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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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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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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The Allbrook Education Trust (UK 1056053) is a Hampshire, UK Exclusive Brethren charitable trust, connected to the UK’s huge Exclusive Brethren Focus Learning Trust (UK 1099725). Allbrook has had a difficult couple of years in finding suitable alternative accomodation for its growing educational needs.
Since the cult realized that its only future asset was their children in the 1980′s, the Exclusive Brethren have been implementing a home-school operation which evolved into an impressive world-wide chain of EB-only schools and educational trusts.
There is a component of desperation involved in the EB educational structure. Their current worldwide leader, Australian Bruce Hales is quoted as admitting the Exclusive Brethren do not evangelize in order to recruit. As far as they are concerned, growth will come from within – and that means the children must be protected from The Enemy. By careful shifting of the limited genetic pool components, the EB have seemingly slowed a high tendency toward Downs Syndrome but still suffer from a very high incidence of Autism judging by their frequent Special Ed advertisements in various teaching journals.
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June 4th, 2009
In a hoped-for but unexpected reversal, the Exclusive Brethren have given up their fight to build a significantly large compound on the outskirts of Stow in rural England. Despite using their tactics of intentionally appearing to be part of the comparatively harmless ‘open’ Plymouth Brethren, over 400 members of the small Cotswold community objected fiercely to having the cult build one of their windowless fortresses in ground adjacent to a grocery supermarket.
The Exclusive Brethren have increasingly been trying to obfuscate their planning applications by referring to their Meeting Rooms as ‘gospel halls’ and even forming ‘gospel hall’ Trusts to add credence to their self-description of being an ‘evangelical christian’ movement. As the citizens of Stow came to realize, the planned development would not benefit anyone in the community due to the Exclusive Brethren doctrine of ‘Separation’ where anyone not a cult member is deemed ‘unclean’.
Their decision to withdraw a threatened appeal against the Stow Planning Committee’s refusal of their planning application is a welcome sign that municipalities are starting to understand the true nature of the group who have been accurately described as “an extremist cult and sect … who break up families“.
From the Tewkesbury Admag:
Brethren withdraw appeal against Stow gospel hall refusal
Tewksbury Admag, UK
Thursday 4th June 2009
by Simon Crump
A religious group has withdrawn its appeal against a refusal to approve its controversial proposal to build a gospel hall at Stow.
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The United Kingdom’s Church Times recently interviewed Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform. Reform is described by Rod as:
Rod Thomas is one of many who have tasted what it is like to live within the Exclusive Brethren:
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Leaving it opened up life in a way it hadn’t been opened before. I came out with the rest of my family, except my father. He was later excluded — probably for not being able to control his family. When you see these things happening, you know it has nothing to do with Christian love, nothing to do with standing firm in the faith.
The Peebs.Net Forums are full of stories that demonstrate the truth in Mr. Thomas’s remarks. Like many who have rediscovered that there can be enjoyment in their faith, Rod states:
I hope the first impression of my church is that it’s joyful and friendly. People say that. Emphasis on the Bible’s teaching is at the centre, and we’re in the process of change. We were a small church, now we’re a medium-sized church, and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to change and grow.
Many will recall the words that Kevin Rudd, now Prime Minister of Australia used to describe the Exclusive Brethren in late 2007:
“I believe that this [the Exclusive Brethren] is an extremist cult and sect,” he said. “I also believe that it breaks up families.”
Web: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/22/2012097.htm
Rod Thomas confirms this opinion during the interview:
Being in the Exclusive Brethren and seeing the destructive effect it has on families has given me a lifelong love of the tolerance you find in the Church of England. Leaving was an important choice. So was marriage, and finding a church which taught me the Bible. And, of course, becoming ordained.
Read the rest of the interview:
Church Times
Interview: Rod Thomas chairman of Reform
by Terence Handley MacMath
Web: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=68164&print=1
At least there is no doubt about which religious sect is involved in a UK story today in Yorkshire. For those who follow worldwide stories about the Exclusive Brethren, there are the usual key words and phrases which seem to be involved – ‘sketchy’, ‘controversial’, ‘avoid contact’, ‘forbidden’, ‘prohibited’ …
It would seem that there are still questions being asked in Cottingham and it seems that not all answers are forthcoming. We would encourage the angry people of East Riding to not stop asking questions and suggest that they are distinctly ‘on track’ and obviously have an excellent assessment of who they are dealing with!
And as any Yorkshire inhabitant will tell you, there’s something wrong with folk who can’t even share even an occasional friendly pint with you, especially as they are one of the largest off licence users in the area.
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Sect beats youth groups to site
Yorkshire Post
23 December 2008
By Alexandra Wood
Scouts and Guides have had hopes of acquiring a new home dashed after East Riding Council decided to sell a Cottingham school to a religious sect.
The youth groups had wanted to use the former Hallgate Junior School for their headquarters, after their base was demolished in 2007 by the council to make way for a new school.
The scouts and guides put in a £1 bid for the smaller building, while the Hallgate Old School Preservation Association (Hospa), put in a joint £1 bid to convert the site into a community centre.
But a closed meeting of East Riding Council’s Cabinet decided to sell the freehold instead to the North Moor Education Trust, an arm of the Exclusive Brethren, an Evangelical Protestant church, who avoid contact with non-community members or “worldlies”.
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Q: When is a public house no longer a public house? A: When the Exclusive Brethren own it.
Now watch for security fences, steel padlocked gates, CCTV and blocked-out windows.
Exactly what persuaded Staffordshire’s Development Control Committee to grant approval for the conversion of a local pub to a very non-public house last week remains unclear. It seems, in a highly controversial decision, that the Lynton Tavern, Bodmin Avenue, Stafford, UK has now passed into the hands of a local cell of the Exclusive Brethren.
The Development Control Committee members cannot complain that they have no idea whom they are dealing with! There has been excellently-organized community support in attempting to prevent this example of community self-mutilation. As always with the Exclusive Brethren, there are ‘wheels within wheels’ and only time will tell whether the town officials maintain their ‘ostrich-in-the-sand’ posture.