Hope, faith and big bucks
| The Press | Paul Madgwick |
Article archived: National Library
A remote West Coast complex houses a growing sect with multimillion- dollar businesses. Even infrequent trips by some of the 300 members into Greymouth put $300,000 monthly into the town’s stores. Welfare, benefits, and pensions are foreign concepts; community members support their own, apparently bankrolled by profits from the businesses. The woman stands under the veranda, her hands cupped in front and a faint smile fixed across her face. She has long hair, a white headscarf, and a long, navy-blue dress buttoned tightly to the neck.
She looks as serene as a nun and lives a cloistered life but this definitely is not a convent. It is the first glimpse of the Gloriavale Christian Community and Garden of Children, a town-size commune 70km inland from Greymouth. Further along the veranda, smiling acolytes with names such as Noah, Fervent, and Pilgrim greet the hundreds of visitors who have journeyed out on this long gravelled road on a mid-winter’s night for a concert and meal as guests of the community. By the end of the four-week concert season, this extraordinary, introverted community in the middle of nowhere will have hosted 3200 West Coasters, many of them just curious to get a look inside the commune walls.
It is not just the enigma of communal living that draws people, but also the surprise that it has become one of the biggest players in the West Coast economy with four international businesses. Inside, the crowd is funnelled into a large auditorium, the Living Museum, which is decorated with finely crafted, half-scale models of a sailing ship and vintage aeroplane in celebration of modern achievements. Everyone is seated at tables facing the front, just like school, settled in for the four-hour concert with a bottle of non-alcoholic home brew and apple cider. The music and the singing is faultless, the comedy skits funny, and the life- like props amazing. There is also a three-course meal served by Rapture, Serene, and Harmony.
The only visible sign of difference is the men’s toilet, modestly equipped with cubicles instead of the openness of a urinal. So why does a tightly closed commune that regards the outside world as corrupt open its doors and purse so generously to well- wishers and sceptics alike? It is, community head and spiritual leader Hopeful Christian explains to the crowd, a “love gift” to the West Coast community. To the secular world, that means public relations. Quietly but steadily the walls of Gloriavale have grown in 11 years, transforming a remote cow paddock above Lake Haupiri into a modern three-storey complex that stands like a temple on the bottom slopes of the Southern Alps.
Mirrored on either side are two three-storey dormitories — one of which is still under construction — to house the fast-growing community of 315. There is a registered pre-school for 70 children, and primary and secondary schools, with a combined roll of more than 100. School life is normal, except that teachers have identified health, physical education, and the arts as not fitting well with their beliefs. However, music, movement, and performing are key features of community life. From pre-school age, children are encouraged in music and by high school are all competent violin players. According to the Education Review Office, school programmes are organised in line with New Zealand curriculum standards and adapted to suit the community’s beliefs.
For instance, science is taught in biblical context, and girls are encouraged in the kitchen to prepare for their future life in the community. Everyone from pre-school age to old age is dressed in the same modest uniform that neatly keeps temptation and curiosity at bay. Theirs is essentially a small town compacted into three buildings, surrounded by the commercial enterprises that keep the men employed and the community fed. “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it,” proclaims the church letterhead.
Perhaps not, but the gates have been rattled at least. It was only seven years ago that Hopeful Christian was jailed on three charges of indecent assault on community members. He served just 11 months before being released on parole back to Lake Haupiri. He is now 75 but remains in charge.
The troubles began in 1993, two years after the Haupiri sect was founded, when girls and boys complained to the police that they had been sexually assaulted at the Cust Christian Community. The complainants were aged between 12 and 19 at the time. A jury found Hopeful Christian guilty of 10 of the 11 charges and he was sentenced to six years. That was overturned by the Court of Appeal the following year, and a new trial ordered.
He was retried on three charges in December 1995, and again found guilty. However, the charges, the drawn- out trials, and his eventual incarceration did nothing to shake the bonds of the Christian Community or the trust its members stored in their father figure, Hopeful Christian.
The complainants were ostracised from their remaining family in the community and left to flounder in the outside world. Others who have left voluntarily to get a taste of freedom have spoken of the difficulty of adjusting after a lifetime of seclusion; some of the “fallen” later returned to the fold.
Discipline is tough. A teenage girl caught by her mother holding hands with a boy was marched in front of a men’s disciplinary meeting that lasted 16 hours. An Australian by birth, Hopeful Christian (formerly Neville Cooper) has said he found his faith after World War 2. In the late- 1960s he put that into practice, drawing followers into a commune known as Springbank, on a 100ha property near Cust, North Canterbury. They called themselves the Christian Community Church, but to outsiders they were the Cooperites. A strong work ethic, self- sufficiency, and a preference to shut themselves off from the secular world were the tenets of this brand of Christianity.
They might have been regarded as odd, but former Waimakariri District Mayor Trevor Inch once praised the community as a “model of fastidiousness” and its members a tremendous asset to the district. The surprise move to the West Coast came in 1991 as the community outgrew the Cust property. The growth was not so surprising because members are encouraged, if not expected, to raise large families. In that respect Hopeful Christian led by example. He had 15 children in 1994, shortly after marrying his third wife, who was 17 at the time.
Some new recruits have also come from the wider West Coast community. Members are free to go, but when they do all contact is severed. Each contributes their worldly possessions to a community pool, and is provided for when they leave. One member who left the Cust community with his wife and eight children in the 1980s walked away with a meagre $4000. The Gloriavale Christians are not to be confused with another conservative Christian sect, the Exclusive Brethren, who arrived on the West Coast from Nelson about the same time as the Haupiri community. Exclusive Brethren, based out of a windowless church in Greymouth, dress similarly and own some major businesses in town.
While their faith does not acknowledge the wizardry of computers and Eftpos, the Haupiri Christians embrace it all in their daily life. However, they do have some restrictive beliefs that appear incompatible with normal commerce. Interest, credit, and debt have no place here, yet members very successfully run one of the largest dairy farms on the West Coast with 1200 top-breed dairy stock, farm 1400 deer, and own some major businesses. Total worth is probably in excess of $10 million — all ensconced on the 1687ha property. Ocean Harvest International Ltd exports fishmeal to China, Lakeview Moss Ltd has markets worldwide, and Avkair Ltd has the only fixed-wing and helicopter maintenance facility on the West Coast. Customers fly in from around the South Island.
The community also runs a joint venture charter service with the Greymouth Aero Club. Each company is owned communally and directed by one of the community’s senior members, Steady Standtrue. Welfare, benefits, and pensions are foreign concepts; community members support their own, apparently bankrolled by profits from the businesses. The reality of the Gloriavale businesses is not insignificant — between $300,000 and $350,000 is spent in Greymouth each month. “They have four international companies and so irrespective of their spiritual and moralistic aspects, economically they cannot be ignored,” says Grey District economic development officer Frank Ash.
The Christian sect’s interaction with the West Coast community is carefully controlled, but after 11 years the infrequent trips to town are barely noticed these days. “People might not agree with their doctrine, but they are now very much accepted as part of the community,” says Ash.