Fire in our hearts - Jesus Army

FIRE IN OUR HEARTS
CITY ON A HILL
Together with a few disgruntled ex-members and irate parents,
a web of opposition was spun.
In April the News Of The World produced some priceless
journalism: ‘How Hardline Noel Beats Out The Devil!’ 70 The
photo of ‘sect hysteria’ featured one of our leading couples
with quaint smiles, and on the point of nodding off! The elders
were Noel’s ‘spy network’, a gang of Gestapo heavies bent on
‘cracking’ the flock! Force-feeding carrots was one method.
Sharing dirty socks was another. With an iron fist Noel ruled
a fanatical colony of brainwashed zombies! In worse taste
was the false account of Steve’s death, and his family was
made to grieve yet again.
Our enemies egged on the press, using the FAIR document
as fuel. In reality, however, evangelicals on the FAIR committee
had been duped. No one had visited or asked for information.
So we spoke to the co-chairman, a college chaplain. He
listened to us and when he saw how unbalanced and inaccurate
the criticisms were, he apologised, regretted the cult
link, and promised to withdraw the document. But the damage
had been done.
By June the pentecostal minister had gathered those who
were opposed to us and held a meeting where they spoke
against the Fellowship. The only way to get people out of
Bugbrooke, one said, was to send in a helicopter! It was all
very silly and unhelpful. They made a tape of the meeting
which was circulated widely. The smear campaign put us all
in a defiant mood and I wrote a hymn:
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