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.

And their right to free speech? Absolutely! We perhaps should choose to ignore that they have just spent untold dollars in a four year lawsuit aimed at closing down this website because they didn’t agree with what was being said!

Good old Voltaire may have put it like this:

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire

The Exclusive Brethren are hardly so generous, but we are happy to stand alongside them in defence of Free Speech.

Perhaps Wagga City Council could rightly remove the tax-exempt status from the very private Exclusive Brethren meeting room and place the tax-payer dollars so saved in the public noise-abatement fund? Earplugs are not that expensive.

The Exclusive Brethren prefer to attempt to silence criticism. Convinced as they are that they represent the only true church in Christendom, they do not believe in ‘turning the other cheek’ or even in attempting to enter into any form of meaningful public discussion as to their beliefs and practices.

The Exclusive Brethren do not attempt to recruit from the ‘outside world’ and prefer to cut themselves off from society quoting a doctrine of ‘Separation from Evil’ as their basis for doing so. The impact of this man-made edict is the vicious and enforced separation of family members should one or more suffer ‘Assembly Discipline’. The offenders are literally ‘cut off’.

The Peebs.Net website is not the first to have attempted to tell the truth regarding the Exclusive Brethren. In the late 1990′s a man called Richard Wyman operated a trail-blazing website that the Exclusive Brethren targeted for closure. A 2003 lawsuit was eventually settled out of court when Wyman realized the financial pressure that the Exclusive Brethren could use as leverage was vastly greater than his own resources. The Exclusive Brethren then took control of the Wyman website and it immediately ceased to exist as a way for family members to attempt to maintain contact.

Peebs.Net commenced operations within weeks of the closure of Richard Wymans site in early 2004. Since that time, the owners and operators have struggled to rebuild content and to recreate an infrastructure that enables thousands of affected people to renew old friendships, find lost family members and generally to stay in touch with events both within and surrounding a group of whom the Australian Prime Minister recently stated: “I believe this is an extremist cult and sect.” Kevin Rudd then stated “I also believe that it breaks up families”. (See http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22288747-11949,00.html and many other related news items in the Peebs.Net News Archives – http://peebs.net/ExclusiveBrethrenNews/NewsArchives.html)

There have been two SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) lawsuits aimed at the website owners since the site was formed. A more recent 2007 lawsuit brought by the Exclusive Brethren’s Bible & Gospel Trust achieved its primary objective in forcing the owners to disclose their identity (See Press Release on site home page – http://peebs.net). You can download Background information regarding the law suit here: http://peebs.net/ExclusiveBrethrenNews/Press/Backgrounder-20080220.pdf

The Harvard University / Oxford University affiliated Citizen Media Law Project has labeled the Exclusive Brethren’s attack against Peebs.Net as a Threat and is following the case in detail – see Bible & Gospel Trust . Twinam

The Peebs.Net Community has rallied magnificently since and have managed to support and fund a strong defence to the Exclusive Brethren lawsuit. The daily work of the website continues and the number of people involved with the community continues to grow.

We are asking for financial donations from anyone interested in supporting our right to free speech and our right to gather together and support each other. The level of psychological damage among those who have fallen foul of the Exclusive Brethren is almost overwhelming. As the world media, governments and other authorities continue to press for a deeper investigation of the Exclusive Brethren, we need to ensure that we are able to meet our current legal fees and keep this site operational.

All donations go directly to our lawyers and in the event of costs being found in our favor, all donations will be returned, so please make sure your contact information is accurate.

If you can help, please use the Donation button below to donate via PayPal.

If you prefer to deal direct with us, please write to info@peebs.net with the Subject – Peebs.Net Legal Fund Donation.

Further information about the Exclusive Brethren can now be gleaned from many places outside of this site – a Google Search today produces hundreds of thousands of hits, whereas five years ago this was barely in the hundreds. Peebs.Net view this as proof of both the success of their campaigns and a growing public awareness.

A well-researched book published in late 2008 “Behind the Exclusive Brethren” by Michael Bachelard gives an excellent overview of the cult and its activities. Michael devotes the final chapter of his ground-breaking book to the struggles of Richard Wyman and Tim and Sallie Twinam to tell the truth about the cult.

Should you have any questions, you are able to anonymously post questions onto the public forums on Peebs.Net. Our members are always pleased to give you straight answers as to the impact the Exclusive Brethren have had in their lives.

The reason you cannot see names of the site forum members is simply because the Exclusive Brethren watch this site and harass and threaten anyone they consider vulnerable.

Yeah – they’re that ‘christian’!

Recently, Tim and Sallie were discovered by the Vermont USA press, where the concept of a middle-aged couple fighting a wealthy and vindictive international cult from a log home in the Vermont woods captured the imagination of the rural population.

Burlington Free Press (April 2009) – Secretive worldwide sect battles Vermonter in court

Seven Days, Burlington Vermont (November 2009) – Might vs. Site

A blog hosted by 7 Days is attracting considerable attention by the ex-Exclusive Brethren Community and others. From Log Cabin in Vermont, Couple Fights Reclusive Religious Sect stands as a living indictment against the impact of man-made legalism and heartlessness.

The fight has so far cost Tim and Sallie Twinam their family home, their savings and countless hours at their computers. However with the formidable backing of their supporters and encouraged by growing public opinion, they continue to fight back.

The cause will happily accept your money of course, but will settle for just your good wishes and prayers!

Warmly,

Tim and Sallie Twinam

Vermont, USA

Examples of media attention focused on the Exclusive Brethren are very hard to find in the United States. The ability of the group that Kevin Rudd, now the Australian Prime Minister, described as “an extremist cult and sect” to “fly under the radar” is well-known.  Peebs.Net, has attempted to ‘pull back the covers’ since the site started in May 2004.  As you might imagine, this process has not been encouraged!

Unlike the USA, most citizens of Australia and New Zealand know of the Exclusive Brethren and of their track record in recent years. Perhaps the closest the US press came to looking at this “dangerous group” in any detail was following the secretive activities surrounding the ‘Thanksgiving 2004 Committee’, a political 527 group that funded pro- G.W. Bush advertisements in various US papers during the last president’s second run for office in 2004.

Today in Burlington, Vermont a news article appears that shows signs that this lack of exposure might change.  The Burlington Free Press describes what it calls a ‘Contentious Lawsuit’ that has been raging in the New England state since early 2007. 

As far as Peebs.Net is concerned, it is vital to maintain Truth and therefore,  it is interesting to note how quickly the Exclusive Brethren resort to the smear tactics that has brought them increasing negative press exposure in Australia and New Zealand.

It is estimated that there are now over 46,000 Exclusive Brethren members worldwide, with as many as 10,000 located in USA.  The closest North American Exclusive Brethren gatherings to Vermont are Boston, MA and Montreal, Quebec.

Secretive worldwide sect battles Vermonter in court

The Burlington Free Press, USA

By Sam Hemingway 

Free Press Staff Writer 

April 5, 2009

Timothy Twinam of Williston says he just wants to tell the truth about what’s really going on inside the Exclusive Brethren, a well-heeled, reclusive evangelical Christian group with 43,000 members around the world.

“This is a very closed group,” said Twinam, 54, a native of Great Britain. “They don’t circulate much with people, and over the years they’ve become ever more exclusive and cultish.”

The Exclusive Brethren says Twinam is a malcontent, a former church member who stole confidential documents to display them on www.Peebs.net, a Web site Twinam admits he created to encourage people to abandon the organization.

“The guy is a master of misdirection,” said Matthew Kirtland, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for the Bible & Gospel Trust, a charity run by the Exclusive Brethren. “As a lawyer, he’s tough to stomach. He has engaged in such bad conduct it’s distasteful.”

The deepening feud, involving constitutional free speech and copyright issues, is the basis of an unusual lawsuit in federal court and was the subject of a hearing Friday before Judge J. Garvan Murtha in Brattleboro.

The litigation also marks the first time a court will be employing Vermont’s SLAPP law, passed in 2006 and designed to prevent an entity from using the threat of a lawsuit to silence its critics. SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

The Exclusive Brethren wants Murtha to make Twinam stop publishing the group’s copyrighted material and pay damages for the trouble he’s caused, according to papers filed with the court.

“He has admitted that from the inception of this litigation, he made misrepresentations to the court (or ‘ruses’ as he said during his deposition) as part of a tactic to try to get rid of the lawsuit,” the Exclusive Brethren’s charity claims in court papers.

Twinam contends he has done nothing wrong. He said the Exclusive Brethren is trying to muzzle criticism of its practices. He said the “proprietary materials” at issue, including a poem written by his father, were documents he obtained from public sources.

“Given the importance of secrecy to the Exclusive Brethren and their willingness to litigate to further that interest, I take great care to operate Peebs.net in accordance with the law,” Twinam said in an affidavit on file at the court. 

Mystery of ‘Brethren’

By all accounts, the Exclusive Brethren is a very closed society.

The group, which broke away from the evangelical Plymouth Brethren of Great Britain in 1848, requires its members to live, work and socialize separately from nonmembers.

Efforts to interview a representative of the Exclusive Brethren last week were unsuccessful but, according to the group’s official Web site, it has members in many English-speaking countries, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.

Under the group’s teachings, members are not allowed to marry people from outside the group. Only men can work outside the home and only in businesses controlled by the Exclusive Brethren. Women, once married, are responsible for birthing and raising children.

The Exclusive Brethren also prohibit members from having televisions, radios or access to the Internet in their homes or watch any movies. The group runs its own education system and teaches youths that homosexuality is wrong.

Members can only eat meals with other members, cannot go to restaurants — except in emergencies — and must stay with other members’ families when they are traveling away from home, according to the Web site.

Twinam said the group’s rules also include isolating those who have fallen out of favor with the Exclusive Brethren and banning them from having further contact with members in good standing, even their spouses and children.

That’s what happened when Twinam’s father raised questions about the leadership of the group in 1970 and found himself “withdrawn from” the Exclusive Brethren shortly afterward.

“My dad is one of the most Christian people I’ve ever known,” Twinam said. “They insisted he had insulted a man of God.”

Twinam, 16 at the time and living in Great Britain, said he left the group when his father did and drifted about the world for years afterward, becoming what he described as a “floppy Christian.”

“I didn’t want to belong to anything,” he said.

He steered clear of the Exclusive Brethren until the late 1990s when he began following a Web site run by a critic of the group. When the Exclusive Brethren succeeded in getting that Web site shut down, Twinam decided to create another one to take its place.

“I just felt if I don’t do this, it’s not going to happen,” he said. 

Contentious case

Kirtland, the lawyer representing the Exclusive Brethren’s charity in the lawsuit, said his client is only concerned about protecting its copyrighted and proprietary materials. He said the insertion of SLAPP in the case is a diversionary move by Twinam’s lawyers.

“His whole story is a complete shell game,” Kirtland said. “It’s all based on mischief and lies.” He said the materials that Twinam had allegedly taken from the group amounted to speeches and essays authored by Exclusive Brethren leaders.

Ron Shems of Burlington, Twinam’s lawyer, said the case is important particularly because it will test the effectiveness of SLAPP law. The state Attorney General’s Office has filed a brief in support of the law’s application in the case.

“They’re using a big international law firm to try to shut down someone who dares to speak out against them,” Shems said, referring to the Exclusive Brethren. “And this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to shut down a Web site like this.”

Kirtland is a partner in the law firm of Fullbright & Jaworski, which has offices in China, Europe, the Middle East and Washington, D.C. The late Leon Jaworski, a founding member of the firm, was a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.

Kirtland said the Exclusive Brethren should not be blamed for aggressively defending their copyrighted materials.

“The Brethren would just like to protect their legal rights,” Kirtland said. “In the absence of doing that, there would be willy-nilly violations of copyright laws.”

Source – Burlington Free Press – Secretive worldwide sect battles Vermonter in court