Inside the Cult of the Jesus Army: a troubling documentary

BBC2's harrowing two-part series shines a light on the abuse at the heart of the Christian group

Man wearing a hoodie and Jesus Army jacket
The sinister sect had 3,000 members and millions in assets
(Image credit: Simon Dack / Alamy)

We Brits don't think of ourselves as susceptible to religious cults, said Ben Dowell in The Times. But this harrowing BBC2 documentary serves to shatter that complacency. Its focus is the Jesus Army, a sect established in Northamptonshire in 1969 by a charismatic preacher named Noel Stanton.

Hundreds of people flocked to hear his sermons, and many gave up their livelihoods and possessions to join his "evangelical rural community". Stanton, however, exploited rather than helped his followers, many of whom were young or otherwise vulnerable. He subjected them to an "increasingly doctrinaire" set of rules and punishments, based on strictly patriarchal values, and initiated a horrifying culture of ritualised sexual abuse.

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