CultNEWS101: I Grew Up in a Cult-y Christian Community and Lost My Faith Because of It

The Newfrontiers is a socially-conservative Christian group created in the 1970s that today has more than 1,000 churches across 70 countries. While its neo-charismatic style—exorcisms, preaching in tongues, etc.—give it an American edge, it's actually rooted in the working-class Pentecostal tradition of England and Wales.

Twenty-three-year-old singer Joseph Coward was brought up as part of the church, in Essex, when it was known as the New Frontiers International. While he feels the NFI might be a different organization today, his experience was one of homophobia, control tactics, and a system that bore "all the calling cards of a cult." After suffering a psychiatric breakdown five years ago, he cut himself away from the group.

My earliest memory is being told about the existence of hell, and that it was something that could only be escaped by being part of this "thing" and believing in Jesus. That was by my mom, who had converted to New Frontiers International at 17 and brought me and my sisters up as part of it.
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In hindsight, I think it was a case of mass hysteria and mass hypnosis—everybody sort of buys into the same thing, so it just starts happening. During the worship sessions, for instance, the congregation would get whipped up into a frenzy with this fast-paced music, before everything slowed down, creating a sort of trance-like, euphoric state. Everyone's basically hypnotized.

CultNEWS101: I Grew Up in a Cult-y Christian Community and Lost My Faith Because of It