Time to scrape away Gloriavale’s pretence of a ‘Christian community’
Dennis Gates is a lawyer from Cambridge who was involved in the early litigation against Gloriavale.
OPINION: It’s two years since the Employment Court ruled that a group of Gloriavale women were employees not volunteers, and a year since the TV documentary Utopia revealed that women from the West Coast cult had been sent to India to establish a new branch there.
Regarding the latter, there was an outcry at the time. Media reported on the Gloriavale leaders’ response to the alarming revelations about the India operation and allegations of the men “forcing” themselves on the women.
“What is rape? … Indian men are very forceful around women,” one leader says in the documentary, as reported by Joanne Naish in The Press on March 26, 2024.
Former members of Gloriavale and their supporters celebrate outside the Christchurch law courts after winning their Employment Court case against the organisation in 2023.KAI SCHWOERER / KAI SCHWOERER/THE PRESS
Her story was headlined “Women and children ‘trapped’ in Gloriavale’s Indian community without access to passports”. That was a year ago. Does no-one care?
The Government has just trumpeted a successful visit to India. I wonder if Mr Luxon even gave these women and their young children a second’s thought while discussing trade with Prime Minister Modi?
Why is the Government not acting with urgency on the extremely disturbing behaviour going on under the banner of a “Christian community”?
When Government reports describe this cult as a “Christian community” it seems to suggest that Gloriavale, or indeed anywhere described as a Christian community, would not countenance behaviour such as has been documented for many years.
Typically, the phrase describes the prevailing faith in a nation, state or region, or perhaps applies to a particular section of a recognised religion, for example a monastery or a priory.
In the Gloriavale instance, the claim that it is a Christian community is a misrepresentation at best and a well-considered lie at worst.
Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis is shown around the remote Gloriavale community on the West Coast as part of an ongoing Employment Court hearing – one of various official investigations into the activities of the organisation.Joanne Naish/Stuff
Gloriavale is a closed, isolated commercial operation that has a complex legal structure involving a charitable trust, partnerships, companies and individual labourers. The common denominator of Gloriavale residents is the purported position of its people that they believe in the Christian faith as expounded in the King James version of the Bible. And yet according to the latest census data, 25% of adults in Gloriavale are not Christian.
Freedom of religion is a given in New Zealand under our Bill of Rights Act, and that extends to the residents of Gloriavale as the entitlement of an individual citizen. There is no legal provision for a community to claim, as a corporate or quasi-corporate entity, that it is Christian.
Legal provision or not, the description of this cult as a “a Christian community” is how almost all Government reports on Gloriavale start. Let’s make no bones about it, this is a commercial enterprise that takes advantage of its residents’ faith, with fear and control.
Protesters concerned about the treatment of Gloriavale residents protest against government inaction in 2020. Five years on and the inaction continues.Joseph Johnson / Joseph Johnson/STUFF
Is the Government using this delightful “Christian community” description to hide behind its inaction to address the many failings of that community as disclosed over the last few decades?
Newspaper articles, TV news stories, documentaries, books and court reports, and the leavers who continue to worry about their families still inside and in India, appear to be irrelevant, seem to matter for nothing. I suppose calling it a Christian community makes the cult sound like do-gooding missionaries heading overseas, saving souls.
The years tick by. The hurt, abuse and damage continues.
Government intervention is entirely justified, All of the residents, including more than 400 children, deserve protection and freedom.
Until the bureaucrats and MPs focus on their duty to administer the law as it applies to everyone in NZ, and without unjustifiable exceptions, I guess this cult will continue to operate next year, the following year and on into the future.