Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

This programme deals with Suicide and Sexual Abuse

I'm here to support you. OK?

The purpose of this is to support you

in the process of facing up to what happened to you.

It's about you telling me your experience

and me bringing my knowledge

and understanding of cults and spiritual abuse.

So, we're not debunking personal faith.

That's not what this is about.

This is about debunking the cult from a psychological perspective

and how spirituality and faith actually were used to control.

All of us need to understand the process

of what we've been through in order not to repeat it.

I've seen it happen with others who've left cults.

They end up in a different cult.

- How's that, Sarah? - Yeah.

How are you doing?

It's hard.

THEY CHANT

THEY CHANT

Jesus Christ is Lord!

You must bring yourself to a new commitment,

and you shall know what it is to be on fire for your Lord.

Yes!

When the Jesus Army marches to war,

their message is high pressure and hardline -

join the Army or be damned.

WOMAN SPEAKS ITALIAN

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A Jesus...

..Explosion!

I want you.

I want you.

I want you to be mine.

Surrender the middle part of you.

The awful power of sin lurks there.

Now, we give our genitals to Jesus.

# Sound the trumpet of the gospel

# Jesus Christ is Lord. #

Bugbrooke is an unpretentious

Northamptonshire village,

but the very English picture painted by its local church

and congregation has been challenged

by a local group of unorthodox Christians.

WAILING

They are talking in different tongues now.

That's the thing I never understood,

because you can't speak another language unless you're taught it.

Singing. Singing at the top of their voices.

That's not being neighbourly, is it?

It's clapping hands and stamping feet.

And in and out. In and out.

You'd never think it was a place of worship.

Well, you've only got to look at them

to see what type of people he's encouraging here.

They're not the village people, certainly.

Back in the early '70s, I had heard there was -

inverted commas - "something going on" at this place called Bugbrooke,

which was a little village near Northampton.

The pastor of the chapel there had established a church

that was very, very different.

WAILING

It was a completely new form of Christianity becoming visible,

particularly in America at the time...

..all centred around a much more vibrant form of worship.

There were people talking in tongues there...

..and apparently they felt

that they could actually feel God inside of them.

And I wanted to find out if this was true or not.

When I first started, I mean, I just saw it as a...

As a radical church, you know?

It seemed like a good idea, I suppose.

I mean, in those days,

it was still quite a stigma to be a single mum.

I'd gone to some other churches

and nobody'd sort of spoken to me at all.

But when I first went to the chapel,

I'd got there a little bit late

and they were already worshipping inside.

As I entered,

I don't know what it was, whether it was Jesus, but I just felt...

..that this was where I was supposed to be.

WOMAN SINGS

Come, my brothers and sisters in the Lord.

The fullness of Jesus rightly belongs to us.

# Thee has given me the wine to make my heart rejoice

# And the oil to make my face to shine. #

I'd heard a lot about this person, Noel Stanton.

But everybody was...

..in awe of him.

You're our brother and sister in Jesus.

You belong with us in the family of the Lord.

- Thank you. - And that old world, that old nature,

and all the world that was attaching to that old nature, now dies.

Amen.

Noel was conscripted into the Navy.

It was there that he became a Christian.

After that, he started running his own stationery business in Bedford.

But he also, at the same time, became a lay pastor at Bugbrooke.

Noel, actually, for a long time before the community started,

he was like a conventional Christian.

But then, in the late '60s,

he was visited by God and he received the Holy Spirit.

It was very powerful.

It really profoundly affected him.

It was Jesus, who said, your heavenly father

will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

Will give? Oh, yes, I've proved it.

I proved it four and a half years ago when I said,

Father, according to that word of Jesus,

I ask you now to give me the Holy Spirit.

And in an overwhelming fashion, he surely did.

When I encountered Noel for the first time,

he claimed that he was a prophet speaking God's will.

And he picked up his Bible and started slapping it -

"I'm fed up of this weak-kneed,

"namby-pamby Christianity that's around us.

"Don't be so measly and feeble."

And then he said, "Right, brethren, he said,

"shall we make the earth tremble?"

And everybody started to sing with full voice.

SINGING

It really did feel as if the very walls and ceiling were vibrating.

It felt thunderous...

..and by the end of the chorus,

I had my hand up in the air along with everybody else.

But of course, I had no idea, really,

that there was something extremely manipulative about all of this,

because from now on, for all of us,

it wasn't just a case of going to church.

It was a case of belonging to church.

So, one thing I'm just going to say,

it's so important to really kind of use this C-word.

Call a cult, a cult. OK?

A cult exhibits great or excessive devotion to some person,

idea or thing.

Noel was, like, revered, weren't he?

- Yeah, yeah. - So he's the person, Noel Stanton.

- Yeah... - So it's... - And we were devoted to him.

- You were. - In his message. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

- That was a big focus, wasn't it? That whole kind of... - Discipleship.

Mmm. Discipleship, yeah.

I even had a photo of Noel under my bed for ages.

So, here we start ticking boxes.

Dangerous leaders make important decisions

about converts' lives - money, dress, personal possessions.

They cut themselves off, either geographically or socially.

They perceive there's only one way forward.

All of that is weird. It's really weird.

- That was Noel. - Yeah.

He was exactly that, basically.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's fucking weird.

The Lord has told us to move into our community,

to divide our possessions.

Living in separate houses?

Yes, but belonging to one another as a true family.

Loving one another, caring for one another,

sharing with one another - that's the way.

It's blessed.

It's powerful.

It's working.

It's beautiful.

In an attempt to return to the lifestyle

practised by the early church,

a small nucleus of people have given their homes

and all personal wealth to the new community.

The money given in by all the members

has been used to buy properties

where community members live together.

Do you actually miss the privacy

that having your own home would give you?

Oh, no, not really.

We find that we have any privacy that we need.

When I moved in to New Creation Farm,

there was this real hum of excitement.

And almost immediately, everything seemed...

..different.

My mum, she was trying to live in a way

that she thought was the way God wanted us to live our lives.

And in a way, I get it.

To begin with, Mags, she was full of beans.

Little bundle of joy, she was.

This pretty farmhouse is home for about 20 community members.

Parents, children, single people all live under the same roof.

There was loads about Sheepfold I loved.

As kids, it was an amazing place.

There was just fields that we could all go and run and play in,

and we used to go and pick gooseberries together.

So it wasn't only bad stuff. There was really cool stuff as well.

When you went into the community,

you're giving up your earthly aspirations, really.

You know, we would be living as the early Christians did.

So you shared things and had everything in common.

You just distributed them as people had need.

Sounds totally innocent, doesn't it?

To begin with, everything seemed wonderful.

I just felt such a peace,

and obviously it attracted quite a lot of young people.

They all greeted me as "bro".

"Hi, bro. It's lovely to have you here."

I feel the same place as you, bro.

- I really do love you. - Bless you. I love you.

It's like, if you know you're going to live with someone for eternity...

- Yeah. - ..if you know that... - ..forever...

..they're going to be loving you for eternity,

then you might as well just...

..just start, just start realising that now.

To describe it as an idyllic, dreamy kind of atmosphere

is absolutely spot-on.

It's almost like going on a trip.

The whole vision and the whole idea was one

that was very separate from the world.

It was genuinely 100% like a fairy tale.

It was just beautiful.

Mags and me and Mum moved in when I was about eight.

I was so excited.

Sheepfold was like this huge house.

Honestly, I just thought this was like being a princess in a castle.

There were lots of other families moving in as well,

so we got kids to play with all the time.

But the first thing that I remember really well,

we'd moved all our stuff, and I was like,

"Oh, Mum, where are all my toys?"

Cos I'd got this... You know, I was quite obsessed with my dolls

and my rather nice little doll's house that I had.

And... And Mum said, "Well, I've given all your toys away because

"we don't have toys in the community."

They're just gone.

They hadn't... You know, there was no warning, no nothing.

They're just gone.

I mean, for me, it wasn't anything weird

cos it was all I ever knew.

But there was loads of it that was really not...

Whatever normal is, it's, like, far from normal.

We moved in just before my eighth birthday.

My parents wanted to be around other Christians

where we can all grow up together in a morally conscious environment,

committing everything that we had, as a family, to the church.

And you don't understand that as a child.

We moved into the house next door, by a couple of fields,

to where Noel lived.

So we were very tightly overseen by Noel.

You could feel his influence, actually.

He didn't need to be there.

He used to preach a lot about spiritual family.

That was what was important, not the natural family -

because the natural family,

I suppose, were your link to your old self.

And that was a big no-no.

So you didn't have family time, really.

You didn't just have time with your mum.

It's a very extreme environment to grow up in.

It was dangerous, actually, when you think about it.

You know, as a child, it's stripping a person away

from everything you need as support.

- That's so true. Like... - Yeah?

Yeah, my mum wasn't around,

so it was cutting you off from family and not...

And the family being the church

rather than being me, my mum and my sister.

Cor, it's hot.

I never used to like tea when I was little.

But Jesus makes you less fussy, doesn't he?

He does, I know.

The leadership of the community is all male.

An Elder lives in each community home

and all problems and decisions are shared with him.

Elders are to be found in all our houses and our households.

They are to be shepherds of the flock of Christ.

They are the ministers of the flock of Christ.

But in any situation, living together in a house,

you have got to have people who sort out things.

I was initially made what's called a leading serving brother, LSB,

which always amused me because of my electronics background.

In electronics, LSB stands for Least Significant Bit.

So, all right, there's something of a need

for humility in being called an LSB. Sort of...

It clicked with me.

It's easy to see only the rules.

But in the early days, Noel had very much a vision

for being God's people.

If Noel had a particular topic

that he was speaking about that week,

everybody, every brother would be on that thing -

"No sugar. No-one's to have sugar. Sugar's the devil,"

and not being able to refrain from doing something's the devil.

And you have to be able to control yourself.

So, no sugar, anybody.

One of the things we realised was we didn't want to have large amounts

of bits and pieces and we didn't want to get distracted

by things like television.

So we didn't have televisions and we didn't have radios.

A packed lunch is worldly.

Wearing fashionable clothes is worldly.

A bag of crisps - how worldly.

And worldly stuff wasn't to be included or invited in,

because that was inviting the devil in,

literally inviting the devil in.

The battle is between Satan and God, Satan and Jesus.

What do you mean?

I mean, Satan is working in everybody who's not...not...

Is working in the world.

And...and...and... I mean, you can tell.

Just look at the state of the place.

Every single night, you're sat in a room like this.

Somebody would be playing guitar,

somebody else would be speaking in tongues,

and there would be people who looked possessed.

And I remember these brothers

all coming in and, like, laying hands on them.

Everybody speaking in tongues really loud

and Noel yelling, "The devil!"

Exorcisms were quite frequent.

Noel was one of these people who would quite easily

sort of point out a demon in somebody.

People would throw up.

Some people would convulse on the floor.

You don't know what it is

and you're trying to rationalise it as a child.

One day, I was drawing stick people with willies and boobs.

I have no idea why.

It's just something you do as a child sometimes.

And it was deemed that I had an unclean spirit.

And...

- How old were you? - Seven.

I can remember it clearly.

The elder of our household, he used to put his hand...

My head used to fit perfectly into his hand,

and he just used to sort of push down on it so I couldn't move.

It was really frightening.

I don't actually want to talk about that too much.

What is an introject?

An introject is a belief or behaviour

which you've taken into yourself

that remains sitting in your psychological system

like a lump of unchewed and undigested food in your gut.

My thing that stuck with me is I'm possessed -

you know, that I've got a demonic spirit in me.

I'm the devil that's taking everybody's eye off

what they should be concentrating on.

And, you know, that needs to be taken out of me.

How dare they tell a little girl that she's possessed?

How dare they tell any of you?

That introject is still stuck in your stomach undigested,

poisoning you.

And I think we need to go,

"I haven't got a demon. They were controlling me.

"They were abusing me by telling me these things."

For many people, the control and living in conformity

with the rules was incredibly difficult.

I shared a room at the farm with a guy called Steve,

who would stay up till the early hours of the morning reading.

Reading was considered to be a bit of a heady,

individualistic pursuit,

and I heard him arguing with Noel on a couple of occasions.

I heard raised voices,

and I came out of my room to see what was going on,

and Noel was stood by his bedroom door,

calling for Steve to come back,

but Steve just put his hand up dismissively in the air

and marched off.

But it's indicative in this case of somebody who was unhappy.

I know that because he told me about it.

And it proved to be Steve's last night with us, actually.

Somebody rang and told me that

his body had been found on the railway track

and that he was knocked over by a train.

So, I immediately asked if...

I said, "Oh, has he committed suicide?"

And... And I was told I shouldn't be thinking such thoughts,

because of course he hadn't committed suicide.

It had just been a terrible accident.

This was the public statement, if you like, from the community.

Although the coroner now says that there is no evidence

to support criticism of the sect,

his concern was based on the fact that,

in addition to Stephen's gruesome death,

there was an unusual coincidence of another death

in unusual circumstances 18 months ago.

In this case, another member of the sect was found lying naked

in the garden in December, and he died from exposure.

Well, it was gut-wrenching.

The initial thought was, he's gone somewhere praying

and nothing to worry about.

I don't think anybody knows what happened or why it happened.

The circumstances of both deaths are just a mystery...

..which raises questions, really.

The New Creation Christian community

has aroused its fair share of criticism.

There's a natural suspicion of any such

highly committed and insular group of people

who claim to have found the true way to God.

Such ecstasy must surely have a flaw.

Very, very gradually, through the years,

he has increased his evangelism until it became aggressive.

And that's when I skipped out.

I know what goes on.

Community members have bought an old hotel

and some of the county's more elegant homes.

The community uses the skills of its members in several businesses.

A company called Scano does all the building work

on community properties.

There's a chain of health food shops called The House of Goodness Ltd.

We were growing really fast at that point.

Various articles were made about us because we were something unusual.

But of course, the fear of the unknown, I think,

is very, very real.

I see a cult.

I know they're saying all the time

that they're not a cult, but I do see a cult,

an enclosed cult which exists for itself.

I mean, there are people who want to dub us a cult,

but we are very orthodox.

We're a church. We're a genuine Christian church.

As the Evangelical Alliance have said,

we are a genuine Christian church.

Yes, Noel was a very dominating character.

However, I'm against Jesus Fellowship being called a cult.

After all, it sprang out of the Baptist church,

and the Baptist church...nationally has got a structure.

We are people of historic Christianity.

We recognise, and churches in general recognise,

that we belong to the Church of Christ throughout the world.

And... And therefore, of course, we completely deny any suggestion

that we are a cult in the way the word is now accepted.

Our good does get evil spoken of.

There are false allegations and the like,

but we believe our testimony will win through.

Oh, God, I have so many, many sins.

But listen, if we confess our sin...

God, here are my many, many, many sins.

But, God, I don't want the things of the world any more.

You must bring yourself to a new commitment to Jesus.

You must be 100% his.

At that point, the thing that developed very interestingly

was that...

..celibacy became more and more something which Noel encouraged.

He said that in the world in general,

there was far too much intimacy.

Surrender the middle part of you.

Many of us here will have to accept

that an awful power of sin lurked there.

But now...

..we give our genitals to Jesus.

When I became celibate...

..I was one of the earlier people to commit to that.

And it was just presented as an option.

And then it grew into something else.

It did become the foundation for Noel, in a way.

And so it was a kind of a tick box

for brothers to get elevated up the ranks.

In my case, I was 24.

I had this experience...with a girl I was going out with,

before I joined the church.

It wasn't a great relationship, really.

So, you know, I wasn't an experienced exponent of, you know...

I was probably in my early 20s.

In fact, I'm a peculiarity,

having basically joined the community

when I was 18 and being so introverted before I was 18,

I've never had a girlfriend.

So here I am, 65 years old, and I've never had a girlfriend.

Right.

You know, which in many ways must make me a bit unique,

but that is me. And I am what God has made me in that sense.

And of course, Noel himself was a single celibate.

Celibacy was for life.

But it wasn't just a case of holiness.

It went beyond that.

It was far more...

..to do with the control of people.

And in fact, from now on,

relationships between brothers and sisters would be something

that was entirely monitored and regulated.

It got to the point where within the household,

men would sleep down one end of the house,

women would sleep at the other end,

and generally, men and women didn't fraternise.

It's almost like there was a complete vacuum there

with regards to anything of a sexual nature.

And I think that was a projection from Noel, actually.

In a sexual sense,

he was an incredibly mixed up, insecure person.

I myself encountered Noel

either in his underclothes or just wearing a bath towel...

..and having younger brothers sat next to him on the bed,

which I thought was...

It unsettled me.

Looking back, I can say...

..he was struggling, I think, with his sexuality.

And perhaps, you know, he was fighting against those tendencies.

How that came out at the time, it was obvious.

Anger.

I remember he used to work himself up into these massive rants

where he used to, like, rage at everybody.

More and more, Noel absolutely hit the roof.

He used to get so irate,

and for some reason, it was often at young people.

I just remember every single night...

..Noel ranting, sweating, ranting and telling you about hell's fire,

and "If you allow the children to be swept away..."

Sometimes he'd shout so hard that the veins on his neck

would just stand out. It was horrific.

You know, he just hated us.

And as time went past...

..the way in which children in the community were treated

became more and more extreme.

In all of the households, birch sticks were kept hidden.

But we all knew where they were.

It was preached that you spare the rod and spoil the child.

I do remember a lot of roddings -

maybe not as many as Mags.

You know, my sister, she was rodded from the age of two.

How often were you disciplined? Do you remember?

I reckon every day.

Or almost every day.

All of the children were rodded.

You would get disciplined because somebody,

a brother, there, has decided

that something you've just done was defiant.

That's what I remember hearing a lot, that I was being defiant.

One particular occasion, we're in the bedroom,

and Mum was... Mum was disciplining Mags.

She was about two and she was whacking her with a stick.

And Magsie was just screaming and screaming and screaming,

and I just... So I, like, buried myself under the covers,

like, covered my ears and, like, ruffled my feet to make noise

with the bedsheets to try and block out

the sound of this screaming baby.

I mean, it wasn't...

I don't know, it's difficult, really.

I mean, when you've got everybody together,

you know, and everyone's looking, you know, you...

It's... It's difficult.

Because I was a single mum and had no husband...

..everybody - all the brothers - thought it was their place

to point out to me what they thought my child

should or shouldn't be doing.

I mean, the Elders would take decisions for my children, you know.

And I found that really difficult.

How do you feel, sort of overall,

it's affected your relationship with your mum?

Erm...

I haven't really ever spoken to her about how it made me feel.

It's like the elephant in the room that you never talk about.

You just sort of politely skirt around,

but you kind of feel like you wanted to be more protected.

I'd never been in any doubt that my mum really loves me.

And she's a good person.

And she... Of course, she was doing it because she thought it was

the right thing to do.

But the bit that gives me rage

is the bit that's, like, "That was your choice."

I didn't choose any of this shit.

Children were anybody's.

Sorry. They were anybody's.

We were open to whoever, and that...

As horrible as a pill that is for our parents to swallow,

that's the facts.

It's tricky...

..but the key to successful brainwashing

is to keep the subject unaware

that they're being manipulated and controlled.

I've used the analogy of the frog in boiling water.

You know, a frog, if you heat it up... It's horrible,

but if you heat it up slowly,

it doesn't know it's being heated up and boiled alive.

And I think there is an element of that happening.

So, to your parents, the punishment is justified

as being necessary to cleanse this so-called sin.

The doctrine is more important than the individual's wellbeing.

What Noel Stanton seems to have created

is a state within a state,

an apparently benevolent totalitarian system,

where the interests of the individual are subjugated

to the interests of the majority.

All their businesses have grown out of their community needs.

There's a builders merchants and a plumbing

and decorating business which service their houses.

There's a firm of solicitors and a doctors' surgery of five GPs.

In their heyday, those businesses were regularly turning in profits.

And so that was giving us a very, very good financial base

on which to work.

I pray for sales and I get my prayers answered,

and so do the rest of the staff.

I believe God loves us and I believe he wants to help us.

In the '80s, there was a big expansion.

And I think the power, if you have power...

There's that saying, isn't there?

You know, all power corrupts. I think it does.

I am a Christian with power.

And I think as time went by, there were more and more controls.

With Noel, it was the natural progression of his personality,

which was sort of like controlling bullying, maybe.

And so, in that name that's above every other name,

the name of Jesus Christ who is Lord,

now we baptise you.

Jesus is Lord!

CROWD WHISTLES

Tonight, we talk to members of Britain's foremost religious sect.

Are they here to give salvation

or has their operation an altogether more sinister feel?

John Everett, you were involved for five years,

and then you left and suffered a nervous breakdown, didn't you?

I left the community because I had grown to believe

that they were exhibiting characteristics

which I began to associate with cultishness.

Let your voices be raised in praise to the Lord!

There were several key factors involved with my decision to leave.

There was the whole business of having one man at the helm

with so much authority.

Of course, the way in which children in the community were treated.

And as time passed, I became really angry.

And at that point, I thought...

.."I need... For the sake of people who might be drawn in,

"I need to make known what I know about the community."

So, in the first instance, I wrote quite a long manuscript.

It was actually picked up by the Baptist Union

and the Evangelical Alliance,

and I had meetings with them.

I think there's a real issue

about the way the church was being administered.

There was an unhealthy emphasis on celibacy.

There was a concern that children may be being put

in a more pressured situation than was helpful

and that an excessive discipline might be being used.

When people spoke to the press...

Yeah, I mean, it was, um... It was...

That was relatively full-on.

Let him die. Crucify him!

The Judas word would get mentioned quite a bit.

And so I was the first formal excommunicant of the community.

Nobody was allowed to talk to me or have anything to do with me,

because I'd become the enemy.

Erm... All right, yes. To be able to say

"We're part of the Evangelical Alliance" was helpful.

We did want to maintain what connections we could

with other Christian organisations.

But, you know, internally,

I think our desire was far more to be acknowledged by God

than to be acknowledged by human organisations.

Do not trust in the weakness of man.

We're in a fight, persecuted.

Will you take Jesus into the kind of church that he desires?

Will you? Dare you?

And so the Jesus Army was formed.

Blow the trumpet.

Move on. Advance!

Join the fight.

When the Jesus Army marches to war,

their battle is for hearts and minds

and their message is high pressure and hardline -

join the Army or be damned.

We're looking for a new Britain, a new Britain morally.

You see, we live in a nation where there's all sorts

of sexual permissive problems and the like,

every kind of moral problem.

When Jesus Army came in...

..there was this element of kind of...

How do you say this in a nice way? "Up yours to the establishment."

Just let the spirit fall upon you.

In the name of Jesus...

..of self-destruction and suicide...

..we find you in the powerful blood of the lamb.

# Glory

# Glory in the highest... #

Let's be revolutionaries.

We've got to promote the Christian gospel

in a fairly militant form today.

After all, evil is on the march.

Today, the debate surrounding one of the most active

new religious groups, the Jesus Army...

To some, they're a dangerous cult.

To others, they're a radical movement which changes lives.

This Jesus Army is something that... Well, frankly, it disgusts me.

These Rambo jackets,

the uniform they have chosen is the uniform of force.

The Jesus Army was, in one sense, deliberately promoted

as being up front, in your face.

But one of the aspects, I think,

of the Jesus Army manifesto was to go where others don't go...

..reaching those right on the outskirts of society,

whether it be drug addicts...or those homeless.

You know, reaching out into various of...the gay situations

and things like that at times as well.

Father, I just pray that you will work powerfully

to show them that there...is sin within them, Lord God.

Cause them to come to this bus, Lord Jesus,

cause them to find out what's going on inside them right now, Lord.

Cause them to find out why they're so uncomfortable, Lord Jesus.

I was probably about 13 or 14

the first time I was told to go evangelising.

I felt a lot of pressure, actually.

It was drummed into us that this was the only way to gain redemption,

to go to heaven.

And sometimes it could be quite scary

because you'd get people who were off their heads.

- It really was the lion's den... - SHE LAUGHS

..particularly for children.

Can't even walk straight.

Is it safe?

Lord Jesus. Jesus...

It's great to be able to have the resources,

to be able to... Doing something that actually changed people,

that actually helped people directly.

You've only got one life to live. Go for it.

- Come on. - We'll look after you.

Just get on with it.

I don't think there was any kind of randomness in it.

I think with Noel, everything was a tool

that was...used for a purpose.

It's been a good night's work.

Three people are travelling back to the farm for the weekend.

Steve from London, picked him up last night from Leicester Square.

We don't know much about his background, only that he's homeless.

We've missed you, Steve. Good to see you. Are you glad to be here?

Yeah, sure am.

We haven't got too many rules here.

LAUGHTER

No!

Probably one or two, but not many.

We just want to be like Jesus and move in peace and love.

We believe...

We believe in Jesus Christ as our Saviour.

I think, by then, Noel had realised that we needed

to kind of make ourselves some sort of charity or organisation

to help support people.

So then, people say, "Well, look at all the good that he did."

You can't... You can't weigh it up like that.

A lot of good does not outweigh a whole load of bad.

Your strength and your grace and your healing power...

THEY SPEAK IN TONGUES

My best friend - she had a really hard time

at this new community house, Battlecentre.

She was very unhappy.

I remember her saying how depressed she was,

how she hated her life, how difficult it was.

I used to go and visit sometimes.

This Elder - he didn't seem to mind that I was there.

He would use me as a lookout, so that I could warn him

if anybody in the community house

was coming into the room or passing by.

He took her down into the cellar

and he would touch her, try and hug her, and...

I mean, I didn't actually try and watch

because I was supposed to be the lookout,

but you can't help yourself but watch.

We were 12 and 13 at the time.

One day, my dad approached me and told me that...

..my best friend had tried to commit suicide.

I felt ashamed.

I felt ashamed of what he'd done to her.

I felt ashamed that I hadn't told anybody already.

So the next day, my dad arranged for me

to tell the Elder of our household.

They would report back to Noel.

Noel was just adamant I was a traitor

and I was in collaboration with my best friend.

And our voices...

..what have they said?

What damage have they done?

What lies have they told?

What gossip has come from them?

The brothers, they still didn't believe me.

Men come and stand right at the front of the stage

and just stand there and pray against me and curse me.

I was an abomination, basically.

We're Jesus Revolutionaries.

Now, part of this Jesus revolution

is showing everyone that the Christian faith,

the living Christian faith, is a faith of real joy.

You simply have to surrender and receive.

Well, of course, she was not the only one.

What happened next was horrifying.

I later found out, actually, most of my peers had been abused.

These people, they thought they were above the law.