May 26, 2008

David Tchappat is already a winner.

For those mentally and physically trapped within the Exclusive Brethren, leaving is not a rational option. From the moment you are taken as a child a few days old and immersed in a tub of luke warm water under the watchful eyes of your family members and a few local Exclusive Brethren representatives, you are given no choices. Your future is mapped and your ambitions will become sublimated to become part of ‘supporting the Assembly’.

The concept of ‘Household Baptism’ is just one example of where the Exclusive Brethren take choices out of the hands of an individual. To most Christians, Baptism is quite simply a personal decision and an outward expression of a life ‘reborn’. Although Christening is a common practice in many denominations, this is simpler to view as a dedication by the parents to bring up a child in the Christian tradition.

There is no ‘Believers Baptism’ in the Exclusive Brethren. This is the most common form of Baptism in the Christian community where a new believer will decide voluntarily to ‘be baptized’ as a public expression of their new faith and that they have left their old life behind them. It is this form of Baptism that many feel has the greatest meaning and significance – because they made the decision.

Not all who leave the Exclusive Brethren wish to maintain any form of religious observance. The only form of Christianity they have experienced has been forced and surrounded by rules and the decisions of others. To even the most uneducated observer, the Exclusive Brethren today offer very little to satisfy any form of spiritual hunger and this is primarily due to an assumption of ‘birthright’.

When born into an Exclusive Brethren family, there are no options. You will be immersed in water and then, a few years later, it will be made clear that the parents are expected to ensure the child takes the final outward step of partaking in the Lords Supper (holy communion). Once the child starts partaking of the home-made bread and sipping the Ruby Port wine a few minutes after 6:00 AM on a Sunday, the future is assumed secured for another member of the Exclusives.

There is only one further option open to a member and it is a huge decsion that should never be underestimated. Not many can handle even the concept, let alone have the tenacity to plan and enact an escape. It is a choice that no-one should ever have to make.

Double trouble for BB

After running away from a “strict and controlling” religious sect at the age of 19, Big Brother evictee David Tchappat said he doesn’t regret the decision that saw him cut off from his entire family.

The 33-year-old fire fighter was a member of the Exclusive Brethren group until he decided to leave the secretive confines of total domination and venture into the real world.

Despite discussing on national television the organisation’s authoritative stance over its members, Tchappat said he doesn’t fear any backlash from his former “brothers”.

“I don’t answer to them anymore… I’m happy with my life and they leave me alone now,” he said.

He spent three weeks in the Big Brother house before deciding to share the story of his unusual upbringing with his fellow housemates.

“It’s not something I go around promoting… I tell people when I am close to them.”

He attempted to leave the sect at 17-years-old, but was dragged back and “interrogated” by senior members for several months, he said.

Two years later he left for good and said he hasn’t looked back.

However, he said life was difficult for several years and he battled through some “tough experiences”, including the breakdown of his marriage, because of his naivety about the world.

“I had no idea… some people took advantage of me and I blew a lot of money but thankfully I didn’t do anything that was life-changing.

“If I had stayed out when I was 17, I probably would have crashed and burned.”

Leaving the sect required numerous sacrifices, including severing ties with his family, but Tchappat said he occasionally speaks with his parents.

“I don’t have much of a relationship with my family anymore… we moved in different directions and we have different lives.

“I took a punt in entering the real world and I think it has paid off.”

While every facet of his entire life was controlled, including who he would one day marry, Tchappat said he still had a happy childhood.

But life was vastly different to that of other Australian kids.

“I wasn’t allowed to do anything that was considered fun… playing sports, going to the movies, watching TV, sleeping over at a mate’s place, playing computer games, Christmas… I didn’t have any of that.

“We went to church every night, a half day on Saturday and all day Sunday… it’s a very strict and regimented life that is completely planned for you.

“Your life is controlled and you don’t have a choice about anything.”

Source: The Age – Double trouble for BB

When David Tchappat finally left the Exclusive Brethren, it was in a time where there was no established help available ‘outside’. David made the decision to leave as a teenager and the few words surrounding this decision hide the enormity of what he faced as a 17 year old trying to find a way in a world for which he had intentionally been untrained to handle.

He was brought back inside and the emotional and psychological brow-beatings began. It is possible to find similarities in the stories of prisoners-of-war who decide to demonstrate all the outward signs of repentance and willingness to obey the rules, while biding their time for the next opportunity to escape.

David tells us he eventually managed to escape when he was 19 – this means that he was again on his own in the late 1980′s – a time well before the Internet and any form of easy connectivity and communication among others who had left the cult.

Dick Wyman did not commence his web site until the late 1990′s and Peebs.Net has only been available on the Web since the Wyman site was forced to close by the Exclusive Brethren in 2004. Today there are over 100 people in 9 countries who will answer a telephone call or email within minutes of a request for help. In the 1980′s David Tchappat was on his own.

It takes a strong man to walk the road that David has walked. He admits his mistakes and his errors quite openly. But how can he be blamed? Part of the most sinister aspect of the Exclusive Brethren is their clamp-down on all matters relating to society. It is of course easily recognized as a standard Cult Tactic, but the ban on material and enforced Separation from all those not Exclusive Brethren results in social ‘pygmies’ with little or no appreciation of what the human family is about.

One look at the inability of the current leader, Bruce Hales in Sydney Australia, to conduct even a simple political campaign, underscores how ineffectual and intellectually lacking those that lead this group of 45,000 human beings actually are. They are starting to display the inescapable effect of over 40 years of banned meaningful further education for their young.

Reduced to employing non-EB teachers and other professionals, they maintain their restrictive form of education by controlling the syllabus and any form of contact with non-members. Hardly surprisingly, they fear the media with a ferocity born out of fear. When the structure of a cult is designed to restrict the flow of information, and then, when those who know the Truth start to find a voice, it is the most telling weapon that the Exclusive Brethren hierarchy have to face.

One cannot blame the parents – an easy target. They too are ‘pygmies’ who are far more deeply entrenched and trapped than their children will be for some time. For them it is not just their lives and the promise of freedom – there are extended families, mortgages, established businesses, loans – and the fear of losing eternal salvation.

David Tchappat left at the perfect time. He left before he could be forced into a loveless arranged marriage or was trapped by the money that flows freely among cult members. He left because something inside him would not allow him to stay – and he was successful.

Today, someone wishing to leave this restrictive and damaging cult can write an email requesting help. Within minutes, the request is being handled by those who live nearby. It is not necessary for those who take this huge leap into a world they have little knowledge of to do this alone – many have fought this deeply personal and intense battle themselves.

Some have lost the will to fight and have returned. Like breaking an addiction, it sometimes takes several attempts. Others were ground down to a level where the loneliness and entrenched fears brought them to a place of complete desperation and at that point they either succumb and return, fall deep into the self-medication offered by drugs or alcohol – or take their own lives.

Well done David – may your story and will to survive encourage those who read this and wish to leave.

If you wish to leave the Exclusive Brethren, contact us in complete confidence.

If you are already out and are feeling desperate – contact us or press the Emergency Button on the site front page.

If you want to Help, join our Helpers around the world.

The worst thing to do, is to do nothing. If the Exclusive Brethren apply to build a school or a new Meeting Room in your vicinity, it is your duty to try and prevent more children being forced to do what David eventually managed to achieve.  He had the will to survive, but we are not all made of the same stuff.

Children belong with their parents – and parents belong with their children. The most significant evil of the Exclusive Brethren is the way they do not hesitate to separate one from the other. It is an evil that they call ‘truth’ but really, it is just a psychological weapon of fear.