After the Fall: Listener

By Jane Gray |

To the members of his community, Neville Cooper was the voice of God, obeyed without question.  Now he answers to an earthly authority.

Hopeful Christian, born Neville Barclay Cooper, stood in the Christchurch District Court dock in the blue jersey, shirt and trousers and tie that were the men’s uniform of the Cooperite community. Known to his people as the voice of God, he looked as if he might be taking instructions from his superior through the oversize earphones he wore.  But, slightly deaf, he was in fact listening to Judge Graeme Noble pronouncing sentence.

The 67-year-old Cooper didn’t look like God’s representative on Earth.  Short, his remaining hair oiled back above a short back and sides, his pugnacious chin now sank into his chest, he looked like just another old colonial boy down on his luck. Hard to imagine him ruling with a rod of iron, so charismatic that he could make his followers do almost anything.  But, as with Centrepoint’s Bert Potter, there’s nothing so pathetic as a fallen guru.

Full article available here: After the Fall