FELLOWSHIP PROBE CALL TAKEN UP

Source : 20/12/1982 Northampton Chronicle and Echo

A controversial religious cult is to be discussed by the Northampton Free Church Federal Council. Council secretary Mr Harold Fussey said the Bugbrooke based Jesus Fellowship would be on the agenda at the councils meeting in February.

This follows a call by the Chronicle and Echo for the council and another organisation, the Northampton and District Council of Churches, to examine the workings of the sect.

Mr. Fussey said he had heard various stories about the Fellowship and knew of two cases where there had been problems of teenagers leaving their families to join it.

'There is very considerable feeling about the Jesus Fellowship in many quarters, there is no doubt of that,' he said.

He said he believed it was an obvious suggestion for his organisation to get together with the Council of Churches to investigate the cult.

'I shall have a word with some of my ministers and then see if we can get a survey done. I shall certainly see it is on the agenda for our meeting on February 3,' Mr. Fussey said.

The Chronicle and Echo's call for an inquiry followed the death of another young man associated with the Jesus Fellowship.

Mr. Paul Andrews (27) a former computer salesman, was staying with the sect when he was involved in a road accident and died in Northampton General Hospital two months later.

Mr. Andrews, whose parents live at Ewell, Surrey, told a psychiatrist he had heard God speaking to him in his head and after his accident has been in contact with Satan.

It was said at the inquest that there was plenty of room for Mr. Andrews to avoid the fatal crash, but he drove straight at an oncoming lorry.

He is the third young man connected with the Fellowship to have died in the past six years. Both previous tragedies have never been fully explained.

Mr Donald Gocke, secretary of Northampton and District Council of Churches, said his organisation had no authority to investigate the fellowship.

He said he had read the report of Mr. Andrew's inquest and admitted: 'Churches in general are perturbed when they read these sort of things and are anxious as to what goes on in the Jesus Fellowship, but we are powerless to start any official inquiry.'