Falling into journalism was an astonishing stroke of luck. The Exclusive Brethren are a religious group who forbids their members from voting but are taking out ads in the Tasmanian newspapers telling non believers how to vote. I saw a GP for a second opinion; a white-haired doctor who brusquely imparted there was nothing wrong with me, and "your emotions are a completely normal response to an extreme situation". The following are some of the institutions that are widely supported by Brethren assemblies in New Zealand. In addition to the kickbacks, Brethren-owned businesses also move a percentage of their profits into trusts or directly to the National Assistance Fund. He settled in Motueka which is still the religion's New Zealand stronghold. Later, while working as a senior reporter for Stuff, I explored issues such as prisoner mistreatment, cannabis reform, and just where all the forks were going from our newsroom kitchen. Many Exclusive Brethren work in Brethren-owned companies, so they have to give up their jobs as well as their family and their home if they leave the faith. An evangelical church based in Christchurch is the latest to be accused of exploiting members for long voluntary hours and huge donations, despite the church owning assets worth millions of dollars. "They tend to spend their lives trying to get around rules while trying to keep their noses clean." The Exclusive Brethren are an evangelical protestant Christian church related to the Christian or Open Brethren, according to the BBC website on world religion and ethics. Wikipeebia [Contra] An extensive website, with personal testimonies, historical documents, discussion forums, and more. A flowchart illustrates how the Exclusive Brethren - or Plymouth Brethren Christian Church - money-go-round works. Attitudes since have become much more diverse, however. The leaders get the children drinking it. There has been much speculation as to why the website disappeared. I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. They only say, cryptically: "We've nothing to hide and nothing to parade." I squirmed with embarrassment watching his fresh inexperience, realising how I myself must have seemed equally wet behind the ears. Business owners are sent annual questionnaires about their turnover, gross profit and net profit and NAF representatives then suggest how much they should donate from their business. But Exclusive Brethren are a cult. Pastorlink was established by and for Brethren pastors. Simmons has not gone quietly and is paying the price. Jeff Wearmouth, whose son James was killed in the June 2016 crash which Stewart was convicted for,said he was surprised to hear Stewart had been 'shut up'. One of them lifted his bare feet onto the lap of the other and leaned back in his chair. Bulk purchasing power is smart business - but according to former members, Brethren were not really "free to choose". Sarah Hall was a veteran TV3 journalist, although to me, fresh out of the Exclusive Brethren in November 2009, that meant nothing. Families were ripped down the middle. The doctrine of separation from iniquity or separation from sin, makes the Exclusive Brethren unique. It was exhausting, especially for families with young children, but we heard repeatedly how we were the "chosen ones", members of a spiritual elite carving out a place for God on Earth, destined for special reward when we got to heaven. According to the Evangelical publication, Operation World, there are 202 Brethren congregations in New Zealand[2] with 16,164 in regular attendance (including children). This week, former teachers at Brethren-run schools claimed the schools heavily censored reading material, ripping out chapters on reproduction from science texts, and dictated every aspect of the children's lives. Perhaps the best-known Faced with being separated once more, we broke down and cried on each other's shoulders, and I realised how much I still loved my brother. I don't know, we have enough friends of our own." You can't ever really escape a Brethren upbringing. I watched TV news in wonder, and laughed as a current affairs reporter challenged a scam artist he claimed to be calling from England, but was unable to name any of the Queen's four children. Photo: Supplied. They were a picture of languid happiness, sitting there in the sun. Rob McLean questions the Exclusive Brethren beliefs and practices that led to his ejection from the group. This is ironic, because among the activities forbidden for members of the movement are such things as watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers and using computers and the internet. Says one, his smile like a plea: "We don't want to get into a media conflict. Instead I felt condemned to struggle against the essence of who I was. Remembers Adrian: "Once you were out, you started to question it." Please keep out of jail," Hales told followers. These days I'm back at TV3, working as a producer on The AM Show. "We made it our own fun." Hot, silent tears come from nowhere grief, yes, but hard to pinpoint. Once more I find myself a free agent a chrysalis emerging for another cycle of reinvention. The leader of the Exclusive Brethren church, Bruce Hales. The leader is regarded as a person of inherent moral power, following in the tradition of the leaders of the past and upholding their teaching in such a way as to lift the membership out of the world of wickedness. It's the same in 40 towns around the country, from Gisborne to Cust. The main gospel hall in Dargaville resembles a converted factory, with narrow frosted windows on one side only. Visits to New Zealand by British Brethren preachers Campbell McAlpine and Arthur Wallis in the late 1950s and early 1960s caused a great deal of controversy. However, staying out of UBT made it easier for him to eventually leave the church, he agreed. The leader of the church has absolute power to appoint the priests, resolve breaches of the rules, approve marriages and decide on punishments. This Sydney-based "global consultancy group" claims to provide "services and advice" to about 3000 Brethren-owned businesses in 19 countries, with a combined revenue of more than $12.6 billion NZD. * Around 800 mainly small private businesses (The terms "conservative" and "progressive" are often informally used to describe the emphasis, or lack of emphasis, that Brethren assemblies and individuals put on matters of doctrine, worship, and church order which distinguish them from other Evangelical Christians). Confessions were a regular part of his teenage years. See also the articles in our news tracker. Once David Tchappat had a taste of the real world as a teenager, there was no going back despite the fact he knew he would be cruelly ostracised from his family, friends and the only life he had known. Sadie Stewart, 16, James Wearmouth, 18, and Susanna Stewart, 48, died when the ute driven by Russell Stewart crashed into a tree. The Charismatic movement has been very controversial in Brethren circles. This cult-like control is unbiblical, and is one of the reasons why the movement has attracted negative publicity. I feel sorry for my kids and my parents. It was a catastrophic reordering of life, and other experiences don't come close. (The terms "conservative" and "progressive" are often informally used to describe the emphasis, or lack of emphasis, that Brethren assemblies and individuals put on matters of doctrine, worship, and church order which distinguish them from other Evangelical Christians). She would often sing us to sleep, and one of the songs she strummed was Hank Thompson's 1956 country ballad The Blackboard of My Heart. Although he did not commit himself exclusively to the Brethren movement, his former steward, James Chrystall helped organize his converts into Brethren assemblies, which expanded from the Whanganui/Manawatu area.[12]. Broadcast Mar. 30, 2006. It's led to some amazing experiences, and a few hair-raising ones to boot. It is worth noting that although many "Community Churches" and "Bible Churches" in New Zealand are part of the Open Brethren movement, others such as Mairangi Bay Community Church are not. Our social lives were bound up with other sect members and, by the time I reached my teens, my peers and I were well and truly enmeshed. My family ties stretched back nearly 200 years to when the Plymouth Brethren sect was founded in Dublin in the 1820s. I've been chased, tear-gassed, and had a few close calls with petrol bombs. "Going out with people you've never met before - a whole different culture." The local rainbow support group occasionally published contact details in the classified section of the newspaper, and for months I scanned The Southland Times waiting for the next listing. Over the following year, back in Invercargill, I gradually withdrew from Brethren life. They recommended that I become a journalist, and took me in to TV3 to meet their executive producer. This is a list of individuals who were part of the Open Brethren movement in New Zealand for at least a part of their lives. Most work in Exclusive Brethren businesses, so leaving means losing their job. In Dargaville, the businessmen give the impression they're in the dark about the masterplan. But there were no "worldly" friends over to play, no going to the worldly kids' parties, no overnight school camps, no inter-school sports. I think there's a little bit of scaremongering going on. "I got on very well with my father, and I was never there in the years you want to be there, when they get old and you want to do their lawns." As well as forcing Brethren businesses to purchase locked-down computers, phones and IT services, UBT also charged "consultancy fees", which could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even started taking controlling stakes in profitable companies through a venture called Vision Accelerator. They told me I was mentally unwell. The couple maintain a faith in God but don't go to any church. Assemblies affirming a continualist position (that all gifts of the Holy Spirit are operating today) include Street City Church in Wellington,[18] Life Church, Manurewa in Auckland,[19] Tasman Church and Hope Community Church in Nelson. The Exclusive Brethren churches have a rigid code of behavior and rules governing anything from contact with outsiders to the length of ones hair or the approved colors of the scarves worn by female members. Last July, lawyers and private investigators arrived at his Mngere Bridge home before dawn to carry out a private search warrant of the house and all devices. The girls were fiercely competitive about their scarves. Like Cambridge couple Diana and Adrian* who left the Exclusive Brethren 16 years ago after realising they couldn't live a lie. For members of the Exclusive Brethren, a strict religious sect, constraints such as these are normal. Going to the movies meant planning an elaborate cover story, taking a circuitous route to avoid being followed, checking for sect members, and pulling a hood over my face before making the quick dash across Invercargill's Dee St and into Reading Cinemas. "You'd get a new dress and you'd have to get the perfect scarf to match it, and the right shape. NZ POLICE Russell Stewart,. You'll find most of them are really happy in their role." Bruce Hales' father John, and his brother ran a "commercial system" between 1960 and 1965, which gave them control of Brethren businesses. Families do not have televisions, radios or computers, or go to the cinema or theatre. Says Diana: "To this day my parents are heartbroken, because they can't have anything to do with us. (I was lucky to have the first eight years of my education in the public system, which gave me limited exposure to non-Brethren kids, but these days sect children are educated entirely within the Brethren system.) Denied tertiary education and IT-illiterate, they're ill-equipped for many jobs in the outside world. Senior executives from a range of leading brands, including Air New Zealand, Office Max and Freightways, make cameo appearances thanking the flock for their business and offering details on new deals. The early Brethren believed that, by separating from what they regarded as the unwarranted and unlegitimated system that was represented by the organization of churches, they possessed an adequate basis for the unity of all properly motivated Christians. I followed anarchists for a documentary in Greece, and spent much of the past 18 months living in Hong Kong, where I reported from the frontlines of violent protests. It was a decision that changed my life. The ex-churchmember said members of the Exclusive Brethren, also known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, who found themselves in jail needed support more than ever. They are not allowed to form friendships with people outside the church, who are known as 'worldlies'. Sarah and I got caught up in a media scrum with the Kardashian family while filming an unrelated story in Yerevan, and joked to local Armenian reporters that we'd come all the way from New Zealand to see Kim and Kanye. He wrote a prescription for Cyprostat, a hormonal suppressant usually reserved for sex offenders and prostate cancer patients. The secretive Exclusive Brethren is a sect run more like a corporation than a religious group, according to its critics. Thompson laments a love betrayed: At the end of the song, Mum stopped to answer my questions about blackboards. Now in their early 40s with four children and a playground business, the couple had been married four years and already had two children when they left. Private individuals or businesses are free to spend their money how they like - but Dr Gousmett argues trading by charities should be taxed. I knew I was different and chafed against the rules, asking questions and talking back. Now 30, the journalist reflects on a decade of laughter and heartache. Every Monday, employees at Brethren companies nationwide religiously watch the latest Silver Bulletin, a short online video interspersing business advice with the latest exclusive offers to members. However, many leading New Zealand companies are lining up to join the list of preferred suppliers to what former members describe as a captive market. And representations of Brethren women as oppressed are "rubbish. Women must wear their hair long and down, and headscarves in public. In December 2007, not long after my ultimate confession, I was ushered to a consultation with Hales when he visited Invercargill for special church meetings. 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[11], Meanwhile, Gordon Forlong, a Scottish lawyer turned evangelist who had played a prominent role in the Second Great Awakening in Scotland around 1859-1860 and had subsequently moved to England and founded a large congregation, Talbot Tabernacle, in Notting Hill, London, emigrated to New Zealand in 1876, where he spent the final thirty-two years of his life. Dad held her arms behind her back as she sobbed, struggling to break free for a hug. I knew there was no future for me in the sect. "We don't want anybody to get into jail. Then they can claim that as a deduction in their accounts and reduce their tax liability at the end of the day. []. "Gospel Chapels" tend to be conservative; "Gospel Halls" even more so. ", He added: "They are an extremist group that will exaggerate or ignore one verse from the bible for theirown gain. Photos come down from the wall and you disappear from Brethren lists, never to be spoken of again, except in hushed tones as a warning to others. 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