Sins of the Father The Long Shadow of a Religious Cult by Fleur Beale NZ

Description

Sins of the Father: The Long Shadow of a Religious Cult

by Fleur Beale

Neville Cooper started out with divine impulses: to preach the Word and bring sinners to God, and to build a Christian utopia on earth. However, not all his followers could stomach the rule of this charismatic, willful, driven, and self-righteous man. Especially his eldest son Phil. Fleur Beale, with Phil Cooper and his son Israel, has written their extraordinary story. It begins with Neville’s heady, tent-touring days in Australia and New Zealand, where he drew crowds as large as Billy Graham’s, to the development of his 400-strong Gloriavale Community on the West Coast of the South Island. This compelling story takes us from Phil’s first shocking realization that his father means to bend him to his will, to Neville’s public trial and imprisonment for sexual crimes against his flock. This is a story of courage and resourcefulness, of hearts broken and those trying to mend. It is a story of power and control, loss and solidarity. It is a story of escape: Phil first runs from his father at fourteen, and again a year later. But each time, he is drawn back to the fold, his will buckling under the ‘interrogations’ of the community’s elders and his own father’s threats of renunciation. Sins of the Father tells how one man’s unyielding vision casts a long shadow in which his son, and other ‘victims’, will always live. Whether in the community or out of it, Phil continues to measure or to pit himself against the monstrous figure of his father. A compelling and intriguing story of human aspiration and folly, of anguish, resolve, and courage.

Paperback, 2009, 231pages, very good condition