You know that sound that pennies make when they hit the floor after being in free-fall for a while? It just happened.
It all started with a surprisingly (one could say comradely, friendly, even nauseously) gentle article in yesterday’s The Australian that shone a whole new shade of pink over the Topic du Jour – the Exclusive Brethren and their outright panic over the about-to-be-launched ‘Behind The Exclusive Brethren’ by investigative journalist, Michael Bachelard.
For those with a strong stomach, we present:
Brethren lift veil on their exclusive lifestyle
The Australian
Brad Norington
September 20, 2008Daniel Hales says talking to his neighbours would help dispel negative perceptions about the Exclusive Brethren straight away.
“If you went up and down our street,” Hales says, “they would say, ‘oh yeah, they’ve got some funny beliefs, but gee, they’re nice people, they’re good people’.”
From the modest comfort of his home in Epping, a quiet, conservative, leafy suburb in Sydney’s north, a senior elder from a very private fundamentalist Christian sect has taken an extraordinary step.Despite the Brethren doctrine of separation from the outside world, Hales has granted access to The Weekend Australian. In public relations terms, it’s called damage control.
The Brethren, which has 15,000 members in Australia and 43,000 worldwide, has even engaged a well-connected public relations firm, Jackson Wells Morris, to provide advice as it battles public vilification after a torrent of allegations about cruelty to members and undue political influence.
For the past two years, the Brethren has been savaged by stories of families torn apart after members who left or were “ex-communicated” were prevented from seeing wives, husbands, children or parents.
During the federal election campaign, Kevin Rudd branded the Brethren “an extremist cult” that broke up families.
The group’s reputation has been sullied further by claims it has spent hundreds of thousands of election campaign dollars backing conservative candidates and attacking the Greens — without proper disclosure — even though Brethren members do not vote. The Brethren shuns political involvement as part of its Bible-based charter to “withdraw from iniquity”.
Another charge that feeds resentment against the Brethren is that it receives government grants for its special schools that are out of proportion to the small number of students who attend.
According to Hales, the assault on his sect will culminate next week with the publication of Behind the Exclusive Brethren, a book by journalist Michael Bachelard that explores the Australian offshoot of the church started almost 200 years ago by Irishman John Nelson Darby.
Hales, brother of the sect’s world leader Bruce Hales and owner of a family-run shop-fitting business in Sydney, says many lies are told about the Brethren. He claims the vilification has become so bad it is “open season to kill us”.
He blames most allegations made against the Brethren on a small number of “sad” disaffected people.
Two years ago Hales hired Jackson Wells Morris, after a recommendation that he talk to its plain-speaking media guru Keith Jackson. The PR firm is best known for its Liberal links, chiefly through former company partner and John Howard chief of staff Grahame Morris.
“We’re happy to live our lives in anonymity, just quietly in our neighbourhoods in our low-key way,” Hales says.
“We’re quite happy to have our beliefs questioned, ethically debated, and points of religion looked at. That’s not a problem. We don’t mind being criticised. We don’t even mind being despised because of it.
“But once it starts to be charged that we’re acting criminally, we’re acting illegally, we’re acting immorally, we’re acting against society, then we felt that we really had to put our point of view. We felt that it wasn’t fair to our members.”
Hales admits that, although the Brethren’s members are scattered among the community, they are not allowed to eat, drink or have friends outside the group.
Members are not permitted to join non-Brethren clubs nor attend popular sporting events. They drive cars and use telephones, but do not have televisions or radios.
Hales learns about the outside world by reading newspapers. Occasionally he is handed videotaped copies of news programs attacking the Brethren.
Computers, Hales says, are permitted for Brethren businesses, but adapted with special filters to deny internet access.
Children go to Brethren schools. They are not permitted a university education afterwards, which excludes them from careers such as medicine, the law and teaching.
Asked why Brethren children could not attend university, Hales says they would inevitably move away if exposed to campus life.
Similarly, all Brethren members are expected to marry within the group. Hales dismisses as lies that the sect endorses arranged or forced marriages, but says those who marry outside leave. Asked why, he says: “They would find it wouldn’t work.”
Hales dismisses claims that women are treated as inferior, citing their role in carrying the chalice of wine during Sunday services at the Brethren’s small windowless churches.
Bachelard writes in Behind the Exclusive Brethren that wives are always treated as second-class citizens and women progress no further than reception or administration jobs at Brethren businesses.
Hales denies Brethren members are brutally cut off from family if they leave the group, but he does admit they remain outside.
According to Hales, the Brethren has been vindicated over allegations of forced family separations, after suspended jail sentences given to three members by a judge last year for denying a father access to his children later overturned on appeal.
He says the Brethren has been cleared over alleged breaches of federal election funding laws after a police investigation found no wrongdoing.
The Australian – Brethren lift veil on their exclusive lifestyle
In there are all the standard Exclusive Brethren components of course, but it’s so … ‘bought’!
The key comes when you link Brad and Ben.
Benjamin Haslem, a Jackson Wells Director no less, came to the latest Exclusive Brethren spin-doctors from … you guessed it … The Australian! He has a degree in politics and psychology and has even cultivated that ‘EB look’ quite nicely.
Jackson Wells have very close links to John Howard. Their two Special Counsels Kerry Sibraa and Michael Baume have had impressive careers in the company of the ex-Premier.
Of course, Johnny Howard was also very close friends with Danny’s brother Brucie who tried to help out Johnny with some of the $2.2 Billion income that Bruce claims the Exclusive Brethren offer to the Australian GNP. (See ‘Living Our Beliefs’)
Now we see the cozy connections that Jackson-Wells offer, it is a good time to avoid the lipstick, and look at what Danny was purported to have said in the extended Press Release that was published in The Australian:
“If you went up and down our street,” Hales says, “they would say, ‘oh yeah, they’ve got some funny beliefs, but gee, they’re nice people, they’re good people’.”
You know Danny … you probably have a point. Let’s just leave out the sexual abuse, the lies, the tax-evasion, the ripping apart of families, the ignoring of court orders, the turning of children against parents, the lack of notifications of death, the treatment of relatives at funerals. Apart from these (and it is most certainly not a complete list), we would agree that the vast majority of the 43,000 Exclusive Brethren fit the category – “they’re nice people, they’re good people’.”. You see, some of them are our families we have not seen for years.
Despite the Brethren doctrine of separation from the outside world, Hales has granted access to The Weekend Australian. In public relations terms, it’s called damage control.
Ah – OK. At least the spin-doctor script writers are being honest!
The Brethren shuns political involvement as part of its Bible-based charter to “withdraw from iniquity”.
Shuns? But what about all the political smear campaigns that Bruce Hales ordered? The ‘forgetting’ to place correct names and addresses, the world-wide dictate to “give generously” to the Bruce Hales-initiated political campaigns? That is hardly ‘shunning’.
If political involvement is so ‘iniquitous’, why did ‘Elect Vessel’ Bruce Hales even want to get involved? Isn’t that wrong? And what happens to bad people in the Brethren Danny? Their bodies metaphorically litter the hedgerows …
According to Hales, the assault on his sect will culminate next week with the publication of Behind the Exclusive Brethren, a book by journalist Michael Bachelard that explores the Australian offshoot of the church started almost 200 years ago by Irishman John Nelson Darby.”
This is a little muddled of course. John Nelson Darby was an early member of the Plymouth Brethren (not the founder) and forced a division between the evangelical ‘Open’ Plymouth Brethren and those that he persuaded to follow him. Those that made the decision in 1848 to follow Darby were known in the press at that time as ‘Darbyites’ and/or ‘Closed’ or ‘Exclusive’ Brethren.
The remaining and far larger ‘Open’ Plymouth Brethren maintained the original intent of the movement and met quietly in local Gospel Halls with no established leadership or confederation. By contrast, it only took the Exclusive Brethren 100 years to start the ‘Banning’ and the ‘Dictates’. By the 1960′s, the Exclusive Brethren were a fully-fledged cult.
But the ‘assault’ that Danny refers to, will absolutely not culminate next week! It has only just begun!
Hales, brother of the sect’s world leader Bruce Hales and owner of a family-run shop-fitting business in Sydney, says many lies are told about the Brethren. He claims the vilification has become so bad it is “open season to kill us”.
This is quite extraordinary! “Open season to kill us”? Where does Danny get that from? Who mentioned “killing”? The Exclusive Brethren are known to pray for the deaths of those who oppose them, but is Danny really suggesting that there are Hit Squads out there gunning for him?
Such planting of conspiracy theories are of course well known in cultic philosophy – remember the fake war in ’1984′? Or the monsters in ‘The Village’. The use of the bogeyman is a classic control technique used by parents since the dawn of time … and as brother to the ‘Elect Vessel’, Danny certainly has unique status – something that the partners of Jackson-Wells should be congratulated for massaging into focus. It certainly was time to move away from the Tony McCorkell era.
It is worth mentioning that the “shop-fitting business” is an international office furniture manufacturing, distribution and installation business called Archway, with its headquarters in Sydney. It is deeply embedded in the business fabric of the Exclusive Brethren. The last we heard, Tony McCorkell was now selling office tables for the Hales family.
He blames most allegations made against the Brethren on a small number of “sad” disaffected people.
He can’t mean us! No – we’re not sad. But he does have to blame someone – the Exclusive Brethren could never be the cause of their own problems, right?
“We’re quite happy to have our beliefs questioned, ethically debated, and points of religion looked at. That’s not a problem. We don’t mind being criticised. We don’t even mind being despised because of it.”
Excuse me? That’s wonderful Danny! We’ll be passing that particular quote to our lawyers post-haste. The Exclusive Brethren love debate so much that they have already closed down two web sites that dared to criticise them and are hard at work closing down this site! (For some details on the legal battles – February 2008 Press Release and Background Information)
We shall also ensure that if attacked in the future, we’ll quote you word for word! Does this also mean that you’ll stop calling all Peebs.Net members ‘Opposers’ and will start allowing them to see their families again?
It appears that Jackson-Wells are going to use the martyrdom-angle to the full. A clever move, except it is really important to ensure that the martyr label is placed on the right donor. If there is not complete purity and saint-like sacrificial properties, it simply will not stick.
“But once it starts to be charged that we’re acting criminally, we’re acting illegally, we’re acting immorally, we’re acting against society, then we felt that we really had to put our point of view. We felt that it wasn’t fair to our members.”
Danny – you’re missing something. Your members are not the issue. It’s the hierarchy – it’s the dynasty. It’s the interchange, regional and country henchmen who deserve the investigations. The members simply suffer under you – you’re absolutely right that it isn’t fair on them.
We’re delighted that you don’t mind being criticized. It’s a relief. We have a great deal of criticism that we’ve been saving up for quite a while. Michael’s book in no way is any form of culmination. There are others on the way!
In terms of “criminal” and “illegal” – we believe a full investigation into the dealings of the Exclusive Brethren is not only desirable, it is essential. Despite the world-wide network of carefully integrated trusts and for-profit subsidiaries, there is one powerful legal adage that will bring the Truth out – ‘Follow The Money’.
But “immoral”? That was an error. The Exclusive Brethren are guilty as charged. Ripped apart families … suicide victims … men driven to murder … psychological damage … sexual abuse … child molestation …
Hales admits that, although the Brethren’s members are scattered among the community, they are not allowed to eat, drink or have friends outside the group.
Ben, Brad and Danny messed that up a little – the Exclusive Brethren certainly eat and oh man do they drink! But what they were trying to say was – not with anyone else outside the Exclusive Brethren. If they did and were caught, they would be shunned, possibly excommunicated and then the family ripping would begin …
Members are not permitted to join non-Brethren clubs nor attend popular sporting events. They drive cars and use telephones, but do not have televisions or radios.
Hales learns about the outside world by reading newspapers. Occasionally he is handed videotaped copies of news programs attacking the Brethren.
Um … we don’t want to be too picky, but how does he watch the video tape then? By holding it up to the light?
“Computers, Hales says, are permitted for Brethren businesses, but adapted with special filters to deny internet access.”
Actually Ben, Brad and Danny – that’s not exactly true. The Wordex PC that the Exclusive Brethren force their members to purchase (it’s a ‘purer’ computer you understand) allows you to access the internet – and the more you pay the controlling EB organization, the less the sites are filtered. It’s ‘Nanny’ Software with a ‘Danny’ price structure.
Asked why Brethren children could not attend university, Hales says they would inevitably move away if exposed to campus life.
NO KIDDING! And why on earth would that be? Could it be that they might decide to get a life? Just what on earth is he so afraid of?
The answer is the key to the entire matter – the Exclusive Brethren are a cult. The only way they can keep their young is to clone them very carefully and indoctrinate them against leaving. If you study the document ‘Living Our Beliefs’ (link above) purportedly by Bruce Hales, you will see that it is stated clearly that the Exclusive Brethren do not actively recruit new members. This is hardly surprising of course, but this conversely means that their growth is all from within.
It is a disgrace that the Exclusive Brethren schools are subsidized by tax payers. They school their young for one reason – to instill the components of control and to remove any desire for further education. To be born a member of the Exclusive Brethren is to be born with an immediate handicap – you will be trimmed and cultivated to become an obedient addition to the workforce … a world-wide network of businesses and trade routes from which huge tithes and profits are extracted on a regular basis.
Hales dismisses claims that women are treated as inferior, citing their role in carrying the chalice of wine during Sunday services at the Brethren’s small windowless churches.
Wow! That sounds like something to really look forward to. Who are they carrying the ‘chalice’ for? The men?
Hales denies Brethren members are brutally cut off from family if they leave the group, but he does admit they remain outside.
It’s difficult to find words that adequately cater to this ridiculous attempt at whitewash (sorry, lipstick). So is Danny suggesting that it’s alright to separate children from parents (can’t eat, drink, make friends, etc) – and that’s not “brutal”? Perhaps a better word would be evil. At the very least, it is “immoral”.
It would be most interesting to have a chat with Danny’s neighbors sometime. Perhaps there are a couple of things they don’t know.
Meanwhile … we are now aware that Danny doesn’t mind being criticized and also expects those that disagree with the Exclusive Brethren ‘want to kill them’ … why would we want to kill the members of our own families who we have missed for so long? As this site has clearly stated for so long, ‘We love the people, but hate the system’.
And don’t for a single fleeting minute even dream that Michael’s wonderful book, launched this week is any sort of culmination.
Danny Boy – that would be a big mistake:
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying
‘Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide.
It is always a disappointment when the full story of the brethren is not written – their worship practices – their hidden lifestyles – e.g. sex is covered up by the elders – people asking for forgiveness but still the sex life goes on – marriage within the sect is important but separation / divorce is very much on the increase I’m male and outed an elder for rape – he was sentenced to 7 years – now he is accepted back into the sect – I was excommunicated. They rely on government subsisdy as to their so-called christian duties – age care etc. Records tell at any price all will be done to save the sect – lawyers are used for almost any dispute with little or no limit of the $$$$$ to win – Mike.