one another.

- We desire to please You.

We desire to fulfill Your purpose for each one of us.

- The scripture teaches us that as the Church of God,

judgment will begin with us first.

Quite certainly, we are in a time where we are facing

consequences for whatever has not been right in our history,

and it can feel like it is very unfair.

Pray, Lord, that You would direct our paths on the issues

that are before us.

The fact is that so much of what has occurred

does not occur now.

[dramatic music]

- The Cooperites have very strong beliefs.

Some people on the outside might

see them as being draconian.

But today, the police are raiding

their farm here in cuffs.

They've laid seven charges of indecent as*ault

against Neville Cooper, the leader

of the community, the man who calls himself

Hopeful Christian.

- Hopeful Christian.

He was into it from day one.

This was a totally sexualized community.

It's a sex cult.

- The New Zealand police were probably looking at us

as being a bit like the Branch Davidians

in Waco, Texas.

[sirens wailing]

It was such an over-the-top kind of reaction.

- We've always had a belief that it is a right

to express yourself in a religious way,

in the way that you want to, you know, as long as

you're not impinging on the rest of society

in any major way.

- ♪ God is my...

- This community had a public-facing reputation

of being a great community that worked well together.

That was the outward perception.

- You need Him to come by His spirit

and regenerate you and make you a new person, resurrect you.

- I was asked to investigate this a little bit deeper.

- You need the living Christ

to come into your heart and life.

- And we met people who had come out of the community.

Digging a bit deeper, we came across people

who were abused by Neville Cooper,

alias Hopeful Christian.

- Nev gained our trust

and then betrayed that.

It was sexually orientated.

That's basically all I would want to say about it.

- The Cooperites have always refused

to comment about the allegations

former sect members make about them.

- But today, the police have become involved.

- Don't let them through the gates.

Back you go--right back.

- This was about three months after the Waco thing

had happened, and there was a lot of hype about that.

It was thought that if Hopeful was apprehended,

that we would commit mass suicide.

The people were all gathered into the dining hall

and told that if we cooperated,

our children would not be taken off us yet.

[sirens wailing]

- They actually brought buses out to the communities

to take the children away.

They were expecting that people were all just going

to fall away straight away

'cause, you know, the principal leader's taken away.

And because we were all held here against our will

and everything, people were just going to be

jumping at the police and saying,

oh, please take me away, please take me away.

But that, of course, never happened.

[ominous music]

♪

- Michael saw Dad getting arrested.

He was really upset when he saw that on television

because they just went and arrested my father,

you know, and he hated it.

And he was really upset, and he committed suicide.

- My brother Michael was a soft-natured guy.

When I was , he wanted to leave.

And Dad says, if you're going to leave,

that makes you a b*stard child

because you're no longer my child anymore.

That means your mother's a wh*re, right?

And then when Mum died, he just broke down

because Dad wouldn't allow him to see her at the hospital.

He never really came out of that

because at years of age,

he's been rejected by his dad,

couldn't go and see his mother on her deathbed.

Even though I have no hatred

or no bitterness against my dad,

I do lay the blame

of my brother's death at his feet.

[somber music]

♪

- OK, so--

I--sorry--am not going to talk about other people

and their lives because I don't believe that you should.

- The cult leader is charged with sexually assaulting

a woman with a wooden object, getting boys

to commit indecencies on him,

and sexually massaging teenage girls.

- Hopeful had done a lot of work in his ministry

with married couples who had had a lot of sexual problems

in their marriages, basically caused by what I would call

a wrong teaching in Christendom,

that the original sin between Adam and Eve was a sexual sin.

The original sin between Adam and Eve was disobedience.

It was not sexual.

This kind of attitude about sex itself being a sin

was fairly ingrained in some people,

and he would talk to people and try to help them

through all of these sexual issues.

- He was so kind and loving to them.

And he said, look, these young people have had a problem.

He tried to help them.

He gave them advice.

And I tried to testify.

And I didn't go into gory details,

but I wasn't being listened to.

It's the same as now-- people are not listening.

- If we have a similar situation

with a young married couple today, very simple.

Go to the doctor.

Get it sorted out with the doctor, OK?

Hopeful felt that he had enough knowledge, compassion,

and wisdom to handle that.

Obviously, he misjudged himself.

- A jury has found Neville Cooper,

the man who now calls himself Hopeful Christian,

guilty of of the charges of indecent as*ault.

- When one fails, everybody is judged for it,

and that can seem quite unjust.

There was a lot of things that were badly twisted,

half-truths that were played up by media and detractors

to bring that conclusion, so...

[plaintive music]

♪

- I went to the prison and he came out.

He saw me and he said to the guards,

take me back to my cell.

And all I wanted to say was, Dad, I am sorry for what I did.

He couldn't afford to say, hey, look, son.

Look, I'm sorry as well.

So I walked out of there, tears in my eyes.

And the powerful moment was when the chaplain at the prison

pulled me aside and took me into his room and said,

Phil, you're free now.

The burden of guilt now was on my dad, right?

What he does with it, that's between him and God.

Otherwise, all your life, you're just a victim.

To be free, you have to let go.

- We know the truth of how Hopeful lived his life.

To try and explain it to people--

like, they'll probably say, oh, yeah, you know,

typical of Gloriavale people.

Yeah, yeah, Rachel, she was brainwashed.

It's really kind of like a nasty subject to deal with.

And Granddad Hopeful's dead now.

He's not here having to deal with it.

We are.

[children chattering]

[gentle music]

- Sadly, everything you see here is--

is being challenged.

We have a incredible amount of media pressure

that, really, their aim seems to be our destruction.

The media really has poisoned the population against us.

- We've had reporters sneak in.

They carry their camera in a bag or something

like this with the lens poking out,

you know, all this kind of stuff.

So they're not open and honest.

They weren't after an unbiased story.

They were coming in with an agenda they already had.

There was a journalist who was keen to do a story,

but she never told us she was a journalist.

- She came in here with a story about her interest

in dairy farming and whatnot.

And then it turned out later on

that she was a reporter.

She had been going out and filming herself,

preparing her story and whatnot on the farm.

- Some of the people who want contact with us

are not reporters.

They're activists.

- My stay in the community was about to produce

another twist in this story.

I've got something to tell you,

and I certainly don't know how you're going to take it.

- Come on in here, folks.

I've got something to show you that'll be quite interesting.

This picture here--

we don't believe in birth control,

so we do have lots of children, big families.

But in New Zealand, they have only,

what, . children per family.

They're not even replacing themselves.

We decided so we would take that average,

pull the two oldest children out of each family.

And these are all the ones that are left, that,

had we gone with mainstream society,

these children would have never been born.

We're coming into the dining room.

I'll just switch on the lights.

[light music]

♪

Well, you can see in here now

it's actually set up for a wedding.

Yeah, weddings are a wonderful time...

[applause]

Especially when the couple have done things the right way.

They've come as virgins to marriage.

They've taken some time to learn to communicate

without cuddling and foreplay.

- Thank God for the blessing you are to me.

I gladly commit myself to you.

And before God, the vows I make to you

are as binding as the vows I made to this church.

- I vow before God that I will love you

and I'll obey you.

I delight to do thy will.

♪

- The first kiss that the couple makes

will be on their wedding day.

And there's just something wonderful and pure about that.

And then they go and they consummate their marriage,

and that seals it.

- I'd been praying for a while about when to get married.

There was a girl that I felt drawn to,

but then I wasn't sure myself whether that was just me

or whether that was the Lord.

[applause]

The overseeing shepherd, Hopeful, came and said to me,

so have you thought about who God has for you?

And I said, I'm just open to whatever the Lord wants.

And they said, well, we've been praying,

and we feel the right woman for you is Dove.

And I guess that was

just confirmation for me,

because that was the girl

who I'd been--

who I'd had on my heart.

- People say that our marriages are arranged.

And if it was an arranged marriage,

it was God that arranged it.

And that's why it's worked out so well.

- Yeah.

- I was coming up to nearly .

He was only .

And I--I just hadn't envisaged marrying a -year-old.

We didn't fall in love.

We weren't gushing over each other.

But we just grew in love so well.

We've been married for years,

and we have seven kids.

- Yeah.

- [laughs] The seventh one's here.

- Thank you for every blessing that you've given us.

Amen. - Amen.

[tense music]

♪

- He was sentenced to five years,

and he served one.

- We are taking our stand for Christ.

- I didn't expect them to take him back in,

but he was welcomed back into the community.

I thought, he's gone.

Somebody else can take over and sort out the community,

but that didn't happen.

- Heavenly Father, we pray for these dear ones now,

that they can rise in newness of life.

- It's kind of like Henry VIII, isn't it?

You know, I'm the boss.

I've got a divine right to be here.

Whatever I say goes, you know.

- Hey, look. Come into the water.

- When Hopeful came back, he was accepted back

because people saw his life,

the truth of his life now.

I believe that Jesus died on the cross

to take away our sins.

And I'm going to follow him and be one of his disciples.

- Praise God.

- In the name of Jesus.

both: Hallelujah.

- We know that he was a man who was called of God.

I know he had his weaknesses as a man,

but overall, his motivation was to do

what God wanted him to do.

- The truth of what happened-- it depends who you talk to.

Right now, today, I'm of the mind

that it's absolutely f*cking disgusting and wrong.

And it was a complete abuse of power.

- There was a potential for us to grow.

It wasn't about me.

It was about doing something for the Lord.

I said, if the toilets had to be cleaned, I cleaned them.

If they had to be emptied, I emptied them.

I didn't just stand there and give orders

to people to do things.

[light music]

♪

- For us as a people, growth has always been

the mindset of our group.

We are exhorted to seek the will of God.

To understand, to learn from the past,

to learn from life, and to grow.

- I loved that I had been given this life

that meant that we were able to have large families.

We can get up and help with the washing,

cook the breakfast for the mums

that are at home with their babies,

and that's how we can support them.

And then one day, I'll have that opportunity

and have that help.

- This is what God allowed us to live,

and we're not going to just give up on it easily.

How do I see Gloriavale in the future

or in five years from now or ten years from now?

Right now, that is very difficult.

♪

- Phil's wife, Sandy, was pregnant

when she left him and their six children

and rejoined the sect.

From that moment, Phil Cooper has had no communication

with his wife,

their six children no contact with their mother.

He blames his family's isolation on the leader

of the Cooperite sect--

none other than his own father, Neville Cooper.

- I get a phone call from Melanie Reid.

She'd done a lot of stories with us and the family,

so we're very close.

She said, Phil, there's a ticket for you at the airport.

Please be on the plane.

- I've got something to tell you,

and I certainly don't know how you're going to take it.

But your wife has got a baby.

[tense music]

♪

- Is that true?

- Absolutely.

- She has a baby? - She's breastfeeding a baby.

♪

- She said, Sandy's got a child.

I'm like, OK, whatever, right?

So then she said, she's breastfeeding.

And so my brain started to think, well, OK.

So then she shows me a photograph.

[somber music]

♪

And the photograph, right, you kind of can tell.

The Cooper genes are pretty strong.

Then she brings out the birth certificate.

And obviously-- yup, the dates match.

How can I just walk away?

Walk away and get on with life knowing

that I have a child somewhere that I've never seen.

I can't. I mean, it's driving me crazy.

I couldn't live with myself.

My dad's winning, OK,

so I'm going to not let him win again, right?

Now, I look back at it now at, you know, years of age.

You kind of think, wow, what a Wild West guy I was, right?

OK, guys. Now, come on.

- We were all just quietly eating our dinner,

and then all of a sudden, there's this ruckus.

- No, you cannot. You'll have to call the police.

- I didn't really know who Phil Cooper was.

He's demanding to see Cherish, who is my cousin.

- If you don't, I will.

- No, Dad.

My daughter is seeing her mother and her sister.

Bring the police.

- You ring the police.

- No, you will not-- you will not touch me.

- Dad, you cannot touch me.

- All my daughter wants to do is see her mother.

- It was hard for my little childhood brain

to kind of comprehend what's happening.

- No, you cannot touch me.

The baby wasn't there.

Cherish wasn't there.

- Phil Cooper has since started legal proceedings

in an attempt to gain custody of his seventh child.

- I got custody. [both laugh]

I got full sole custody. [laughs]

[indistinct singing]

all: ♪ We watch and pray

- This is your declaration of your faith.

Will you die to the world of the flesh and the devil?

- My name is Cherish Steadfast.

I was born and raised at Gloriavale.

My dad is Phillip Cooper, and my grandfather

is Hopeful Christian.

- I believe that Jesus is the Son of God

and that He died on the cross to take away my sins,

and that He rose again.

I want to serve Jesus until the day I die.

- Hallelujah. - Amen.

- Hallelujah. - Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

- Thank you, Lord. - Thank you, Lord.

all: Hallelujah.

- I left Gloriavale two years ago.

I had never been told I had a dad.

I was quite young.

But I remember going to Mum.

And I remember, like, really, truly thinking,

Mum, did the stork drop me off?

I, like, said that to her.

And she looks at me, and she's like, no, no.

You had a dad.

And I--oh, oh.

So I have a dad.

- Watch out.

- If you know anything about Gloriavale,

Gloriavale is about families.

And I never fitted.

I didn't have a family. I didn't have an identity.

I didn't have a place that I belonged.

Or who was my family?

I wasn't even supposed to exist because they were trying

so hard to keep it a secret from my dad that I was born,

and I wasn't allowed any photos or filming.

[somber music]

- Back in those days, I photographed all the babies.

And I was not allowed to take photographs of Cherish

because we were trying to conceal the fact

that she even existed.

- Well, I suppose there was a fear in the family

that Cherish would be abducted,

just all as her other siblings had been.

- My first six, seven years of my life,

somebody would run in

and they would grab me.

I didn't even know it was happening.

And they would get a blanket,

and they'd shove me in a corner.

And they'd cover me with a blanket.

And I had to stay there, and I had to be quiet.

Because this bad man,

this bad man was coming to get me.

I had terrible nightmares as a kid.

I wet the bed till I was quite old.

I was terrified.

My mom did eventually tell me

that I had brothers and sisters,

and she actually had some photos.

Sometimes I invited my friends up to my room

without my mum knowing and I pulled them out.

I suppose it was like-- it was--

it was like I wanted to show them that I--

I had a family too.

Countless times, I remember praying at night

that I would one day get to see them.

♪

- She was going through the teenage years.

And here I am struggling.

I was a single dad, so it seemed like the best choice.

Even though I look back now and probably

wouldn't have made that choice, it seemed at that time--

OK, thinking that maybe she won't stay there.

You know what I mean?

It might be just for a time.

My kids, especially the younger ones,

have never kind of known their mother.

They got to meet their mother for the first time,

you know, a few years ago.

And I think the hardest thing was

when they asked the question of her,

would she do anything different?

That was a sad moment for my kids

when she said, no, I wouldn't change anything.

And it just shows you how ingrained she is.

Fast forward years, you know, it's a tragedy.

[tense music]

- There's this incredibly deep fear

of hell.

So you're constantly worried that at any point,

God will come back.

And if at that moment in time,

you are not pure and living as a Christian,

you're going to go to hell.

And you will not be taken to heaven in the rapture.

I remember being so scared

that I was going to get left behind,

and all my friends and family were going to go.

And I was going to be in the world totally alone.

- Sometimes as a kid, it was really quiet in the community,

and I looked out the window and I couldn't see anybody.

And the fear that hit me.

I've been left behind.

all: ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah

♪ I'm in the presence of the King ♪

- As a kid growing up,

when the community is facing something

or someone is battling something,

they will pull out every scripture

that they think relates to it

and just hammer these scriptures, telling you

that this is the right thing to do,

and so you need to do that.

I believe that Jesus will save me.

He's forgiven me all my sin.

I'm going to follow him for the rest of my life.

I'm never going to turn back.

That's pretty much what I understood

as a child at Gloriavale...

- In the name of Jesus.

- Right up into my teenage years.

all: Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

[somber music]

♪

[cheering and shouting]

- Right-o, girl.

Way out of there.

Good on you, girl.

- When the TV crews came into Gloriavale,

I interviewed with two other girls.

And we already know what to say because we're told what to say.

- Would you like to have lots of babies?

- Definitely.

There's not really a question you can ask me at that point

that I wouldn't have had an answer for,

because I'm educated in all the ways of Gloriavale,

and I have been since I was out of the womb.

- Wow.

- I love the job that we have as women

of caring for the children here and looking after our men

and cooking and sewing

and doing all the laundry.

The role of a female is to be submissive, obedient,

have her eyes cast down, to not speak out,

to not preach, to not try and teach men.

- Never thought about doing something else?

Be a vet or a doctor, something like that?

- Us girls looked at each other,

and we were like, oh, what do we do with this?

I'd never even considered that.

There was no other pathway for me

other than the one that was already set before me.

- Right here, there is a dormant volcano.

Well, I think the important factor

that most people miss is that God has an order--

God, then the man, then the woman, then the children.

Mount Somers was what?

- A volcano. - A volcano.

Submission comes from the heart.

It's something that's within.

For husbands, their role is to love their wives.

The families that are secure is because the husband

will be in the role God has put him in.

And the wife will be in the role God has put her in.

And they'll be playing those roles.

And then the children will play their role.

If you just save a copy, which you'll have to do Save As.

- I think it's just quite normal

for just anyone-- anyone chooses--

everyone chooses what they want to do in life.

I want to be a natural healer,

so I want to study to be an herbalist.

I actually don't like going out into society

and to town and stuff.

And just the things that you see on the news,

that I've seen on the news-- not even about us,

just about what happens,

I don't feel like it's a safe place.

- My siblings ran away when they were very young,

and we were told to tear up any photographs of them.

There was a lot of shame around my family then

because of two evil children

that have left the church.

So what are you doing wrong as a family?

And so I felt like I had a lot to prove.

I realized there's a place God has given to women.

And I'll always keep it close

by submitting myself to the man.

I'll always dress modestly and walk in purity

without fornication or adultery.

- When somebody leaves, as far as you're concerned,

they've forsaken the truth.

They have left the church.

So they are now a worldly, ungodly person.

They are lost.

[tense music]

♪

- No, I've never seen it.

♪

I can imagine.

I have been down at that gate for a couple of other times

when various people came back.

And yeah.

- And what if your family doesn't want to see you?

- They only don't want to see me, Dad,

because that's what they've been taught their whole lives.

- No. - Yes.

- In which way?

- Well, he didn't ask us.

He never asked us.

- We are a different people.

And we're happy to be different people

because we're going a different place.

You believe what you want to believe,

but if you don't want to be part of that, too bad.

That's not my problem.

Not my problem.

If you want to take yourself to hell,

you go right ahead and do it.

- They don't want the kids in Gloriavale

to even see their siblings out

because, oh, they might be tempted to want that life too.

- People do say that there are walls

that prevent people leaving.

The walls, I think, that leavers would talk about

is the walls that are in the mind.

And this is a really challenging topic.

♪

All we can do is treat them with kindness and respect,

which hasn't been the case often in the past.

But we need to be able to maintain who we are

and the value of the faith that the people who choose

to stay here want to hold in common.

- In , a group of women and men

with their children left.

- You leave basically with the clothes on your back.

- No money, no birth certificate,

no driver's license, no nothing.

- No, nothing.

- It caused a stir inside government,

so government, as a result of that,

created what was called an all of government response.

And this involved police, social welfare,

children and young persons, education, inland revenue.

They were supposed to get into and investigate Gloriavale.

- The narrative that's being pushed very strongly

to government agencies, to media,

is that we are a cult, that we are not to be believed

because we are brainwashed.

We have no mind, no will of our own.

We are simply robots obeying the whims

of the overseeing shepherd, which,

if you have any observation at all,

will see that's not factual.

- They've had it drummed into them all their life.

You don't fight the overseeing shepherd.

You don't go to outsiders.

You don't go to court.

Don't go to the police.

all: ♪ Thy kingdom come, thy will be done ♪

- The Bible says, don't go to court

before the unjust people.

Go to your brother about the problem and talk about it

and sort it out and ask God's help

and ask the help of all the brethren.

But to go to courts with unjust judges

against other people isn't what we want to do.

- The part of our history where we were not reporting

issues of sexual abuse,

we practiced our own form of protection

or dealing with those things.

One of the things we practiced was,

we did not want the victims to be known.

So if we knew that something had happened,

a little girl had been molested in some way,

we tried to keep it quiet for her protection,

because we didn't want these kids growing up

with this stigma that there'd been

this abuse in her life.

We also tried to protect wives from knowing about some

of the misdemeanors of their husbands.

And we tried to work with these men

to bring them to a place of repentance

so these things did not happen again.

- They don't have the skills to deal with these problems.

They just don't have the skills.

I still fear for the children.

- We were a bit naive because we sought

the idea of a perpetrator or an offender

coming to a place of repentance

and the victim coming to a place of forgiveness.

Now, that was our

entirely biblical understanding of that, OK?

The problem we had was that we did not understand the depth

of trauma that victims can suffer,

nor did we understand the grip

that sexual sin can have on a person's life.

These things are not going to happen again.

- I keep getting these, "oh, but we've changed now"

responses when you're in court.

Have they got all the sex offenders?

I don't know.

Doubt it.

[somber music]

♪

- When Hopeful knew he was dying,

he was much more introspective and thoughtful.

[indistinct singing]

One of the things that he said to me was,

think carefully about the choices that you make

because you'll never get them back.

I could see that this was a man who deeply regretted

some of the things that he had done,

but they were done.

- Why don't we throw Hopeful under the bus

and use him as the excuse

for all of the wrongs of Gloriavale?

So the answer to that is pretty plain and simple.

We honor Hopeful for his contribution

in founding the community.

This is one of the great marks of Christianity.

People are forgiven.

- We're very grateful, Lord.

We loved him and we appreciated him.

And dear Lord, thank you for taking him home.

- Did he do wrong? Absolutely.

Do I love and respect him for being my dad?

Absolutely.

I think we as human beings relate to a parent, right?

And we all need our parents, right?

That's how families are created.

♪

- So here we have our cemetery.

We just have nearly people that are resting here.

We're working on it currently to upgrade it.

It's been here since .

If we stand tall, the saying is,

it's because we're standing on the shoulders of others,

so we like to remember them, honor them.

The thing we learn from history is that people don't learn

from history, so one way to learn

is to make sure we remember them.

[tense music]

♪

So here is the headstone of Hopeful Christian.

Because of the controversial history surrounding Hopeful,

we don't tend to talk about it.

Many of us weren't there to experience it

and didn't experience it and don't know.

People can fail.

Did Hopeful fail?

Very likely.

But God and what He's doing is not defined

by a person and their failure.

Hopeful's past passed with Hopeful.

♪

[suspenseful music]

- How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?

- Guilty.

- Can't you just accept the fact I love my life?

- Today was a win for the women.

- It's a wrong way of using the law.

- Six very happy ladies here.

- When one of your children leaves,

to me, it's worse than a death.

- It took me a little while to figure out

I might not be damned.

- [distorted] Ladies should not have control of your life.

- One glance, I know exactly who that is.

- charges of sexually offending against children.

The only real way is to not have Gloriavale.