Frequently, it is what the Exclusive Brethren do not say that speaks loudest.
Many will recall the first cult smear advertising that first hit the streets in New Zealand in 2005. Later, Australia suffered the same influx of brochures, pamphlets and handouts. They all had one thing in common - the group behind the material was never mentioned.
Rather than provide any normal route to identity, the Exclusive Brethren intentionally obfuscate their publications. When you consider the way they hide their tracks, this is perhaps understandable: false addresses, misleading names, even the business premises of their unsuspecting tenants … One thing is constant, the name of the Taylorite / Symington / Hales Exclusive Brethren never appears.
9/11 and now 'Black Saturday'
And now, in perhaps their most cynical effort todate, they use their own children in an effort to extract money from a public for whom they care nothing and even seemingly entrap a Prime Minister who has publicly declared them an “extremist cult” to assist them. And their public relations lever? The killer bush fires that swept across Victoria in southern Australia during February, less than a year ago.
‘ Firestorm: Black Saturday’s Tragedy‘ is published by Dennis Jones & Associates of Byswater, Victoria, Australia and there is even a website dedicated to the PR cause: http://www.blacksaturdaysfirestorm.com.au
The Glenvale School is an Exclusive Brethren school – one of those campuses that is set to receive some of the over $70 million hand-out authorized by Kevin Rudd over the next two years:
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The Exclusive Brethren have been desperate to repair some of the public damage caused to their reputation since their disasterous foray into international politics in 2003. Initially they attempted to handle their own public relations, but their inability to be persuasive in the media forced them to hire a public relations firm.
“In early 2007, senior members of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship approached Jackson Wells seeking assistance dealing with a sudden and intense increase in media interest…”
“At the heart of Jackson Wells strategy to assist the Brethren was to increase the Church’s engagement with the wider community, mainly through the media.”
“The Brethren Church still has some way to travel in gaining an accurate public understanding of the lifestyle of its members”
The Exclusive Brethren have a track record of hypocrisy. For example, while still maintaining that the Internet was a “pipeline of filth”, they created a website that even today spouts:
“The Exclusive Brethren practice separation from evil, recognising this as God’s principle of unity. They shun the conduits of evil communications: television, the radio, and the Internet…”
In an attempt to demonstrate a self-perceived commitment to public good deeds, The Exclusive Brethren used to trumpet the fact that they had offered unspecified assistance in the aftermath of 9/11 on their ‘evil’ website:
“The Exclusive Brethren assisted the rescue efforts at Ground Zero during the aftermath of the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.”
This changed following the February 2009 bushfires in Victoria Australia when Jackson Wells co-founder quietly leaked the fact that the Exclusive Brethren had donated $3 million to the Red Cross Appeal. (Source Peter Jackson blog )
Shortly afterward, the Exclusive Brethren website replaced their 9/11 self-congratulation with the Jackson Wells bushfire donation story:
“Members of the Exclusive Brethren donated more than A$3 million to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal to assist those affected by the devastating Black Saturday blazes in Victoria on February 7, 2009.
Many Brethren live close to areas burned and employ people who lost loved ones and property in the fires.”
Source – The Exclusive Brethren website
To ensure that the public get the message, an Exclusive Brethren school has now published a book labelled as a fund raiser. In a remarkable public relations coup, they even persuaded Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister to offer support for the enterprise!
The public relations smoke screen follows on the heels of the recent announcement that the Exclusive Brethren schools system have been granted over $70 million (AUS) in Australian federal funds over the next two years.
Brethren schools get $70m in funding
The Australian
by Rick Wallace
January 12, 2010The Rudd government is handing more than $70 million to schools run by the Exclusive Brethren, a religious sect Kevin Rudd described as an “extremist cult” that breaks up families.
The sect’s schools have secured more than $8.4m under the government’s school building stimulus package and they will share in $62m in recurrent taxpayer funding.
Documents show a Brethren-run school at Swan Hill in northern Victoria was granted $1.2m for a library and $800,000 for a hall when its most recent annual report shows it had just 16 pupils and already had a library.
Grants data released by the commonwealth shows that Brethren schools in every state received funding under the $12.4 billion schools stimulus package. Despite the Brethren’s past disdain for computers, figures show its schools have received more than 300 under the commonwealth computers-in-school initiative.
Although it might appear that ‘flying under the radar’ has recently proved beneficial to the secretive cult and their advisors, the confused signals from the Rudd administration have resulted in increased media scrutiny. Rick Wallace of the Australian continues investigating the outrageous funding:
Exclusive Brethren enjoying $1m taxpayer windfall
The Australian
by Rick Wallace
January 13, 2010Despite being assessed as wealthy, the Brethren’s mushrooming network of schools is being funded at a higher rate than independent schools in battling regional communities such as Bourke and Longreach.
The secretive but financially savvy sect has taken advantage of a “no-disadvantage” clause put in the funding system by the Howard government, of which the Brethren was a strong supporter.
…
The no-disadvantage clause means that despite the wealth of the Brethren schools’ communities, their funding level is preserved at that awarded to the original campus at Meadowbank in Sydney. Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said the funding guarantee was costing taxpayers $3.5 billion a year and must be urgently reviewed.
“The over-funding of the Exclusive Brethren’s MET school is a prime example of a corrupted funding system, with half the private schools in the country funded above their entitlement,” Mr Gavrielatos said.
Who says Public Relations firms are ineffectual?
The news that Daniel Hales, brother to the Exclusive Brethren leader Bruce D. Hales, is to present a paper at the ICSA Annual Conference in New York in early July 2010 marks a new step in a carefully choreographed transformation.
Daniel Hales has lived in the shadow of his younger brother since not being selected as a suitable leader of the EB following the death of their father John S. Hales in 2002. Always heavily involved in the business and monetary aspects of the cult, he has nevertheless been carefully groomed over the past several years by Jackson Wells (http://www.jacksonwells.com.au/), the EB’s Public Relations Agency, to act as a spokesman for the group.
Several spokesmen have come and gone since Bruce Hales gained control in 2002. Due to the reluctance (some say inability) of Bruce Hales to face the media, a series of personalities have attempted to divert attention away from what many view as firm evidence of cultic behavior. Indeed, the Exclusive Brethren were recently described by current Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as “an extremist cult and sect” who went on to state that he believed “they break up families“.
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The following letter was written by the peebs.net Community to Jackson Wells, Public Relations Consultants to the Exclusive Brethren. It summarizes the Exclusive Brethren today and provides many important insights into the cult. We reproduce it in full.
Jackson Wells recently signed up another group that many would consider fall into the same category as the Exclusive Brethren, The Church of Scientology in Australia.
The Exclusive Brethren and the Church of Scientology – like any other religious organisations, and especially those who are unjustly pursued by the more rabid elements of the mass media – are entitled to seek advice about how they should communicate. That’s what we offer, and that should be the end of the matter.
KEITH JACKSON, chairman, Jackson Wells
Mr Benjamin Haslem
Jackson Wells Pty Ltd
PO Box 1743
Neutral Bay NSW 2089
June 30th, 2009
Dear Mr Haslem
We wish to respond to your recent article in the web publication “The Well”, Issue 36, Autumn 2009, entitled “Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren”.
Whilst the above title implies that your brief is to shine some much-needed light onto the activities of the Exclusive Brethren, we believe that this is the last thing they would want. Until recently, they have always preferred to keep a low profile, with good reason. Instead, it appears that they wish to counteract their negative image from the public scrutiny they have attracted in recent times – purely through their own actions – by engaging your company to create a “positive spin”. Unfortunately, even a company of your stature will have great difficulty in achieving this objective.
We take issue with your assertion that “outrageous and false claims” have been leveled against the Brethren by “mostly tabloid” media outlets and a “handful of disaffected former Church members”. Firstly, we are surprised that you regard serious newspapers such as “The Age” and “The Australian” (your former employer) as tabloid. Secondly, the contemptuous term “handful” is nonsense, and sounds suspiciously like part of a previously reported statement of a Brethren spokesman.
We are a community of people, most of whom have intimate knowledge and personal experience of the Exclusive Brethren doctrine of extreme separation, which has caused many hundreds of families worldwide to be torn apart over the past 50 years. As a result, people have been forced to spend the rest of their lives apart from their families, with all the pain and trauma that that entails. Some have even been driven to suicide, as the following link shows:
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The following letter is an individual response to the recently published Jackson Wells paper, ‘Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren’. This letter was copied to Peebs.Net by an individual who was once a member of the Exclusive Brethren cult. As far as we know, there has not been a reply.
From: [removed]
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 12:42 PM
To: kjackson@jacksonwells.com.au
Cc: info@peebs.net
Subject: Exclusive Brethren
Please could the following be directed to Ben Haslem.
FTAO: Benjamin Haslem
Dear Benjamin,
I read with interest your article - Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren
I have had years of involvement with the Exclusive Brethren and may be able to help you. I do not wish to denigrate what you have written in your article, I would rather seek to assist you in your endeavours to portray the truth regarding this little-known sect. I am very aware that it is difficult to understand the Exclusive Brethren as they are, by nature and intention, secretive. They prefer to be out of the limelight and not subject to criticism. They do not enjoy engaging in debate and discussion with those outside the sect. They are much more comfortable with confrontation that can be resolved through finance or intimidation, rather than through merit. You are unlikely to find members of the Brethren involved in open debate with the wider community, freely engaged with religious scholars, or willingly discussing theology with any other faith groups. But you will often see them in a courtroom, they have a long history of litigious behaviour. You will also note that they employ eminent lawyers and public relations consultants.
Unfortunately, there are statements in your article that are misleading or untrue. I would like to take this opportunity to help you, and to correct these errors. Also, many people who have been victims of the Exclusive Brethren’s disciplinary activities may find some of your statements offensive. I would like to help you to be accurate and thus be sensitive to these victims. I will comment on your writing by way of interjection, I trust that you find it useful.
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As an example of the Spin Doctor’s art, the following paper recently produced by Jackson Wells (the Exclusive Brethren Public Relations firm) is textbook quality. There are many other examples of ‘lipstick on the pig‘ publicly available, ranging from ‘Living Our Beliefs’ (purportedly) by Bruce D. Hales, to virtually every Planning Application that the Exclusive Brethren submit for their fortress-style Meeting Rooms and very private schools.
Jackson Wells seem proud of their unusual client – quite probably the only ‘christian church’ to have published a web site where the only means of contact is the telephone number of their expensive public relations firm! For those who were brought up in or know the truth regarding the Exclusive Brethren cult, ‘Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren‘ by Jackson Well’s Ben Haslem is easily recognized as an outrageous example of whitewash. However, the principle of spin-doctoring has a purpose – it is designed to seed the possibility of doubt.
Today we reproduce the Jackson Wells paper. Tomorrow, we publish a letter to Jackson Wells written by an ex-member of the cult – a letter that has remained understandably unanswered.
Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren
by Benjamin Haslem
Jackson Wells
April 2009
In early 2007, senior members of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship approached Jackson Wells seeking assistance dealing with a sudden and intense increase in media interest in their small Christian church.
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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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September 22nd, 2008
We have been sent a copy of the Jackson-Wells spin-doctors’ media release. It is a remarkable document that offers an in-depth and wide-ranging rebuttal. There is only one problem, they have yet to read Michael Bachelard’s new book – ‘Behind The Exclusive Brethren’.
Is it fair to suggest that by waiting 24 hours or so they might have gained a little more respect? What an extraordinary error!
We reproduce the media release in full:
—– Original Message —–
From: Ben Haslem (bhaslem@jacksonwells.com.au)
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 12:32 AM
Subject: Exclusive Brethren Media ReleasePlease find attached and following a media release from the Exclusive Brethren Church.
Media release – September 22, 2008
New book ‘a transcending work of fiction’: Brethren
A book about the Exclusive Brethren Church to be launched tomorrow is likely to be “a transcending work of fiction”, according to the Church.
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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’.”
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10 things Scientology and the Exclusive Brethren have in common
Scientology
The Exclusive Brethren
1 – They are both considered by many to be bona fide cults
2 – They both have had to have the word ‘church’ added to their official names
3 – Scientology borrows the Christian cross, the Exclusive Brethren have to insert the word ‘Christian’
4 – Both have extraordinarily wealthy leaders who are obsessed with security – David Miscavige (Scientology) and Bruce Hales (Exclusive Brethren).
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