The message was clear – shut your mouth. He kept quiet.

He also kept quiet when he left the church in his mid-teens, the only member of his family to do so.

“I’m third or fourth generation on both sides of my family. I was born into it, I bought into it. I took it hook, line and sinker until I was about 16-17, and then I pulled out, I left,” he told the Herald this week.

“I supported it any which way possible – financially, time, everything – because I believed in it.”

He left the church after he left home. A new environment gave him a new perspective.

“It took me a couple of years before I actually thought, you know what this is, this is just an absolute crock,” he said.

“It all looks pretty wholesome, but … it’s a cult.”

Two decades on, he is ready to speak, after the wave of publicity that followed an admission by National Party MP Hamish Campbell that he was a member of the church, having initially claimed he was only connected “through family”.

Like most ex-members, the man doesn’t want his name published. His entire family are still in the church, as well as many friends.

“If it wasn’t for my family, I’d be shouting this thing on the rooftops – but I know there will be blowback. I still love my family … and I know what the kick back is like,” he said.

“I’ve said this directly to members of my family, my primary motivation is not to bring the church down. If that happens via collateral damage, so be it. But that is in no way my intention.

“I’m seeing my nieces and nephews … at the same age my victimisation happened … we need to be concerned. I care for the kids … this s***’s got to stop.

“There is an undercurrent of ‘you’re an outsider, you have ulterior motives‘. But for me, my primary motivation comes down to potential victims … and they lie within the group, they lie within my own family.”

He wants to be clear that he is not attacking anyone’s religious beliefs.

His issue is with the structure and secrecy of the Two by Twos, which he believes is dangerous.

The church is made up of the congregation, known as friends; elders who host meetings or “house church” in their homes, pairs of “workers” who move from house to house effectively living for free off members, and the overseer.

He and others believe the movement of the workers between homes enables abusers to have access to children.

“I think some of them are pretty genuine and in it for the right reasons … but [others] are slippery,” he said.

“For me, it’s just about reducing the chance that kids are gonna be put in these vulnerable positions.

“Let’s put religion to one side. And let’s look at the behaviour. I would like to think that sexually assaulting a child, no matter what the context, is abhorrent. So what is the church doing? If this bad s*** is happening, please have a look for the sake of the kids.”

Head overseer Wayne Dean told the Herald this week that any time the church is made aware of any child abuse, it will “immediately” contact police and Oranga Tamariki.

“When notified of abuse, we take steps to mitigate any immediate risk to children – consulting with police when the abuse has been reported to them and following their advice,” he said.

Dean said the church encouraged and supported victims of historical abuse to report to the police themselves.

But the survivor said that was “wishy washy”. He said he was “conditioned” to “silence” and not to speak to anyone outside the church.

“You don’t talk. You just don’t. You’re scared sh**less … I can speak first-hand about this,” he said.

“And the vulnerable group in the church – the kids of members – they’re the ones that are getting told, ‘don’t believe all of this bullsh** [in the media]. ‘Listen to the workers, follow the workers’ – so it’s kind of getting shut down internally,” he said.

Bitter? Twisted?

Former members have heard it all. They even concede that some of their number might sometimes fit the above description.

But those who spoke to the Herald had a clear and simple motivation for speaking out about the Two by Twos.

“I wouldn’t say necessarily that I want the church torn down. But if it can’t fix itself, it needs to go – because there’s too many children at risk,” said an ex-friend.

“To be fair, there will be some friends that are very bitter, and it’s just been devastating for them and they just can’t do it any more. I feel very heartbroken for them,” said one ex-friend.

“Most of us aren’t, but we want it fixed. We just want it acknowledged and dealt with.”

The ex-friend said they raised many concerns over many years about the church’s response to child sex abuse and what they saw as a blatant lack of policy and process around it.

They said nothing ever changed.

They eventually left, unable to support the organisation, doctrine or leadership.

At first, they did not speak about their experience and never intended to.

“But now, I’m not scared any more,” they said.

“I spoke out for two reasons. One, because it was personal … something happened in my home … I felt that I could speak because it wasn’t hearsay, it was lived experience.

“I didn’t want one more family to go through what we went through.”

The ex-friend also felt compelled to be a voice for others.

“I’ve got very good friends and relatives that have horrendous stories of abuse. They weren’t able to speak for themselves.

“A lot of people are too scared to go to the police. It’s highly likely their abuser is a worker or someone really important. So, they also don’t feel or trust that they can go to the ministry like they’ve been encouraged to.”

The “Bruer-gate” scandal also prompted the ex-friend to talk.

Bruer was an overseer of the Two by Twos in the United States state of Oregon.

After he died in 2022, an internal letter by his successor in the sect leadership was leaked on social media.

The letter said Bruer was a “sexual predator” whose actions included “rape and abuse of underage victims”.

Bruer had been sexually abusing children and young people for many years. He spent time at church conventions – annual five-day gatherings where members live communally – in New Zealand and Australia.

His death was the catalyst for hundreds of victims disclosing abuse at his and others’ hands.

In February 2024, the FBI announced a global investigation into allegations of historical sex abuse within the church. This year, police in New Zealand began investigating reports of abuse by members past and present here.

“What happened with Bruer has blown the lid off the thing in the church worldwide,” said the ex-friend.

“I’ve heard it all – that we’re bitter and twisted, we’re tearing down the ministry … That’s just their way of trying to reconcile why people would leave the meetings.

“You’ve got to be in the meetings to go to heaven. So when you step out of that, you’re going to hell. Why would you do that? The only reason would be that you are bitter or you’re mental.

“But we are not bitter, it’s actually very hard for us to share this stuff because there’s people we love and care about still in there.

“I think of the families I know … You’ve got these beautiful little children and a church hierarchy that just wants it all to go away. Look at what you’re bringing your kids into.”

The ex-member said it was also important to make sure media reports about the church were accurate so leaders could not discredit the coverage and “sweep it under the carpet”.

“And the survivors need someone to speak for them. Too many of them don’t have the strength,” they said.

“It’s either shame or fear … I know some of them thought they were the only person that worker ever did something to, and so therefore it had to be their fault.

“For their lifetime, they’ve kept quiet because … they convinced themselves they did something wrong.

“They never spoke about it because they thought it was their fault. It’s not their fault. It’s never their fault.”

Two by Twos: ‘Secretive’

A younger ex-friend who left last year said it felt “surreal” to see the recent coverage.

“It’s so important that the issues are being brought to the public‘s attention,” they said.

“I was born into a fourth-generation family and fully bought into the whole thing. It’s your whole life. But about two years ago, I started to feel like it was all kind of weird, especially with all of the child sexual abuse stuff coming up.

“I hadn’t been going to meetings for a long time … but then I went to a meeting and there was a head worker there and he just really gave me the creeps. It was really triggering, given everything that was like coming out.”

At the meeting, members were handed a “secretive” letter that outlined how the church was dealing with child sexual abuse and how they would organise conventions in future.

“It was all a bit strange … until then we’d kind of been under the illusion that maybe there were problems in the wider organisation, but it didn’t matter because we were just our little Sunday morning meeting.

“And then, having that come into our meeting, we realised that participating in [the church] – that does actually mean that we support the whole thing.

“It took a while to deconstruct it … Then, about a year ago, I left completely.”

The ex-member said exiting was “really tricky” and there was “a lot of pressure” and “emotional manipulation” for them to come back.

“Reading between the lines, people were saying … if you don’t come back to meetings, you’re going to a lost eternity,” they said.

“Most of my family is still strongly involved in it … quite a few members are workers as well, so it’s tricky to still love them but also trying to help them see that this stuff is wrong, even though it’s their ‘calling’.”

They contacted the Herald after stories about the church were published this month.

“Hearing these stories … It’s so depressing, but at the same time, it’s good that it’s being brought out.

“There’s been such a culture of not sharing any negative feelings that you have about the organisation and keeping it hidden … We were taught as kids not to really talk about it … to be really vague about it.

“It’s just quite freeing for people to be able to talk about it and not normalise it – but be like, ‘hey, this weird thing happened to me’. It’s validating.

“And also … being able to see that other people are saying they have been abused – it’s awful, but it’s also helpful for other people that have been abused.

“So many people have told me that they thought they were alone, but it’s clearly a systemic issue.

“I feel like there’s so many people that still are not willing to report what’s happened to them – it’s complicated and there’s so many different reasons for that.

“Sometimes it’s because [in the church] there’s this concept of forgiveness – we’ve been conditioned to believe it is the responsibility of the victim to forgive the perpetrator rather than on the perpetrator to actually, like, change or do anything to the situation.

“There is a lot of pressure and shame put on the victim instead of the person who actually did this thing wrong.”

The ex-member felt as if their loved ones still in the church were “brainwashed”.

“I know that’s a really harsh thing to say, but it is such strong conditioning when you’re going to meetings three times a week and hearing this stuff,” they said.

“And they are not going to listen to us [leavers] because as soon as you leave, you’re basically seen as being from the devil.

“So kicking up enough fuss publicly, which is something that’s never been done before, I feel might actually break through to some of these people that I really care about.

“But the scary thing is … I’ve heard multiple different people refer to a lot of people leaving the church, and all this publicity as ‘the great falling away’.

“It’s basically a way of people that are 100% in the meetings will use to explain everyone leaving, and it strengthens their conviction that the church is the right way … that they are being persecuted and we are the bad ones.”

Like the others, the ex-friend had doubts the church would – or wanted to – change.

“It really scares me,” they said.

“[A convicted sex offender] came to a meeting that I was in a few years ago … after we knew about what he’d done … and it made me and my friends feel extremely uncomfortable.

“There are multiple people like him that I know of personally and that I’ve met, that have just caused havoc in so many different people’s families … And they’ve been given the benefit of the doubt when really, if you were to look at it with a normal secular lens, you would say, ‘this person’s a creep, what are we doing about this?’

“I have heard of situations as well when a victim has gone to the workers to try and alert them – at least to say ‘this person’s not a safe person’ – and the workers will interrogate them for hours and still say that it’s not enough.

“The balance is just always tipped in favour of the perpetrators, and that just doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

“It’s so muddled … it’s so murky the way everything works.”

Silent no more

In 2006, British evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins published a book called The God Delusion in which he suggests God does not exist and belief in such a deity qualifies as a delusion and examines “the irrationality of believing in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society”.

The book was a best-seller and is now described as “the seminal text on atheism in the 21st century”.

“I was buying Christmas presents when I chanced upon the Dawkins book,” another ex-friend explained.

“I flipped through it and grabbed it, then read it over the holidays … it made me sort of confront the fact I didn’t really believe.”

They stopped going to meetings and pulled back from the church, to which their family and partner remained committed.

“I knew it wasn’t normal … I rejected the whole lot … church and religion in general. I was in a really angry atheist phase.

“I just didn’t want any part of it at all. But I didn’t realise until it all started blowing up a couple of years ago how rotten it was – because they were so successful … threatening people with excommunication or damnation or whatever if they don’t toe the line.”

The ex-member said that since “Bruer-gate”, there had been a “mass exodus” from the church.

They felt the leadership had “minimised” the scandal, which left people disappointed and disillusioned.

“They’ve just seen the attitudes of the hit workers … the mask has dropped,” they said.

“They’ve seen Bruer-gate and were waiting for some change, and it’s not happening … that’s the way I think a lot of people have felt, and they are leaving.”

They said there were various reasons for the upsurge of former members breaking their silence.

“The first thing is so that people who are thinking about leaving know that they have a place to land … So they know that there are good people outside who know exactly what they’ve gone through.

“I spoke to one of them not too long ago, and I just feel so sad for them. I feel sad because I think that they really believe that things are going to change … that the culture is slightly changing.

“But I just doubt it. I feel like it won’t. I feel like the overseers have really been dragging their feet on updating processes, and the police and the entire structure of the thing just facilitate what’s been going on in the past.

“Just the mere fact that strangers can stay in people’s houses – any time they choose.

“The people I keep in contact with are so hopeful about change, and I’m just like – I wouldn’t hold my breath.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know why you’re still in it.”

When “outsiders” join the Two by Twos

Sarah* was 9 when her stepfather joined, “dragging” the rest of the family in with him.

Overnight, her “entire world was turned upside down”.

One day she was a carefree Kiwi kid, and the next she was swamped by rules, regulations and the constant threat of “going to hell”.

She lived in fear for years, even attempting suicide twice to try to get out of going to “horrible” church meetings.

“I tried to overdose twice – the night before meetings. I was done. I was like, ‘I can’t,” she explained.

“I’d rather be gone than go to meetings … it was horrible.

“My stepfather went all in … life as we knew it just got thrown out the window, and we had this whole new routine and rigmarole … and we were stuck in that for a while.

“Televisions were thrown in the bin, our jeans were all thrown out, piercings taken off us – all because these things ‘weren’t allowed’. We stopped seeing family because they had TVs and radios … There were certain activities we could no longer do, like going to birthday parties, because people outside were ‘worldly’ and you weren’t allowed to associate with them.

“Then you’d have to go every Wednesday night and Sunday night to meetings … they bloody sucked.

“You’d have to sit there silently for an hour listening to people jibber-jabber and sing hymns out of their books. You weren’t allowed to talk. You weren’t allowed to run around. You had to just sit in your seat for an hour. It was pretty rough.”

Sarah struggled with the sudden and huge changes to her life and the “crazy” doctrine of the church.

“It was horrible … especially when I knew what life was like outside,” she said.

“If you’re born into it, you don’t know any different, but when you go from living an everyday normal life to suddenly that being all gone and you can’t do the things you used to any more … it’s horrible.

“And we weren’t going to hell before, but now we are. God accepted us then, but he won’t now … it was weird and it just blew my mind.

“You were told you were going to hell – whether you liked it or not – if you went against what they did. You weren’t allowed to cut your hair or have your hair in a certain way; you weren’t allowed to wear certain clothes … You live in fear.

“And then you’ve got these strangers in and out of your house all the time, and suddenly you have to be this picture-perfect family that you’re not.”

Those strangers are “workers” – also known as ministers or preachers – who travel in pairs and live in the homes of friends.

Each pair of men or women has a junior and a senior. The friends fund their lifestyle entirely, from food and spending money to cars, fuel and travel.

“We had workers come to stay with us numerous times. It’s so strange, these two random strangers pull up in the car at your house and you have to treat them as part of the family,” Sarah explained.

“You tiptoe around the house because they constantly say that they’re praying … so you’re constantly quiet. You’re not allowed to be rowdy … you’re waiting on them hand and foot, complete strangers, for sometimes three or four days at a time.

“It’s definitely creepy. You have to move out and sleep in the lounge because they need your bedroom. Suddenly, there’ll be this old man walking around your house, doing whatever he does all night.

“Back then, the majority of workers were men … it’s very odd. But you had to treat them like royalty, they are not ‘normal people’ – they are seen as this gift to have in your house. It was a weird time.”

Sarah decided to speak up about her church experience after the Herald published a story confirming that convicted sex offender and former assistant principal Douglas Martin was an elder in the controversial church.

She knew Martin and spent a lot of time with him and his family when she was a Two by Two.

“I was like, ‘finally, somebody’s doing something about it – it is finally coming to light how this is a cult living in modern society’. It never occurred to me when I was in it that that’s exactly what it is,” she said.

“I genuinely feel like people need to hear it, and if people don’t speak up, come out and say ‘this is what we experienced, and we’re obviously now on the other side’ – how are people going to know?

“The more of us that come out and actually say what it is and how corrupt it is and how misleading it is, the better.

“I just wanted to speak out in the hopes of helping people.”

Church overseer ‘sorry’ – ‘saddened’ by abuse

The current overseer of the church in New Zealand told the Herald he was unaware of the allegations raised by ex-members of child abuse and sex offenders attending meetings.

“While it is very hard to understand how a child would not be believed or taken seriously when disclosing abuse to their parents, there were many barriers to disclosure that existed in society until more recent years,” said Wayne Dean.

“In recent times, initiatives such as the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse have helped educate society, increase awareness and encourage a more open and supportive culture around disclosure.

“Within our fellowship, we have embraced change.”

Dean had a message for the victim who spoke to the Herald.

“I am saddened to hear of this experience and feel deeply for the victim and the trauma they have experienced.

“A message to the victim – we are sorry for the experience you have outlined. We would encourage you to seek professional help and, if you feel able, contact the police. There are no statutes of limitation under New Zealand law, and we have complete confidence in the police being able to fully investigate this matter.”

Dean said he was not aware of any convicted sex offender who “currently” attended any gatherings arranged by the church.

Help for church leavers

Former members encourage those leaving the church to visit the website Wings for Truth for information and help.

Click here for the website.

Wings for Truth is a group that supports those who have been sexually abused within the church.

“Our objective is to provide information, support and guidance on every aspect of child sexual abuse and to support victims of CSA (child sexual abuse),” the website states.

“Our ultimate hope is to encourage change within the fellowship in order to protect others from the devastation that occurs through CSA, especially when its impact is trivialised or ignored.”

Anna Leask is a Christchurch-based reporter who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 18 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz.