Reproduced with permission from:
Breakout: How I escaped from the Exclusive Brethren
by David Tchappat (2009)
The following chapter was written by a former Exclusive Brethren member who wishes to remain anonymous.
A Short History of the Exclusive Brethren
There are many Christians known as “brethren” who trace the origins of their movement to John Nelson Darby who lived just over 200 years ago in Dublin. Schism and division has been a consistent feature of the movement almost from the start. The following summary relates to the Taylor-Symington-Hales Branch of the Exclusive Brethren (signified by the more recent leaders of this group); arguably the most radical and perhaps controversial of all the groups in the Brethren movement.
The Brethren trace the origins of the movement to John Nelson Darby who was born in London in 1800 into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. Lord Nelson, a friend of his uncle, Admiral Sir Henry Darby, was a sponsor at young Darby’s christening.
Darby’s mother died when he was five years old and at the age of 15 his family moved to the ancestral estate in Ireland. He took an honours degree at Dublin University and studied law for three years at the Dublin Chancery Bar. But he never practiced law. To the annoyance of his family, he abandoned his legal career and became a priest in the Irish Church of England in 1826, serving in the parish of Calary in the mountains of County Wicklow.
Almost immediately John Darby fell out with church leaders over matters of doctrine and by 1827-28 he was meeting to “break bread” in the home of one of four other dissenting young men in Dublin. The group believed that the existence of an established church and ordained clergy was contrary to scripture. “I can find no such thing as a national church in Scripture”, Darby wrote at the time. In 1832, he had a major disagreement with Archbishop Magee about a requirement for converted Catholics to swear allegiance to King George IV and, in the same year, disagreed with Archbishop Whately about matters of church doctrine.
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The Exclusive Brethren in Australia are perhaps beginning to feel the impact of the Bruce Hales strategy of forcing the cult into the public political awareness over the past few years. Although now remaining silent behind their expensive PR firm (Jackson-Wells) for the last few months, the EB must now realize the impact of their disasterous foray into politics:
People in glass houses should most certainly avoid throwing stones!
Exclusive Brethren lose workplace exemption
The Age, Australia
by Misha Schubert, Canberra
March 19, 2009
A special exemption used by the secretive Exclusive Brethren sect to ban unions from their workplaces was struck out of workplace laws before the Senate last night.
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New EB HQ planned for Diamond Creek
The Leader, Australia
by Engel Schmidl
March 11, 2009
A controversial Christian church is planning to make a proposed prayer hall in Diamond Creek, for up to 2000 people, its new Melbourne headquarters.
The Exclusive Brethren, which has built five smaller meeting halls in the north-eastern suburbs in recent years, has been accused by former members and critics of being cult-like and secretive.
The proposed hall in Diamond Creek Rd will replace the church’s main hall in Glenroy.
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October 20th, 2008
The Australian government is now openly funding Exclusive Brethren schools with public money. Why is this significant? Because the schools are not open to the public – Australian tax-payers cannot send their children to an EB school, even if they wanted to.
The only non-Exclusive Brethren kids in EB schools are children of the non-EB teachers they are forced to hire because of the Exclusive Brethren ban on university education. This in itself begs the question:
Why would tax-payers want to fund an intentional restriction of a child’s future?
No Exclusive Brethren child is allowed to fulfill their destiny through university education. And yet Kevin Rudd is funding the perpetuation of what amounts to an infringement of human rights!
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There is a level of sympathy with the position that Kevin Rudd finds himself in. We certainly live in a complex world where, in some radical circles, an off-color joke or a caricature that is designated as blasphemous can bring immediate sentence of death. This may appear to be half a world away from dealing with the Exclusive Brethren, but Kevin Rudd must consider all religions in his portfolio.
The only politically-safe way across the razor blades of religious bias is to somehow view the world through secular eyes – and yet maintain a stance that is broadly acceptable. Is this possible for Kevin Rudd?
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