Amanda Evans: When your Gloriavale reality is not mine

August 16, 2016: | NZ Herald | Amanda Evans | Amanda Evans has directed and produced three top-rating Gloriavale documentaries for TVNZ. Here she responds to criticism from one former resident of the South Island religious community that the documentaries don’t dig deep enough. Having read Melissa Harrison’s criticism of Gloriavale – A…

Gloriavale teen Prayer Ready died choking in isolation room

August 15, 2016: | NZ Herald | Nikki Preston | A 14-year-old girl with Down syndrome died choking on a piece of meat in Gloriavale Christian Community while shut in an isolation room. Prayer Ready was in an isolation room with the door handles disabled to prevent people getting in and out when…

The Pantograph Punch – Gloriavale: The Other Side, From the Inside

August 15, 2016: By Melissa Harrison – The Pantograph Punch – 15/08/2016 Melissa Harrison writes on the irresponsibly soft treatment TV has afforded to the South Island cult her family escaped. I can recall various junctures throughout my life when a flurry of Gloriavale documentaries and articles would be splattered across our TV…

Life after Gloriavale: Former member speaks

August 4, 2016: | Stuff | Tess Brunton | Gloriavale would “fall to pieces” if its members knew the truth about their leader Hopeful Christian and his sexual convictions, a former member says. Seventeen months after leaving the controversial West Coast Christian community, South Canterbury dairy farmer James Ben Canaan gave his first face-to-face…

NZ Herald / ZM On Line – Dove Love’s brother: ‘She didn’t want to marry him’

August 1, 2016: NZ Herald – 01/08/2016 A man claiming to be the brother of Gloriavale resident Dove Love has spoken out against the “cult” community saying his sister did not want to marry but its leaders made her. The wedding of Dove Love to fellow community member Watchful Steadfast was the focus…

The Spinoff – Gloriavale: Where a woman’s place is submissive and pregnant

July 28, 2016: By Callum Henderson – The Spinoff – 28/07/2016 Calum Henderson asks why our taxpayer money continues to fund rose-tinted documentaries about the sexist hellhole known as Gloriavale. Our annual visit to Gloriavale is becoming a weird New Zealand television tradition. Every winter for the past three years we’ve been offered…

NZ Herald – Gloriavale: A timeline of controversy

July 27, 2016: NZ Herald – 27/07/2016 As Gloriavale returns, we take a look back at the community’s controversy over the years. July, 2007: Ex-Gloriavale members sentenced for robbery July 2014: Gloriavale hits NZ TV screens April, 2015: Ex-Members speak out against Gloriavale’s leader April, 2015: A community rich in assets … Read…

Gloriavale’s stage show is unlike anything else on Earth

July 25, 2016: | RNZ | Katie Scotcher | Every two years, the Gloriavale Christian Community welcomes 6000 people to watch a four-hour concert extravaganza. Last week Katie Scotcher and three friends went there to check out the show, Candlelight Castle, in the community’s own dining hall. We left Greymouth at nine, after a night of wine…