In the mid-nineties, Hamilton’s Potters House church leader Richard Watson was a figure despised by many of the city’s lesbian and gay community, especially when he screened copies of two imported US anti-gay hate videos, Gay Rights/Special Rights and The Gay Agenda. Last month, the former antigay church minister was killed at a party in Perth. So, what lies behind the story?

In a Waikato Times article, Jeff Neems talked to Watson’s widow, Louise, about their life since the mid-nineties. According to her, Richard and she served the church for the best part of fourteen years, often undertaking arduous work like caring for drunks and drug addicts, often on little money. In 1998, they left the institution, disillusioned by the toll that the church had taken on them, and accompanied by several other families. She’s bitter about the relative absence of condolences from members of her former church.

More significantly though, Louise Watson acknowledges that Richard and she were
“manipulated and brainwashed” by others during their time at the cult, including those higher up in the Australasian church hierarchy. She said that both Richard and she were deeply sorry for having “harmed people” during their Potters House period, and that since moving away to Perth, they were much more open, and certainly no longer antigay; they even had gay friends and colleagues there, where Richard worked as a painter and sometime poet.

Back in Hamilton, current Potters House minister Scott McGrath rejected Louise Watson’s remarks. He said that Potters House had “moderated” its stance on LGBT issues, and welcomed LGBT parishioners, although it would still try to convert them as it still believed homosexuality was ’sinful’. Potters House also fielded street preachers, and McGrath acknowledged that when Watson left, the church had fallen to bits. However, he gave a contrasting impression of Richard Watson’s time at Potters House, arguing that Richard could be ‘manipulative,’ ‘abrupt’, and ‘confrontational,’ and that his anti-gay crusade was ‘his choice.’

I was sceptical about this, so I decided to follow up and check out evangelical opinion about the Potters House sect. In 1988, the relatively academic fundamentalist Christian Research Journal condemned its authoritarian leadership tendencies and isolation of non-fundamentalist family members from teenage fundamentalists.  At the same time, evangelical anti-cult activist Rick Ross condemned the sect when he appeared on the Geraldo Riviera Show.  In the early nineties, Ronald Enroth devoted substantial time to criticism of the sect in two books, Churches That Abuse (1992) and Recovering From Churches That Abuse (1994).  After the Watsons left, there was a devastating split within the sect, leading to the exodus of over one hundred previously affiliated congregations, over the issues of authoritarian leadership and family member isolation.

So, what are we left with? McGrath tends to play down the other criticisms of his sect, from even within the fundamentalist and evangelical community itself. As for Richard and Louise Watson, there seems little doubt that both of them had left behind their fundamentalist days and antigay rabble rousing, and were earnestly involved in starting their lives anew- until a cruel twist of fate left Louise and her family alone.

I would like to thank Louise Watson for her implicit apology and acknowledgement of the damage that her former sect did, and I am sure that our thoughts are with her, and her family, as they mourn their tragic loss.  And this does seem to suggest that even the most rabid homophobe can change, and turn their lives around.

Recommended:

Jeff Neems: “Wife Speaks Out- Pastor Regretted Cult Links” Waikato Times 08.05.08

Jeff Neems: “Fellowship Reject Cult Allegations” Waikato Times: 10.05.08

Ronald Enroth: Churches That Abuse: Grand Rapids: Zondervan: 1992.

Ronald Enroth: Recovering From Churches That Abuse: Grand Rapids: Zondervan: 1994.