John & Brent Cameron: Hellbound
Both John and Brent Cameron have found welcoming Christian arms in Australia.
Note: To save your inbox a little, this Webworm only exists online. It's more of an update than a "new" thing, so was not sent out as an email.
Hi,
Just a quick update that John and Brent Cameron, the disgraced brothers who founded Arise Church in New Zealand, and fled in 2022, are finding success in Australian Christian circles.
Firstly, Brent Cameron – who once stripped naked and chased Arise Church interns naked down the hallway – has been deemed fit to pastor Kingdom Hope church, a sleepy town found about 30 km south-east of Brisbane.
There are a bunch of posts about him on Kingdom Hope's Instagram page, the church telling Stuff.co.nz:
“We are aware of the historical stories and all that about the Camerons. We have been developing a relationship with them for a while now, and we have a pretty rigorous assessment process that we go through to consider placements in our ministry positions.
[...]
We've got extensive references and we've done extensive assessments.”
I emailed Kingdom Hope (hello@kingdomhope.com.au) and am yet to hear back.
Secondly, John Cameron appears to be in the process of setting up his own church in Australia. Webworm notes his personal church consulting site contains a "Partner With Us" page that links to a "give.tithe" site that lists "Riverland Church" as the recipient.
Riverland Church has a website, that while not being fully active, says it is "focussed on building a life-giving community in Brisbane."
Riverland Church' address is listed at 68 Gemvale Road, the same address as King's Church, a charismatic Pentecostal Church in the Gold Coast that John Cameron has been giving sermons at.
All I can think are the hundreds of victims at Arise church who reached out to me over 2021 and 2022 detailing what had taken place under John's leadership, which led to him and his brother Brent resigning and fleeing to Australia.
I called the number listed for John Cameron's Riverland Church - 0061 420 797 347.
They didn't pick up.
David.
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