Gloriavale. Photo: RNZ / Jean Edwards
Gloriavale families have been cautioned against reading fairy tales, books that celebrate Christmas and children's stories depicting animals dressed in clothes, by a senior leader checking the community's reading material.
In an email sent to members last month and obtained by RNZ, Servant Peter Righteous said he personally preferred writers who taught "total submission and obedience to the gospel" and binned a book "infected with feminist propaganda".
"In the last couple of weeks I've been asked to comment on books that have come into the community, or may be coming in, mainly in the realm of homeschooling resources. I was disappointed to find books celebrating Christmas on our shelves, and others that were simply worldly," he wrote.
"What goes into a mind comes out in a life."
Righteous said books with illustrations of animals wearing clothes promoted in homeschooling lists of recommended reading had become a "grey area" in the last few years.
"These were once forbidden, but we had a push to allow Winnie-the-Pooh because he was so kind to his friends. God bless him," Righteous wrote.
"I'm personally not too worried about our children growing up thinking that animals behave as humans when we have had so many concerts with talking dinosaurs and singing birds. But I am dubious about some of the books with animals dressed in clothes.
"At least the animals in Winnie-the-Pooh are toys - that's a realm of fantasy for children that's pretty safe. But I think some of the other stuff is ridiculous and we can do better. There is so much good material available that we don't need to go near the grey areas. What benefit do we gain from it?"
Righteous offered to help members making decisions about books, "based on 38 years of reviewing material for our school and families", adding he saw no reason to discard rules introduced by Gloriavale's founders before he came to the church in 1985:
- No fairy tales
- No science fiction
- No fantasies
- Nothing to promote Christmas, Easter
- No supernatural/occult themes
- No myths and legends presented as truth
- Nothing to promote evolution
- Nothing that presents wrong as being right
- Nothing that promotes the idea that the end justifies the means
- Other fiction should be limited to wholesome Godly themes, preferably in an historical setting
Acceptable books included non-fiction under the following guidelines:
- History that does not contain an obvious bias toward glorifying Babylon
- History that confirms the truth of the scripture and challenges the typical narrative of world history
- Science without the evolution or extreme views on conservation
- Poetry that encourages wholesome values
- Biographies of famous people, but avoid the movie stars and rock'n'roll types
- War history, without glorifying the violence
- Stories of survival, overcoming obstacles, victory against adversity
Righteous said joke books were generally censored and series with fictional heroes such as Biggles were to be avoided.
"If you have a hero who always conveniently and surprisingly finds the solution to his problems without God, what are you teaching your children? If they live in a realm of fantasy, they will not be exercising faith," he said.
"I do allow the odd book (like Ripley's Believe It Or Not) because the world can come across as bizarre and ugly, which it is."
Righteous described homeschooling as a "minefield" because a lot of people were looking for suitable content for their children but might not be aware of the "dangers lurking behind the curtain".
"Some of the titles in homeschooling lists are there because they supposedly have some fantastic literary quality. So what. We are not going to allow Tolkein's Lord of the Rings series, anything by CS Lewis, or the Harry Potter series, just because the world thinks that they are great literature. There is enough good and wholesome material around without having to use that," he said.
Books about child-rearing and marriage should be reviewed by Shepherd Stephen Standfast and Overseeing Shepherd Howard Temple, Righteous said.
"I recently dealt with a book about marriage counselling that was written by a very popular female author, and had sold millions of copies. That was an immediate red flag to me. Why was it so popular in the world? It was infected with feminist propaganda. It belonged in the bin," he said.
Righteous said he never pushed the works of writers who were famous today in Christendom.
"The realm of so-called Christian material has been the greatest problem. This needs the discernment of the holy spirit and a certain knowledge of history. If you understand that the true church of Jesus is on one path, and the false church is on another, you can make decisions quickly," he said.
"If a writer's theological foundation is false, it's going to come out somewhere, even in children's books."
Righteous noted that members would go looking in the "wrong places" if reading material was restricted too much.
"In closing, the scripture has this warning: Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. The ravening wolves are not just in the stories about little red riding hood. They may be lurking in the pages of something else that looks perfectly good. Please be careful, and prayerful."
Gloriavale leavers have held long-standing concerns about the quality of education at the West Coast Christian community, while an October 2023 Education Review Office (ERO) report found Gloriavale Christian School did not meet many of the criteria for registration as a private school.
The school had 139 students aged between 6 and 14 years-old and a further 42 students were homeschooled.
The ERO was not assured students were progressing and achieving well, or that their health and safety was being sufficiently well-monitored.
It found no evidence school managers were assessed as "fit and proper persons" and teachers were not using a suitable curriculum, valid assessment and reporting.
Ministry of Education spokesperson Nancy Bell said the ministry's role was to make sure the school met the private school registration criteria.
"Since the 2023 ERO report, we have required Gloriavale to develop an action plan to address the areas which did not meet some of the criteria. Gloriavale reports on the progress against the action plan regularly. We have been visiting them monthly to discuss progress," she said.
"We understand ERO is currently undertaking a review of education provision in the community, and a report will be published on their website following due process."
A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment briefing to six coalition ministers last December said concerns remained about children's rights not being adequately upheld in the community, "including but not limited to the right to an adequate education".
"The approach to education is considered by agencies to contravene national and international children's rights standards," the briefing said.
Six former Gloriavale women found to have been employees by the Employment Court told hearings last year that they were deprived of a proper education.
Chief judge Christina Inglis said girls were primed to work on the community's domestic teams, preparing and cooking food, cleaning, and laundering and sewing clothes.
She found the Overseeing Shepherd accepted that "children are educated so that they are not equipped for the outside world, and that part of the leadership strategy is to ensure that children are kept separate from the outside world in order to keep them within the community".
RNZ has contacted Education Minister Erica Stanford for comment.
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