In 1970 this vision became reality through his creation of Christian Church at Springbank (better known as The Cooperites), near Christchurch. There, Cooper demanded and received absolute obedience from his followers. Women covered their heads and wore long skirts and sleeves, ‘without flesh visible on the chest’, while men, when not working, wore ‘long-sleeved shirts, ties and dark trousers’.

Cooper believed that the world needed more people (provided they were good Christians!) and that more than enough food could be produced if it followed his strict Christian guidance. While Cooper’s communards reached out through evangelical and charitable endeavours, they became socially and culturally isolated. Cooper had sixteen children, with names such as Faith, Mercy and Charity. Deciding that the days of the week were named after pagan gods, he developed his own calendar based on Firstday and so on.

In the early 1980s, while researching my PhD about communal groups, I visited The Cooperites and observed their state-of-the-art green technology and organic gardens. Before I could conclude whether this was one of the best or worst of New Zealand communes, Neville Cooper threw me out, accusing me of being a ‘fornicator’ and a ‘threat to our women and children’. It later emerged that the real threat was Neville Cooper.

As often happens with charismatic leaders, Cooper was corrupted by vanity and power, imagining himself ‘called and chosen by Jesus’. Beale writes that Cooper engaged in sexual practices such as stripping girls and caressing their bodies, while his wife watched, and masturbating his son. At other times, teenage girls were forced to join Cooper and other men ‘in the spa pool, with everyone naked and a pornographic movie projected onto the wall’. These practices resulted in Cooper, having changed his name to Hopeful Christian, being charged with sexual assault and, in 1995, sentenced to five years’ in jail. Commune members were shaken by Cooper’s imprisonment but, seeing it as an unchristian conspiracy, remained loyal and welcomed him back on his release. By then the commune had re-established itself as Gloriavale, near Greymouth.

Philip Cooper, who has lived in Australia for nearly twenty years, has twice kidnapped his estranged wife from the commune; both times she returned. He has been able to remove several of his children, to live with him in Australia, but at least one has rejoined the commune. Meanwhile, Gloriavale thrives, with more than 300 members, pumping about $300,000 into the local economy every month. Beale writes that Gloriavale has a ‘multi-million-dollar turnover [and] is important to the West Coast. The community spends locally, and takes no government benefits such as old age pensions. Their industries are run entirely with their own, unpaid labour [including] the only helicopter and maintenance business on the coast.’ Beale continues:

The people of Gloriavale look happy. They care for each other; they have purpose, shelter and fellowship. The teenagers know how to work and don’t get into trouble. But everyone is tied there by indoctrination and economics. If they leave, they leave with nothing, and how do you live in the outside world if you know nothing about it, have no money and a big family to support? It looks pure and modest and seemly, but … one man reported in 2007 how at breakfast, Hopeful [Christian] would ask ‘okay men, hands up those who fucked their wives last night’.

Sins of the Father, a well-written book, interweaves interviews with Philip and his children with other interviews and newspaper accounts.

This book will have cult-busters salivating, however it is important to remember that Philip’s wife and at least one of his children voluntarily returned to Gloriavale, and that several hundred communards daily affirm their decisions to live there. While I found Neville/ Hopeful Christian to be a bully, hypocrite and manipulative humbug – and this book supports that – members of his commune believe they live within a Christian utopia, bound for heavenly glory. It is important to acknowledge that Neville Cooper has created one of the oldest, largest and most prosperous intentional communities in Australasia. But does that justify his behaviour?

Sins of the Father is ultimately a sad tale, showing how Philip Cooper, with whom I sympathise, having escaped his father’s commune, still carries his father’s mindset. Philip’s dogged determination to extract his wife from Gloriavale is not unlike his father’s determination to keep her there – and her wishes count for little.