PREFACE

by Israel Cooper

Many of the stories told in these pages are of our childhood. We have tried to be as accurate as possible but we realize that memory is an elusive thing. The broad strokes are what happened and the details are as true as we could make them.

My early life was spent in an environment where people willingly surrendered their freedom of choice to my grandfather, ceding to this powerful and charismatic evangelist the power to chart the course of their lives. Our family history, including as it does wrecked lives as well as stories of triumph, testifies to the preciousness of the freedom to choose one’s own path. My brothers, sisters, and I never take our own freedom of choice for granted.

We have learned that the most powerful thing we can do is to make a conscious decision not to repeat the mistakes of the past. In the world, this is what makes heroes. It changes destinies and transforms generations. In a single moment, a single choice can stop thousands of years of history repeating. It can change lives, restore families, and bring prosperity. It is a wonderful and powerful gift to have.

My single biggest concern with the Gloriavale Christian Community and its predecessor at Springbank where I spent the first years of my life, is that it takes away or limits that freedom. Through fear it removes freedom of choice, the ability to choose your destiny, the opportunity to fail and learn from your mistakes, and most importantly, to be able to choose to love unconditionally.

For giving me that most powerful gift of freedom I will always be incredibly thankful to my father. Knowing how precious this gift is, and the price that both my parents have paid for it, has awakened me to the power and responsibility I now have. I can choose justice or mercy; I can choose to forgive. I can choose to make my life happy and fulfilled; I can choose to love and be loved.

Most importantly I can choose to end the sins of my father and my father’s father, and I can choose to give the gift of choice, its possibilities and responsibilities, to my own son.

Neither I nor my siblings want another generation to have to endure the consequences of the heartbreaking decisions our own parents were forced to make. Both of them believed utterly in the rightness of their decisions and we honour, respect and love them for having the courage to act in accordance with their beliefs.

I wish too to honour our mother’s integrity for making a decision she believed with her heart and soul to be the only one she could make for the salvation of her children. She lost the freedom to be our mother, but her daily prayers that we would find faith have not been in vain. Perhaps paradoxically we have come to our faith because of the decisions both our parents made.