Talk:Exclusive Brethren

Archive 2
Ideally I would have archived all the previous talk when I split the page into the Exclusive Brethren and the Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren. But I didn't, sorry about that. As there haven't been any significant changes on this talk page for a few months, I hope you won't mind that I've finally gotten around to splitting it. If you felt there was a raging debate on-going; you are welcome to continue it here, or revert my changes.

Jarich (talk) 09:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Just a passing comment - this article is quite inaccessible to a non-specialist reader. It is filled with terms that are not defined or explained, including "communion", "lord's table" and so on. I suggest that it would benefit at the least from an introduction that explains what sort of religion this is a splinter of, when, how & why it splintered and so on. Liam Proven (talk) 13:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Dear Liam,You can go to any of the links of brethren mentioned on main page to understand this. I believe Wiki is not concerned with explaining the religeon. I would suggest "Plymouth Brethren Faqs" edited by Abigail Shwan. M Dairy (talk) 12:30, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Unexplained removal of Referenced text
A large amount of referenced text (≈38%) was removed from this article on 20-21 January 2010 by anon IPs, (173.87.21.21, 86.176.222.47, as their  only  Wikipedia edits). This included the entire " 'Cult' accusations" & "Political activities" sections. See Diff.

It appears this was done without any Edit Summary or Talk Page discussion to explain it's deletion. ie. was it moved to the Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren article? (it appears not, though here is same/similar material placed/moved there much earlier-February 2008)

I am therefore WP:BOLDLY reverting these edits. Any objections please discuss on the talk page. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 11:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Controversies section
It is ludicrous to have the controversies section at the beginning as this only has reference to a subset of E(xclusive)B(rethren)s. It should be moved to the end to allow a shape of the whole movement to be built up. That will allow the controversies thing to be seen more in context. I am afraid that there is little objective material and the quantative statements as to who have more or fewer adherents is rather weak. I think the figure for the Taylorites is about right as it there is photographic evidence of every family in every locality or group of meetings to back this up. Gregory Morris, Penymynydd, Flintshire (talk) 10:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

POV Material
There seems to be a lot of POV material on here that sounds informal PR information, perhaps from a website. For example:


 * "Whilst the Brethren's teaching has been attacked by a vocal minority, the overwhelming evidence is that the group represents one of the most successful Christian groups with statistically insignificant incidences of family breakdowns."

Perhaps this should be fixed. Jaysonwhelpley (talk) 03:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Mess
The article is a mess, and needs massive clean up. The Article should be "very brief" and should avoid great details.

Couldn't agree more. Details, especially ones lacking references, only serve to muddy the waters in this difficult and potentially divisive topic. Dwandelt (talk) 15:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC) D. Wandelt

Despite the lengthy nature of this article it lacks many of the basic layman facts about the subject. I myself worked for the Closed Bretheren in Australia as a school teacher. I found this article almost misleading by omission. I am considering contributing but stuggling with POV vs facts I can confirm from direct observation. rhizopus 28/05/12 M. Nielsen —Preceding undated comment added 01:01, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments. This article is microscopic. A simple definition and distinction from the Open Brethren is missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.250.197.66 (talk) 20:07, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality
How can we have a neutral article if exclusive Brethren don't let their members use the net? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.69.47.65 (talk)
 * Neutrality is gained by "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." (See WP:NPOV). Neutrality does not depend on members of the religion editing, or contributing to, the article. Please note that new comments go at the bottom of th page, not the top. BlackCab (talk) 01:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I am adding material from a French language research publication which should help NPOV. Feel free to provide a more accurate translation.Veritan (talk) 14:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

This article is under serious review at Wikipeebia, hope to have a full definition done soon. Please watch this space. Most of the revieed article will be written by leavers of the EB cult from 1950 to date. This will be the most unbiased review written on the EB to date. (WikiPeebia (talk) 15:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC))
 * Neutrality doesn't mean balancing "pro" and "anti" contributions. For WP it means getting reliable sources for what is written and should not include personal experiences (see WP:SOURCE). For much of exclusive brethren history these are not hard to come by: Neatby, Noel, Ironside etc. The problem with more recent happenings is that it's mostly newspaper sources and these are rarely objective, thorough or reliable. Even the attempt by Wilson at a more objective appraisal has its limits. One should remember that the Raven/Taylor/Hales faction only accounts for about half the exclusive brethren: there is a large group in Germany which seems to be almost as big but it's hard to get a lot of information about them (www.bruederbewegung.de is a good source). I'll be interested to see what wikipeebia.com produces, but peebs.net already has a lot of useful material (though it's down for maintenance at this moment). Chris55 (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to insure neutrality. The gradual Wikipedia process of accretion of detail should right this article if its "lists" are, as it seems to this eye, merely the result of a necessarily limited perspective. Employing "leavers" to document the shifting philosophies of splinter groups can serve only an ancillary historical purpose. One might wish that Chris55 would perform a modest edit here, along the lines of his comment above. Klasovsky (talk) 20:28, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well I have in the meanwhile obtained a copy of Bachelard's book, which significantly modifies my complaint above about reporting, and made a number of changes to this and the Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren page, including changing it to its current title. I'm sure many people will continue with the old title but I hope both reflect a more informed view of the subject. Is it time to remove the POV tag? Chris55 (talk) 14:53, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Complaints dismissed
The references to Wilton Park School should be deleted from this article. Government agencies found that anonymous allegations made against the school were baseless and dismissed all complaints. See www.thirdsector.co.uk/Governance/article/1175581/county-council-police-dismiss-complaints-against-brethren-school/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaffer58 (talk • contribs) 13:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Dismissed does not mean it never happened. I've restored it and will add that it was dismissed.-- Auric    talk  15:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Good Edits
The several small edits by 124.191.28.12 seem particularly good. MaynardClark (talk) 23:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Reorganized - part one
I have substantially reorganized the Plymouth Brethren, Exclusive Brethren, and Open Brethren articles. A great deal of information in the Plymouth Brethren article that pertains to only one of the two major streams of Brethrenism has been moved to the relevant articles and merged with existing information. Undoubtedly, all three are still messy, and require cleanup. It's now 2.30 AM where I am, so I'm going to bed, but will get around to it within the next 24 hours. Please bear with me, everybody! David Cannon (talk) 14:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Reorganization — progress report
I have substantially rearranged the Plymouth Brethren, Open Brethren, and Exclusive Brethren articles. The first two have been significantly cleaned up, though there are still areas that need improvement (especially with citations — please be patient with me on this). The Exclusive Brethren article still needs to be cleaned up, and part of it needs to be spun off into the separate Plymouth Brethren Christian Church article.

The list of prominent "Open" Brethren needs to be edited; many need to be moved to the Exclusive list. I will get around to this in a few days — it will take a little while to determine just what list each individual belongs in. David Cannon (talk) 11:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Renton subset
I feel that this article is correct and very in depth, I only feel some lacking in the mention of the Renton subset of the EB. I understand this may be due to lack of understanding of the group due to their secretive nature. Being an Ex Member of this group who is now an aethiest with a thirst for knowledge I feel that I could contribute to some understanding of this group. They have never treated me with human respect and this was a large contributor to me being withdrawn from. The belief that a demon had possessed my person by the brethren caused them to fear me before my exclusion, i would love to communicate more on this matter. I will Fill more information as I find possible

Anonymous Ex Member. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.254.102.130 (talk) 16:05, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Removal of uncited remarks
After reverting a recent edit, I noticed that there was some editorialising and uncited references to scandalous behaviour. I removed these. Please let me know if you wish to revert these and if you have citations. Thanks

AussieWikiDan (talk) 06:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Closed vs. exclusive Brethren
In this article, the "closed brethren" and the "exclusive brethren" are treated together and sometimes mixed up. It might make more sense to have one article about the "Closed Brethren" and one about the "Plymouth Brethren Christian Church".

From my own experience, I think the differences between the "Closed Brethren" and the "Exclusive Brethren" are greater than the differences between the "Closed Brethren" and the "Open Brethren". 79.140.182.57 (talk) 13:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)