May 30, 2008
A well-researched and sourced compilation of related news appeared today in the Hong Kong-based ‘Mister-Info’ news portal. The article and stated sources appear below:
‘Big Brother Australia’ evictee recounts youth in controversial religious group
David Tchappat, a popular housemate recently evicted from the television reality program Big Brother Australia, has spoken out critically of his childhood experiences in the controversial religious group “Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren”, referred to in Australian media as “Exclusive Brethren”. Tchappat was a participant in the edition Big Brother Australia 2008, and was voted off the show on May 25.
Tchappat, 33, a former police officer and presently a firefighter, left the controversial group at age 19. He says he attempted to leave at age 17 but was brought back by members of the group and “interrogated” by group leadership for months. Up until he left he had never eaten in a restaurant, listened to the radio or been to the movie theater. According to Macquarie National News, Tchappat’s former community numbers number approximately 15,000 in Australia. Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren is a sect of Protestant Christianity and a breakaway group from Exclusive Brethren.
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May 28, 2008
So David was ‘evicted’ from the Big Brother house because he was “boring”. What some people do not understand is that it can take years to recover from the damage caused from the trauma of being locked away from society. A typical ex-member of the Exclusive Brethren has been surrounded by rules and restrictions since birth. The ability to hold a ‘normal’ conversation with someone not part of the cult is a skill that has to be learned.
Certainly David Tchappat has had 13 or more years to learn how to socially interact, but his chosen routes of employment are telling – a policeman and currently a fireman. Both roles allow physical communication and an associated authority. Try and pick two other jobs (necessarily attainable without a university education) that depend more on rules and regulations as much as these … ex-Exclusive Brethren are expert at maintaining existence around rules. For the first few years, an ex-member without some form of structure is the psychological equivalent of a body without a skeleton.
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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.
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May 25th, 2008
So the ‘Big Brother’ era for David Tchappat is over. The level of interest stemming from his brief sojourn in the Australian reality TV series was quite noticeable. Hits on this blog and the Peebs.Net Exclusive Brethren Information web site increased by almost 25% following the announcement that an escaped cult member was going to appear on the aptly named ‘Big Brother’ show.
Two of Big Brother’s most controversial housemates were punted from the show tonight after a shock double eviction rocked the famous Gold Coast Share house.
Former cult member David bit the dust even after cleverly revealing his intriguing past strategically a fortnight into the show.
The 33-year-old firefighter was raised as a member of the ‘Exclusive Brethren’ an extreme Christian sect that denies members access to TV, radio, and even restaurants.
Sensationally, David escaped the cult as a 19-year-old.
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In a possible Quote of the Week, David Tchappat is quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald as stating “Living with the Exclusive Brethren is like living in the Big Brother house…”.
Um … probably not David. Although, we do admit there are some possible similarities.
If you remove the fact that you are living, eating and under the same roof with people who are distinctly not EB material – and add to this the fact that this is a manufactured environment for Television (a pipeline of filth) – and of course, sadly, you are a ‘Person under Discipline’ and this means that you are denied a number of things: including eternal salvation, ability to speak freely with members of your family still inside, and darnit, you’re going to miss the Rapture …
No – we concur that you are there because of money, that you are there because you’re ‘different’ and you’re there because you miss not having a family around you – a circular observation perhaps.
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May 16th, 2008
It is a unique experience. A young thirty-something fireman called David is participating in Australian TV’s ‘Big Brother’. Described as a cult-survivor, David has walked a road that not many people have known. In leaving the Exclusive Brethren, David left the first 19 years of his life completely behind him. It is gone. And as many of us know, it is a deeply damaging experience.
A cult survivor called David.
You see David looks like your average well-muscled fireman. But at the age of 32 he’s only been living in the real world for 13 years. He had to start from scratch after escaping an extreme religious sect at 19. Before then he’d never seen a movie, kissed a girl, listened to the radio or eaten at a restaurant. The group was called the Exclusive Brethren and they have some kooky folks. They live apart from the rest of us in their own isolated communities. And get this: they don’t vote in elections because it interferes with God’s right to ordain who rules – but they do fund the Liberal Party. You tell me the logic there and I’ll buy you lunch. Speaking of lunch – Exclusive Brethren can’t even share a meal with people outside their sect. David will never be able to break bread with his family ever again. And there are 15,000 in Australia. Bet you didn’t know about these guys… but you know Big Brother is boring.
Cults, racism and man-children: Big Brother’s far from bland
Perhaps the Exclusive Brethren are finding their true role in the scheme of things? The journey from oddity to cause célèbre is sometimes far shorter than anticipated. Admittedly the Exclusive Brethren are different. By erecting their high-fenced and steel-gated compounds, they are highlighting their belief that they are ‘not of us’. But if you suggest that by locking their doors and refusing casual visitors to their ‘meeting rooms’ they should not receive tax-exemption as a ‘public place of worship’, they will immediately cry ‘foul!’.
In their dealings with Governments they present themselves as unique arbiters of Christianity, deep-thinking and sober members of a cloistered group who are ‘not of this world’. Most politicians have traditionally been scared of the ‘religious discrimination’ accusation that would follow a refusal to meet such representatives. However, one of the side-effects of such self-labeling is that the spotlight of Truth can sometimes publicly showcase hypocrisy – and a publicly uncovered Hypocrite is a particularly uncomfortable position to be found in.
For all its faults, the democratic west has an instinctive moral knowledge of some issues, particularly those that deal with children and families. The arrogance of the Exclusive Brethren extends to splitting families apart over doctrinal differences and then in negatively influencing the children who remain against the normally departed father. The harshness and indifference that the EB display in such situations is breathtaking.
When you finally realize that the Exclusive Brethren do not actively recruit new members and that their international growth is entirely from within, their concentration upon the creation of new Exclusive school campuses takes on a new and sinister significance. By carefully controlling the education of their young and then refusing them the opportunity to go to universities, the Exclusive Brethren are indoctrinating a new generation and preventing their individual growth – and it is you, the tax-payer, who is assisting this process!
It is a sad indictment of a religious movement that spontaneously arose in early 19th century Europe. The Taylorite-Hales Exclusive Brethren could not be further from the original simplicity sought by the their Plymouth Brethren forefathers. The moment the doors first slammed shut against ‘outsiders’ in the late 1840′s, a form of spiritual xenophobia started to take root. We are today watching a cult that judges its success in materialist terms rather than by the souls it saves. Perhaps society should be grateful they do not wish us to join their ‘business’, but those who have family members physically and psychologically trapped behind their barred gates must continue to ensure they are not forgotten.
Breakout – David Tchappat’s escape from the Exclusive Brethren
June 1st, 2009
David has written an unique autobiography in that it represents the first published story of life in the Exclusive Brethren during the last 30 years. There have been a number of books written regarding life in the 1950′s and 1960′s, but David Tchappat was born after the Aberdeen Incident of 1970 and grew up in a brethren family in Australia under the iron-fisted rule of Neche, ND pig farmer James Symington and following his death, John Hales who is the father of Bruce Hales, the current Exclusive Brethren leader.
It is very much an Australian book – Aussie slang terms pepper the pages – non-Aussie readers will need to know the meaning of such words as ‘stoked‘, ‘bloke‘ and the visually effective ‘ropeable‘.
Written over a 5 year period, the autobiography covers the author’s upbringing in the Exclusive Brethren cult and his eventual departure as a 19 year old in the mid-1990′s. It is an important publication in that it is the most contemporary book detailing life within the EB.
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