Arise Church has sent a lengthy statement, written by a PR company, responding to allegations of abuse. The detailed statement came to us after enquiries sent by a high-profile journalist were initially ignored. Pastor John Cameron has since stated that he is “broken and devastated by these stories,” and has engaged an independent review of the church’s internship programme in response.
Considered one of the largest churches in Aotearoa, Arise Church has 12 “campuses” and around 10,000 members and affiliated student clubs nationwide, including Otago Uni, UC and Vic, and boasts annual profits in the millions. Allegations were recently raised by journalist David Farrier (of Dark Tourist fame) that the church was using their pay-to-participate interns as babysitters, telling students to use their course-related costs to pay for church conference tickets, and encouraging members to vote National as a “good Christian vote”.
Despite contacting Arise Church and its leader, John Cameron, directly, David received no response by the time his article was published on April 4. While they have been profiled in media before, Arise has been hesitant to respond to media requests in recent years. After Arise’s political campaign against the conversion therapy bill last year, Critic reached out to the church’s Dunedin branch - we also did not recieve a response (although we did get a generic response from the national church via someone from Corporate Reputation Crisis PR). But in our seventh issue of 2022, we wrote an article focusing on the allegations from ex-members at the Dunedin campus. As part of this, we sent a media enquiry to Arise Church requesting their side of the story. After publishing the story, to our surprise, they responded with a lengthy statement.
In it, they acknowledged the article contains “heartbreaking stories of some past ARISE Ministry school students who felt overworked, overwhelmed, underappreciated and taken advantage of as interns,” and stated that they were “devastated and broken by these stories”. They noted that their internship programme charges fees, as interns receive qualifications through Laidlaw College, a private theological college based in Auckland.
They admitted that “there was a wider culture in the past of interns being asked to drive and to look after children at [ARISE’s Dunedin campus], but claimed that since a 2017 internal review, this was “recognised as not appropriate” and “is no longer permitted”. They also rejected allegations that students were told to use their course-related costs to pay for tickets to their conference, and that [lead pastors John and Gillian Cameron] “do not advise the ARISE congregation on voting for any particular political party”.
The statement was written not by Arise, but by Hannah from Kingdom PR, a firm that specialises in PR for churches. According to her, the Kāpiti-based company was “asked to provide media assistance for ARISE from Saturday PM 9th April”. She emphasised that Kingdom was “not a spokesperson for ARISE, and can't speak on behalf of the church”.
Arise’s willingness to respond came as a surprise to David, the journalist who originally reported on the allegations. He told Critic Te Arohi that his “questions were ignored,” and that “Webworm [David’s blog] has had no communication from Arise - or the PR company you just informed me about - since publishing the piece”. Since then, David has been emailed by Kingdom PR, with Hannah offering a response and saying that “there will be a wider statement released” about the allegations.
This statement was released on the evening of Monday April 11. In it, John Cameron stated that he was “broken and devastated by these stories,” and that he was “deeply sorry for any hurt caused”. He admitted that “for a period of time as a church we allowed a culture of performance to be part of our Arise world, and this negatively affected Arise Ministry School students.”
In the statement, Cameron said that: “our intention is to provide a way forward for people to safely share their stories and experiences and for us to listen, learn, and change.” He stated that Arise has “sought advice from an independent body to guide the church on next steps”. An “independent reviewer [will] confidentially hear people’s stories,” with contact details to be made available shortly, before they “make recommendations to our Board”. He promised that “[Arise] is open for dialogue, and will be making the organisational changes recommended”.
We will continue to update this story as it develops.