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A second high-ranking member of the secret Gloriavale religious sect has left the community over concerns about how it is being run.
Selwyn Love, the father of Dove Love who appeared in the TVNZ documentary about the community, left Gloriavale earlier this week.
Love was a servant leader, one of 16 pastors and servants that make up the leadership council, which oversees business operations, the various private schools, and decisions about who should marry whom.
This 16-man group is subordinate to a group of four senior pastors who run the Gloriavale tax-free charitable trust, which runs the group’s lucrative business operations.
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Howard Temple is the supervising pastor, who succeeded the founder of the Hopeful Christian community.
It is understood that Love, who is married to one of Christian’s daughters, was unhappy with the way Gloriavale was being managed and tried unsuccessfully to bring about a change.
He was the manager of a large manufacturing plant in Gloriavale, which is located on the shores of Lake Haupiri.
It is understood that she recently stopped attending meetings and left the community with her son this week and is living with her family. His wife and some of his children remain in the community.
Love, who declined to comment on Friday, is the second high-ranking member of the community to leave in recent weeks. Zion Pilgrim, Love’s son-in-law, who was a trustee of the Christian Community Trust, was forced to leave Gloriavale on September 20 after writing a 14-page letter to leader Howard Temple outlining his concerns about the community.
Pilgrim said Stuff on Friday he did not believe that the two men’s departure would have a significant impact on Gloriavale.
Alden Williams / Stuff
The Gloriavale Christian community in Haupiri, near Moana.
“One thing about Gloriavale is that life goes on. There are a lot of people there, each person has an impact, but I don’t think the place is falling apart or anything like that.
“They put us in an untenable position that we couldn’t deliver, so they didn’t really give us any choice about it, and Selwyn put himself in a similar position.”
Despite his concerns, Pilgrim is confident that there will be changes in Gloriavale.
“I think there is a lot of hope, and I see everything that is happening as part of that journey.”
He said that deciding to leave the community was a stressful decision for him and his family, but said they were “fine” living in South Canterbury with the support of the community and the Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust.
“When you know you are doing the right thing, you just have to do it, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to do the right thing.
On Friday, WorkSafe announced that it had issued two improvement notices, a directive letter and an oral instruction covering risk assessment, forklifts and work-related health risks for the isolated West Coast community this week.
The Labor Inspectorate and WorkSafe visited Gloriavale on Monday and Tuesday for reports that some members had been forced to work more than 20 hours a day.
A WorkSafe spokeswoman said four consultants visited Gloriavale on Monday and spoke with 13 workers. The visit focused on allegations that Gloriavale failed to manage the risks of fatigue in the workplace. No evidence was found to support those allegations.
The news comes when former member John Ready filed a civil lawsuit against the trustees for breach of duty to their members.
Stuff Previously, it was revealed that Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust met with Charities Services last December and submitted a letter signed by 35 fresh out of Gloriavale asking the agency to open another investigation.
The letter exposed a number of concerns, including alleged physical, emotional and spiritual abuse, sick children left alone because their parents had to work, lack of private space for families, and pressure for members to lie to agencies. external such as Oranga Tamariki and police.
On August 17, Charities Services CEO Natasha Weight told the trust that she would not open another investigation at this stage.
It followed a 2015 investigation by Charities Services, part of the Department of Internal Affairs, into the operation of The Christian Church Community Trust, the registered charity behind the community.
The trustees may have acted in a manner that constituted gross misconduct under the Charities Act, investigators found, particularly when it came to issues that included handling allegations of physical and sexual assault and members wishing to leave the organization. community.
However, Charities Services decided that it was in the public interest that the Trust remain on the Charities Registry, adding that there was a high level of cooperation and genuine interest on the part of the Trustees to act in the best interest of the Trust and the Gloriavale community.
