Its motto was ‘Love, Power & Sacrifice’.
Led by the celibacy-obsessed preacher Noel Stanton, the Jesus Army espoused what to its pious members seemed like noble aims.
But, as a new two-part BBC documentary reveals, the radical Christian sect that grew to have more than 2,500 followers was far from holy.
Over decades, so-called ‘elders’ abused dozens of defenceless children who grew up in the cult.
Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army reveals how Stanton himself, who died in 2009, was an alleged abuser of young boys.
In rapturous meetings held in halls around the country, he told his followers that they had to ‘100 per cent’ belong to Jesus.
And one of Stanton’s biggest bugbears was – ironically as it later turned out – sex.
In one bizarre talk given to hundreds of attendees, he decreed: ‘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.’
A typed list of rules laid down by Stanton is revealed in the BBC documentary. It reads:
Men, women and children who lived in properties owned by the church had to follow strict rules.
They included bans on ‘secular’ music, TV, and films, visiting the cinema or theatre and even going swimming.
The BBC documentary features testimony from abuse victims and others who left the cult – which was also known as the Jesus Fellowship Church – after their claims of having witnessed wrongdoing were ignored.
One survivor, Sarah, was abused within a year of moving into the church’s community.
She says: ‘At the time I was quite childlike, and emotionally I was probably looking for this father figure.
‘He was so obvious about what was going on. Like he would put his hand on my thigh under the table, whilst his wife was opposite. He would intimidate you, and he would belittle you.
‘And who is going to believe you if you say it? You know, this is a person of authority.
‘He just shut me down and shut me down, until I felt like it was my fault.’
Stanton, who had previously been a Baptist preacher, founded the Jesus Fellowship in the village of Bugbrooke in 1969 after undergoing a spiritual experience that one church member described as being ‘visited by God’.
Meetings quickly attracted attention for being raucous affairs, with attendees speaking ‘in tongues’ and watching on as Stanton performed immersion baptisms.
In the mid 1970s, church members sold their homes and then pooled their wealth to buy up properties in Bugbrooke.
At its heart was a rectory that was renamed New Creation Hall.
Another church hub was a farmhouse called New Creation Farm.
Stanton said in 1973: ‘We always had a fairly substantial congregation and on Sunday evenings we might have as many as 50 people here.
‘But four years ago there came a tremendous change. I had been baptised in water, of course, but suddenly I felt I was being baptised – really baptised – in the spirit.
‘Some members of my congregation completely shared this wonderful experience.
‘We realised that so much of the Christian faith was traditional and respectable but it was missing “life.”‘
Another abuse victim, Abigail, recalls being sexually assaulted when she was 14.
‘One of the things he used to say was, if he didn’t ejaculate, it’s not rape.
‘And that was, obviously a very hard thing to hear.
She adds: ‘It kind of got spread what had happened to some of the leaders in the church.
‘And you kind of hoped there would be this like kind of welcoming arms and kind of like, “oh my god that’s really awful”.
‘But instead you’re kind of met with, “isn’t she a Jezebel”.
By 1984, the Jesus Fellowship was the UK’s largest residential Christian community.
There were 600 members living across the Midlands.
The group had a builder’s merchants, plumbing and decorating business and even a doctors’ surgery.
In 1986, the Baptists Union and Evangelical Alliance – two national church bodies – expelled the Jesus Fellowship from their organisations over concerns about their unusual practices.
But Stanton and his fellow leaders were not deterred by the move. They launched the Jesus Fellowship in 1987.
At its peak in the early 2000s, the church had grown to have nearly 3,000 members.
Another clip in the upcoming documentary shows Stanton telling another meeting: ‘We are looking for a new Britain, a new Britain morally.
‘We live in a nation where, there’s all sorts of sexual permissive problems and the like, every kind of moral problem.’
Former member Philippa remembers witnessing her friend being abused at a church outpost called Battlecentre in Acton, West London.
But when she reported what she had seen, she was branded a ‘traitor’.
She says: ‘This elder, he didn’t seem to mind that I was there.
‘He would use me as lookout so I could warn him if anyone 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. 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 had done to her, I felt ashamed 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.’
After Philippa went to the police, the abusive elder was found guilty of the indecent assault of a minor.
He was sentenced to three months in prison.
Philippa adds: ‘I later found out, actually, that most of my peers had been abused. These people thought they were above the law.’
Another survivor recalls the exorcisms that regularly took place.
She says: ‘Exorcisms were quite frequent.
‘Noel was one of these people who would quite easily 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 are trying to rationalise it as a child.’
Two church members were found dead in the 1970s.
The first, 26-year-old solicitor’s clerk David Hooper, was discovered lying naked in the garden of one of the church’s properties in Bugbrooke on a freezing cold day in December 1976.
He died from exposure.
At an inquest into his death, the coroner said: ‘He was found in circumstances which gave the impression of a man who had been sunbathing. This will always remain a mystery.’
Eighteen months later, another church member was found dead on a railway track after having an argument with Stanton, who was unhappy that he had been enjoying reading.
Children were regularly beaten – ‘rodded’ – if they were deemed to have been ‘defiant’.
Another former member, named as John, was ostracised when he chose to leave over his concerns about Stanton’s level of control of the church.
He says: ‘Nobody was allowed to talk to me or have anything to do with me because I had become the enemy.’
Abuse victim Noel, who was sexually assaulted by an elder, is seen telling police in a recorded interview: ‘I remember him always asking me to sit on his lap. And I could feel he had an erection.
He adds: ‘He put his hand in my groin area. He would do it discreetly.’
The man who abused him was given an 18-month suspended sentence.
After Stanton’s death, a leadership team that were called the Apostolic Five took over the running of the church.
Northamptonshire Police launched a criminal investigation, named Operation Lifeboat, in 2014.
However, only a handful of Jesus Army members were convicted, and just two went to jail.
Former member Philippa adds: ‘Basically it was a sweet shop for paedophiles.’
Among alleged abusers who was named in a dossier was Stanton himself.
Solicitor Kathleen Hallisey says: ‘His kind of victim tended to be mid to late teens. He liked young boys. He sought out young boys and he abused them.’
Overall, 33 allegations of abuse were made against Stanton.
A compensation scheme for former members of the Jesus Fellowship was launched in 2022.
More than 500 alleged perpetrators of physical, sexual and emotional abuse were identified.
A statement from the now-defunct church that was given read: ‘We continue to hold out an unreserved apology to anyone who has been affected by abuse and failings of any kind in the Jesus Fellowship.
‘In 2013 we as the senior leadership of the church initiated a wide-ranging process that invited disclosures of any kind of abuse, both historic and recent, and referred all such reports to the authorities.’
Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army airs in two parts from Sunday, at 9pm on BBC Two.