Battlecentre Documentary

Content warning: abuse.

You will have noticed that in amongst the weird fictional shows I blog about periodically I have to have a documentary post usually about crime, cults, or abusive religion or I just don't feel right, and obviously this need has arisen again. The weirdness of reality is far weirder than anything in The Avengers. This post is about the 2001 documentary Battlecentre by the Irish documentary maker Leo Regan, who also made wonderful documentaries about skinheads.

It's about the now defunct group known to most people as the Jesus Army (it had different names for different parts of the organisation but that is the name best known to outsiders because that was the name of its outreach to outsiders. I think the background is essential to this post and so just briefly: the group was founded in 1969 when the then lay pastor of a Baptist church was inspired by the charismatic movement (the idea that the gifts of the Holy Spirit of healing and so on in the New Testament are still available now) to greatly build on the existing congregation by attracting young people. As it developed the organisation became a separate denomination marked, in addition to its churches, by a sort of inner circle who lived in community houses, were celibate, owned nothing to the extent of dressing from a communal wardrobe, and by extensive outreach. At one time its distinctive colourful buses and vans were a familiar sight in British cities and the documentary says they had as many as 100 community houses. One of the distinctive things about the group was its particular work with homeless people, and for a long time it had a terrible reputation for its treatment of them by taking them in and making them work in a way that was suggested to be coercive.

Of course anyone familiar with the depressing repetitious tales of religious movements which have gone wrong can see what is coming here. The group was in trouble with both the Evangelical Alliance and the Baptist Union as long ago as the 1980s, amongst other things for its corporal punishment of children and its expectation that members would just give up all their possessions, in a culty sort of way. To the Jesus Fellowship's credit, after ongoing revelations of abuse which can only be described as prolific, the remaining members voted to wind down the organisation and set up a scheme to recompense those who were abused. There have been 1,000 targets of abuse recorded and I have seen news saying as many as 1 in 6 children were abused. There is of course also the familiar pattern where the leadership knew full well abuse was going on and didn't actually stop it.

This documentary is more structured than some of the others I have blogged about recently, all of which have used the technique of sitting someone in front of a camera and letting them talk. This one starts with Regan talking about being a lapsed Catholic and his own feelings about the Jesus Army, even repulsion towards the idea, so it's much more about him exploring what they do from his own perspective. He downplays his own opinions as it goes on, though, and the characters come across loud and clear. The reason I've been compelled to blog about it is that given the background I've described above, watching this from over 20 years ago is like watching a train crash happening, knowing that it is coming,

As a former mental health nurse the thing that hits me is that the men who ran the organisation had literally no idea what they were doing, and were inviting disaster. I totally appreciate that if you run a church you're not going to say that anyone shouldn't go because they have problems, and you might also operate a work accomodating people with problems, but when you are inviting homeless people literally straight off the streets into your own community house, they tend to bring the problems that have caused the chaos in their life with them. I've phrased an awareness of this reality as a professional thing, but you would think that a weekend in street ministry with the Jesus Army would be more than enough to make you somewhat cautious around people with multiple problems.

This is what makes this documentary different: so many documentaries about abusive groups are only after the abuse has come out, but this one is before and it's all laid out and obvious in hindsight.

For example we have Keith, a 17 year old they picked up off the street, where he had ended up after leaving his foster family and failing to find his birth family in London. Even without a psychological understanding of attachment, emotional dysregulation and how people relate to each other, I think this should really have made them wary of him, but the problem is that they let Keith stay with them for a bit and in no time at all, as far as he's concerned, the Jesus Army is his family and they can't get rid of him. The problem is that the Jesus Army don't think Keith is suited to be a member of the group (his stealing and compulsive lying really don't help, and honestly you have to wonder whether he's got a slight learning disability) so they essentially make him experience another rejection in his young life. There is a heart-rending scene where they make him homeless and do what they should have done to start off with, namely make him go to a homeless hostel. I have no hesitation in being completely judgemental here in putting th blame for this squarely on the Jesus Army, because you don't have to have a professional understanding to see that Keith is messed up and they should have had the wit to see what was coming. In fact they know that he has had involvement from psychiatrists and social services in the past so should have put boundaries in place. Unfortunately it is clear that there aren't boundaries in place, and we see a conversation with his 'shepherd' (another movement which has left a trail of traumatised people) where the relationship is framed as the shepherd 'fathering' Keith. It's honestly really disturbing.

Even more concerning is the case of Alec, an alcoholic who gives up drinking during the documentary. He's more concerning because he's actively hearing the voice of God talking to him while this is going on. He also hears a voice telling him to sacrifice himself in the name of Jesus. The Jesus Army (wrongly) heavily spiritualise this experience, make no effort to have it medically assessed. Luckily for him, Alec is older and more resourceful than Keith and independently leaves the house in his own rather chaotic way.

There is another absolutely heart-rending scene where the house leader is interviewed after all sorts of things go wrong, in which he says he can't take responsibility for everyone he invites into the house. Yes, you can. That's how it works, and it's really scary to see a so-called leader talking like that.

While Regan rightly says that he fells Battlehouse is putting Alec in danger, there is no mention of potential abuse beyond the dangerous incompetence of the way the army functions. However in addition to the overtly traumatic histories of so many people who end up there there are hints that all was not what it seemed in the Jesus Army. The climax of the documentary is about Billy, who ultimately dies from AIDS contracted from a male partner before he joined the Jesus Army. Again the psychological separation here is fascinating because he knew that his ex had died from AIDS but had never so much as wondered whether he might have HIV/AIDS himself.

My only criticism of this documentary is that while it is more 'curated' than some of the other documentaries I have blogged about recently, I think there are some perspectives missed. There is no mention that the group was already controversial for its approach to members' property, and it already had a bad reputation amongst homeless people for its approach to them. It may reflect my own interests and may have made it unwieldy, but I think a psychological view of what is happening at various points would have been useful. The documentary naturally showcases the group's spiritualised view of events, and rightly questions this view, but no alternative view is given.

This is an excellent, tightly directed, documentary showing a fringe religious movement which is now defunct, in its own right. What makes it even more distressing viewing in hindsight, is the reality of the Jesus Army that has been revealed since then, and the suggestions that all was not well anyway. This is a rare opportunity to see a fringe religious group (which has been described as a cult) combust before our eyes.

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