Here is a 2-part video of Nick Xenophon’s well-researched attack on Scientology in Australia this week.

Many will see startling similarities to the way the Exclusive Brethren cult exerts control over their members.

Part One (9 minutes 16 sec)

Part Two (8 minutes 20 sec)

Xenophon’s comments regarding tax-exemption strikes at the heart of both cults.

“Religious freedom does not mean you can hide abuse”

“…it is called the Law – and no-one is above it”

More information

November 21st, 2009

The impact of Australian senator Nick Xenophon’s comments in Canberra this week regarding the Scientology ‘church’ should not be under-estimated.

First there is the man. Nick Xenophon is an independant and carries no party allegience. His 400BC namesake was also a soldier as well as a respected historian. Nick has a background in law and is a resourceful and intelligent political warrior. Several are noting that the modern-day Xenophon seems to have a strategy in his carefully worded attack against the ‘religion’ of Scientology.

“There are a couple of things to know about Nick Xenophon. The first is that the independent senator from Adelaide has a genius for publicity. He’s a hustler par excellence. The second is he’s rationing his tabloid impulses in Canberra. Xenophon’s record to date suggests he’s opting for strategy rather than sensation; picking his political fights, not going at everything like a bull at a gate.”

Source – Dogged crusader

This is not a ‘flash in the pan’. Xenophon has been planning his attack for some time:

“The comments this week have been more than a year in gestation. He hooked into Scientology while doing a stint as a talk-back radio host in Adelaide before coming to Canberra. The trigger was a piece by Fairfax writer David Marr. The Marr piece prompted him to query whether the controversial organisation deserved its tax breaks.”

Source – Dogged crusader

David Marr, a highly respected Australian investigative journalist, is no stranger to looking at certain ‘religions’ with a calculator handy:

“You don’t know these three Sydney suburban businessmen, but their sect has influenced politics in four countries. David Marr reports.

With an iron hand, West Ryde businessman Bruce D. Hales rules his world church. To his 40,000 followers in the Exclusive Brethren, this prosperous supplier of office equipment in the Sydney suburbs is known as the Elect Vessel, the Lord’s Representative on Earth, the Great Man, the Paul of Our Day, Minister of the Lord in Recovery and Mr Bruce.
…
They cover their tracks. The name of the sect is never mentioned. Their political demands are a seamless mix of business breaks and hard-line Christian morality. Under Hales, the Exclusive Brethren have become a new player in the right-wing politics of the world. And they have lots and lots and lots of money.”

Source – Hidden Prophets

David Marr goes deeper …

“The sect is having legal problems on other fronts. In June, the High Court confirmed a ruling that the Brethren’s fortress-like meeting halls in Brisbane are not “places of public worship” and it must therefore pay rates. These halls stand on prime real estate all over Australia. The Brethren are up for millions.

But the sect is rich and there is lots of money to pour into the fight against same sex unions. A delegation of Brethren warned Brown this year that gay marriage is completely and utterly wrong, shocking and perverted: “The world is rushing on to destruction.”

Even the Victorian Liberal leader, Ted Baillieu, is talking civil unions now. But with an election only weeks away, the Brethren are organising. They’ve been to see the Victorian Nationals leader, Peter Ryan, to complain about Baillieu and check out his own position. He was able to reassure them completely. “I do not support the principle of gay unions in any sense of it equating to marriage.”

Meanwhile, inside the sect, opponents of this heretical excursion into politics are biding their time. They are terrified of making a move. All they have is at risk: their wives, children and businesses. They say it’s all but impossible to explain what life is like in there: “You cannot understand the horrific mistreatment of people.”

Source – Hell’s fury ranks behind outpouring

And has there been improvement in the last three years? Well, hardly surprisingly the Exclusive Brethren have dropped below their famous ‘radar’ in politics. Their rightly ridiculed political foray was the ‘brain-child’ of the ‘Elect Vessel’ Bruce D. Hales and had the end result of the Exclusive Brethren being seen as political pariahs, untouchable smear-tacticians and brought a focus of international media attention – the one thing that any cult fears the most!

Their ‘help’ resulted in Donald Brash in New Zealand resigning, and John Howard losing his seat, his Prime Ministership and his party’s election. With George Bush (also Exclusive Brethren supported) long gone, the quality of Bruce Hales’s political campaign leadership in the Exclusive Brethren must be considered an unmitigated disaster. If he was not the leader of a cult and holding the temporal and eternal futures of his members  in his hands, he would have been fired for pure incompetency!

Much of this era and the history of the cult has been captured brilliantly in Michael Bachelard’s Exclusive Brethren exposé: ‘Behind the Exclusive Brethren’. Of this October 2008 publication David Marr commented:

“Shocking and compelling. Michael Bachelard has written an eye-opening account of power and cruelty in a tiny Christian sect that enjoys a privileged existence in Australia.”

David Marr Comment – ‘Behind the Exclusive Brethren’

David Marr kept watching …

“A father’s price for quitting his marriage was to lose contact with eight children left behind in the Exclusive Brethren. David Marr caught up with sect defenders.

The Exclusive Brethren has enjoyed sweet victories in the Family Court before, but none sweeter than this. Despite all that is now known about the methods of the Brethren, the court has denied a father in Tasmania any access to his children for reasons that boil down, essentially, to this: he left the sect.”

Source – The Exclusion Brethren (July 2009)
Comment – THE ELUSIVE, EXCLUSIVE AND NOW – EXCLUSION BRETHREN

There have been a number of attempts to gain an official inquiry into the business workings of the Exclusive Brethren as well as an investigation into human rights abuses behind their security fences and locked doors.

Quite rightly people are asking questions about their tax-exempt status and the huge amounts of public money thrown into their ‘schools’.

Then there is the matter of a vast international network of charitable trusts linking every Exclusive Brethren Meeting Room, every Exclusive Brethren ‘school’, every Exclusive Brethren gathering, their ‘Watchtower-like’ Bible and Gospel Trust, ‘Poverty Funds’, Old People Homes, Land Developments, the National Office Assist network, the Wordex distribution, EB cell phones, digital cameras, travel organizations and medical insurance fund.

Tax-exempt money flows freely though the integrated charity network and when necessary couriers bring neatly packaged sums of cash (just under the $10k limit) across international borders.

Hopefully Nick Xenophon will get his wish – an investigation into the cult-like Scientology organization.

We then suggest that Nick Xenophon and fellow-senator Bob Brown spend a little time together. Bob has access to some really interesting information that some will consider demands an investigation into the cult known as the Exclusive Brethren.

“Australian Greens leader Bob Brown has called for an inquiry into the extent of the Exclusive Brethren’s influence in federal politics”

Source – Brown wants probe on Brethren influence (2009)

Go Nick!  And get back in there Bob!

It’s tough being a cult. People look at you differently.

The Age newspaper reports yet again of hard questions being asked in Australian Parliament. This time it’s about Scientology, science fiction writer Ron Hubbard’s 1950 invention. Although the Exclusive Brethren evolved rather than were created, many of the effects of cultic behavior are startlingly similar.

Former Scientologists allege abuse, intimidation

The Age, Australia
by Katharine Murphy And Misha Schubert
November 19, 2009

Former members of the Church of Scientology have made explosive allegations about forced abortions, child abuse and financial extortion, prompting calls for a parliamentary inquiry.

Letters tabled by independent senator Nick Xenophon reveal claims of vulnerable people preyed on by a coercive and ruthless organisation that punished and shamed dissenters by physical incarceration, withholding food or intimidation.

…

Under the protection of parliamentary privilege, Senator Xenophon declared the church a ”criminal organisation”.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said they were ”grave allegations” and left open the prospect of backing a Senate inquiry into the church and its tax breaks. ”Many people in Australia have real concerns about Scientology,” he said.

…

Asked if the church would co-operate with any inquiry, Mr Brooks said it had ”always been willing to co-operate with any authorities on any concerns”.

Greens Leader Bob Brown backed an inquiry, but wanted it extended to the Exclusive Brethren and other groups. The Opposition said it would consider the terms of any inquiry.

Source (incl. video): Former Scientologists allege abuse, intimidation

You don’t need to have even an iota of religion to understand at a very basic level the difference between right and wrong. It is this basic human ability that makes the average person on the street increasingly angry when they recognize blatant hypocrisy.

If you have the audacity to suggest that you are the perfect church, the only religion, or in one particularly obnoxious case – ‘The Bride of Christ’ – then you open the door to your behavior being scrutinized very carefully indeed.

What further upsets folk in the current economic times is if they sense their hard-earned dollars are being used to further a cult and cultic activities. If they then understand that their dollars are being used to indoctrinate the defenseless young to be unquestioning future cult members, it is possible that the public will not only object, they’ll react.

The Exclusive Brethren have ‘flown under the radar’ for a long time.

Their fortress-style churches are described as public places of worship and as such are free of taxation. The fact is that they are places of worship for members of the Exclusive Brethren – not the public. They are therefore private clubs. Every Exclusive Brethren meeting room should be taxed. Why should you pay for them?

The Exclusive Brethren schools rely heavily on subsidies from governments. Their schools are vital to the Exclusive Brethren. Without their own schools, their children would mix with your kids and would become ‘contaminated’ (read: might realize they’re being duped!). What do you think is healthier for them? A choice perhaps?

Exclusive Brethren currently are not allowed to go to university. This means they have to recruit their school teachers from ‘outside’. They have a very high turnover of teachers! The level of interference in tuition and the way the teachers are watched forces most to leave the restrictive environment.

Exclusive Brethren are not allowed to go to university for the same reason as they school their young. Today there is a movement toward some extra tertiary education via correspondence courses – in carefully selected subjects and areas. But there is a fear there. The fear is that their young adults will learn to think – and thinking has always been the enemy of a cult.

The Exclusive Brethren break up families. They will spend as much as they need on expensive lawyers to prevent the excommunicated parent (normally male) from seeing his children. Why? Contamination with the world is again the concern – their children are their only form of growth. Who in their right mind would join them?

Exclusive Brethren honor money above all other commodities. A successful business equates to power and position. Money is a sign of ‘God’s blessing’ and the Exclusive Brethren were one of the earliest adopters of Prosperity Gospel theology.

Discipline is harsh and unequivocal. The end result is always in no doubt, there is no middle ground. The cost is immense and the impact can be fatal. These are their internal walls and most of their 45k members worldwide accept that.

The Exclusive Brethren lie without batting an eyelid. To them, they are dealing with swine and telling an untruth to defend the honor of the Assembly is an honor and as natural as breathing. They even have a scripture for it – ‘Tell it not in Gath’ (2 Samuel 1:20). Why waste something as precious as a pearl of truth when dealing with pigs?

The Exclusive Brethren defend their battered image with a kind of desperate horror. They ‘know’ they are right and that the world is evil. There is no question because they cannot question. To question is to invite Doubt and to doubt is always disastrous.

They have a very expensive Public Relations firm on retainer. Frankly the strategic advice given today to the Exclusive Brethren seems to be ‘fly a little lower under the radar’.

Like the leaders of Scientology, the elite and very wealthy hierarchy of the Exclusive Brethren just want us all to go away and leave them alone. That would be their fervent wish.

The trouble is that they’re a cult – and it’s tough being a cult.

People look at you differently.