It’s quite a remarkable science – the borrowing of Plymouth Brethren terminology, the deliberate omitting of the 6:00am Sunday meeting times, the playing down of the fortress-style of Exclusive Brethren Meeting Rooms.
Here is a currently fiercely-contested application extract from Liphook in UK.
Exclusive Brethren - Liphook - page 1
Some of the Liphook locals can be seen here debating the planning application:
http://www.liphook.co.uk/?section=interactive&page=talkback_thread_wide&id=2515
We wish them well!
It’s an unusual event for peebs.net to post an article that actually defends the Exclusive Brethren! Let’s get it over and done with, shall we?
Matthew Lindqvist (left) and Andrew Doven from the Exclusive Brethren stand opposite Wagga City Council and the corner they used for street preaching for years. Picture: Les Smith, Daily Advertiser
The Daily Advertiser today describes a battle in Wagga, Australia where the Exclusive Brethren are defending their right to free speech on the streets of their town.
In a nut-shell, Wagga City Council have implemented a ‘street activities policy’ that allows just one complaint to halt any street activity. In the case of the Exclusive Brethren, this affects their requirement for regular street preaching. Of course people are going to object to this and it most certainly would be wrong of any organization to attempt to muzzle another simply because they did not agree with their beliefs or what they said.
What Wagga City Council possibly doesn’t understand is that the Exclusive Brethren have to publicly be seen to preach even if this evangelical zeal doesn’t extend beyond the “bellowing“. Their Meeting Room is doubtlessly tax-exempt as a public place of worship and because they do not allow the public full access to their windowless, padlocked buildings, they have to ensure a little public presence somehow.
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Bible & Gospel Trust - April 2010
The latest insight into the Exclusive Brethren comes from a document submitted to the UK Charity Commissioner just a few weeks ago. The Bible & Gospel Trust’s Summary Information Return (2009) has some remarkable details and a rather embarrassing typo for a printing company.
To begin with, what is the Bible & Gospel Trust?
If the Exclusive Brethren had a soul, perhaps a debatable concept, then it would reside at Chelwood House, Cox Lane, Chessington, Surrey, UK. This is the address of the printing and printed material distribution center for the Exclusive Brethren. The primary function since its birth, in the years following the 1970 death of James Taylor Jr, is to publish the words spoken by its recognized leaders, sometimes with embarrassing accuracy.
Very similar to the Watchtower relationship with Jehovah Witnesses, the Bible & Gospel Trust has an assured market within the Exclusive Brethren cult. Exclusive Brethren must purchase ‘ministry’, hymn books and bibles from this single source. As an EB teenager begins to earn money, the local EB Assembly ‘BGT Agent’ will approach the young person and let them know that they are expected to purchase the collected writings of all EB leaders, right back to J. N Darby and the mid 1800′s. It’s quite an investment – and the purchase is mandatory.
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Despite continued attempts by the Exclusive Brethren to describe themselves as ‘evangelical christians’, they are finding that the truth behind their carefully obfuscated planning applications are increasingly being questioned.
Many see this as important progress in ensuring that the public become increasingly aware of the real nature of this modern day cult.
Christian hall plan for field turned down
Worcester News, UK
October 12th, 2009Plans to build a Christian gospel hall on a field at the city boundary have again been thrown out.
Worcester City Council planning committee were “minded to refuse” permission by a majority vote for the large hall which would be used by the evangelical Christian group the Brethren. Planning officers had recommended approval of the application on the 1.1 hectare site.
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Sometimes the Exclusive Brethren publicly demonstrate why they need a Public Relations firm. There can be no other ‘church’ that offers only one form of contact on their official website – a telephone number to their official Spin Doctors – Jackson Wells.
In UK today, the Wolverhampton-based Express And Star newspaper published a strange little side-show that involves the Exclusive Brethren. It is no secret that the Exclusive Brethren love their booze – but their involvement in the possible purchase of an English pub is unprecedented.
The regulars at the pub in Lynton Avenue, Stafford have realized that if the Exclusive Brethren succeed in purchasing their community meeting place, that community access to the building will change forever. The locals have formed the ‘Save The Lynton Tavern Association’ and are even supported by Father Broun from the local Roman Catholic church. This is obviously a serious matter if it concerns both Holy See’s. (‘Both?’ Ah yes, the Australian leader of the Exclusive Brethren uses the term in almost every sentence.)
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June 30th, 2009
Wagga City Council in Australia have granted planning permission for a new Exclusive Brethren Meeting Room but with some unprecedented conditions and stipulations.
There are components of humor in some of the terms, particularly to ex-members of the cult. For example, the Exclusive Brethren are only allowed to have 6:00 am Sunday communion services for a trial period and following the trial, the earliest allowed time of service will then be 8:00 am. The ridiculously early Sunday morning communion service was invented by the American James Taylor Junior, cult leader from 1960 until his death from alcohol-related illness in 1970. Needless to say, a 6:00 am Sunday meeting was unpopular to most. It will be most interesting to see if the Exclusive Brethren succeed in lifting the condition after 6 months.
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The Exclusive Brethren were formed when they broke away from the Plymouth Brethren in 1848 – not the other way round. It is estimated that there are approximately 1.5 million Plymouth Brethren meeting around the world today. They were once the main force behind missionary activity in many parts of the world. The Plymouth Brethren – often called Open Brethren to ensure their distinction from the notorious Exclusives – are easily distinguished by their friendly welcome, their evangelical bias, the windows in their Gospel Halls, the sound of a piano or organ accompanying their hymns and their sincere ‘All are welcome’ signs outside their indisputably tax-exempt premises.
There has been much confusion in various parts of the world between the Exclusive Brethren cult and the truly evangelical Plymouth Brethren. The Exclusives have encouraged this confusion, often calling themselves ‘Christian Brethren’ or the ‘Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship’ ! They also have started referring to their Meeting Rooms as ‘Prayer Halls’ and ’Gospel Halls’ – a blatant attempt to mislead the Planning Authorities into thinking that this is to be the prime purpose of the sought permissions. Indeed, there has been a trend in physically renaming the legal names of their Meeting Rooms to Gospel Halls – even though tradition and legal documentation has historically always referred to the premises as a ‘Meeting Room’.
Probably the best way to ensure who you are dealing with is to simply look at the Trust Deed for the Meeting Room in question.
All Exclusive Brethren Meeting Rooms are owned by a Trust.
All Exclusive Brethren Meeting Room Trusts follow an identical template.
It is therefore entirely possible to recognize an Exclusive Brethren Meeting Room by checking the clauses within the Trust document. You will discover they are unlike any ‘church’ or ‘Christian organization’ you have ever seen:
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July 4th, 2008
Bunker-Mentality
noun
an attitude or state of mind characterized by extreme suspiciousness and defensiveness and by a feeling of being under attack by a hostile opposition while being confined as if in a fortified bunker
The Exclusive Brethren in Preston, UK have withdrawn their plans to replace a former underground nuclear bunker with a Gospel Hall. It is unclear whether this is because of an inability to preach the Gospel or whether the Exclusive Brethren prefer to have their windowless walls above ground rather than beneath.
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A doctrinal analysis of Exclusive Brethren ‘Separation’
Criticizing the doctrinal origins of the Exclusive Brethren can be a dangerous ambition. The history and objectives of this strange seclusionist cult are intentionally steeped in the mists of tradition, conscience and the horror of even suggesting that any existing, or former, ‘Man of God’ (one of the internal titles given to Exclusive Brethren leaders) could possibly do something wrong! Today, the very concept of criticism is in the process of being carefully bred-out of the group. One of the irrefutable symptoms of being a cult is this intolerance toward internal questioning and criticism.
The following December 2009 blog entry presents in a refreshingly clear and concise manner exactly what is wrong with the Exclusive Brethren interpretation of what it is to be ‘separate from the world’. The author Milt Rodriguez (never an Exclusive Brethren member) also portrays a perfect summary of why Brethren divide so many times – how many ex-Exclusive Brethren have heard the dread words: ‘I can no longer walk in fellowship with you… I therefore withdraw from iniquity‘ …
The Dominion of Opinion that follows is recommended as one of the better doctrinal explanations of where the Exclusive Brethren went wrong with their malformed hypothesis of what ‘Separation from Evil’ really entails.
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