Talk:Exclusive Brethren/Archive 2

Today Tonight
It might be worth addressing the interest EB have got from tabloid television such as Today Tonight on Channel 7 in Australia and coverage by fellow tabloid journalists, The Daily (Terrograph) Telegraph. And also their ignorance to Assemblies of God and other cults whom they have alliances with through corporate marketting (ie: Gloria Jeans coffee advertise heavily on channel seven, who are a fiscal wing of Hillsong Ministries, which are a division of Assemblies of God, who also stack liberal branches which EB are being also accused of) where as they prefer to throw the words 'cult' around with Exclusive Brethren, which for all intents and purposes to a layman such as myself appear somewhat identical to quakers or amish in their rejection of technology and nothing more, especially nothing sinister. 211.30.71.59 07:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The Amish are withdrawn, and do not in any way attempt to "push" there views onto others, they also do not regard "non-amish" as "people of the devil". I'm not aware of high suicide rates in the Amish, nor many cases of child molestation.

This is what makes the peebs different, they are VERY political and practice hatred for our modern society.

All the do-gooders - drop it, and leave it to the people who know about this subject.


 * One of the definitions of a cult includes the idea of a central authority being infallible. The Amish do not have this belief.  The Exclusive PBs definitely do. Whiskeyricard 19:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have never posted on wikipedia before, but this topic changed that. As one raised in the Tunbridge-Wells division of the EBs, I actually know what I am talking about. The EBs are in general apolitical and don't vote. It would contradict their core view of seperation of the world. The don't believe a world government will ever solve the immorality and evil they seek to avoid. I did not observe high-suicide rates. People such as myself can "fall away" or leave at the age of 17 years on good terms. This may not be true of the Raven-Taylorite division, however, given that division's reluctance to use engage in modern technology, who is going to defend thier viewpoint???? The EBs are a Christian morality-obsessed fundamentalist group and I suspect that is the main reason the secular amoral media loves to attack them.Georgeslivers (talk) 01:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Incest
Do we dare touch on this subject? I'm sorry people, but yes it's true - it's clear as day too!

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.213.25 (talk) 10:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC).


 * Unless incest is part of the faith (and you can provide supporting evidence such as EB Cannon Law) I don't think it belongs in the article. Sexual assault of all kinds tends to happen in any large population, particularly closed populations like the EB.  I am certain that the EBs would view it as a grave sin, even if in some cases important EB people have helped cover it up.  Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for original research, so if you can't find newspaper articles, journal references or other good sources which demonstrate that the EBs support incest as "clear as day" then we can't include it.  Jarich 23:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "Unification" between cousins is allowed, though in more recent years the EB have moved away from this. The high level of bith retardation, as a consequence of this was the reason.


 * As for "clear as day", we may as well delete this page!


 * Unsigned by 149.135.103.46 (talk)


 * This may depend on the country. In Australia (where Bruce Hales lives) a person may marry their aunt or uncle, niece or nephew, "first" cousin. See the Australian Atorney-General's Department's page on marriage laws.  So if your charge of incest is regarding marriages between first cousins - which is an acceptable practice in the whole country (even if almost nobody does it) - then the use of the word "incest" may be considered POV, and the rest of the matter otherwise unremarkable.  Are you alleging that the EB encourages marriages, or even sex, between parents and children or between brothers and sisters - which is the definition of incest in Australia?  If not then I'm not sure it's worth mentioning, if so then you need proof.


 * Much of this page has references to biased sources, typically newspaper articles. Biased though they are, they are sources.  If you have sources mentioning that the EB encourages its members to break the incest laws in a given country then please feel free to mention them in this article.


 * Jarich 02:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Incest or marriage between 1st and 2nd degree relatives is strictly taboo, at least among the non-Taylorite exclusive brethren. There is probably a higher degree of 2nd and 3rd cousin marriages than the general population because of they are a small sect in which members can only marry within the sect.Georgeslivers (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Moving the cleanup tag
The main body of the article seems okay now, down to the historical section which I feel could still do with some work. Previous suggestions of mine which (may) still apply are:


 * Names should probably be put in full rather than saying "Mr Raven". What was his full name?  The honorific Mr might be better omitted
 * In the Kelly Lowe etc stuff some groups are mentioned who don't appear to have merged to form the reformed group. Did they do so, or not?
 * We seem to use the word Meeting(s)/Assemblies/group interchangeably. I think it would be good to pick one and stick with it.
 * It seems from the article that JTJr ran the Aberdeen meeting, caused a scene and then died. Is this the case or is the year of his death wrong?
 * The history and hymn-books sections need to be considered for relevance. Think about why people are coming to this page and what they want to know.  Dirty laundry from 40 years ago may not be high on their list.  It's also confusing and long without references.

Jarich 23:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

U.S.
According to the St. Petersburg Times, the Brethren did not donate to Bush and Martinez' re-election campaigns. Rather, they independently bought newspaper ads supporting the politicians. This is an important distinction, since American campaigns cannot accept donations from non-citizens. -- Mwalcoff 03:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link, I've added it in. Jarich 13:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Gospel Hall external link
This link: [http://www.gospelhall.org/ Gospel Hall dot Org is a list of assemblies in North America related to the Brethren. was recently added by a user who added the same website to multiple articles, many of which it was inappropriate for. It looks like it might be appropriate here, though it doesn't state it is associated with Exclusive Brethren and it doesn't currently point to the site's directory. I'm not sure how significant, trusted or NPOV it is as a resource. So I moved it here to bring it to the attention of regular editors of this article. If it is an appropriate link, that there is consensus to include, please add it back (preferab;y pointing to the directory!). Thanks. -- Siobhan Hansa 21:09, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It is relatively relavent. I say that because the group using the term "Gospel Halls" for their buildings does not consider themselves to be part of the Exclusive Brethren (or the Plymouth Brethren, for that matter) but they are very similar. If you can find a copy of it (probably can't, but it's worth a try), read Norman Crawford's "Assembly History". It's a very short book on the beliefs and history of the gospel hall assemblies in America, Canada, and the UK. I believe our particular branch began in Scotland seperately from the "Plymouth Brethren" branch, but it was at the same time. 63.3.1.130 01:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not relevent to the Exclusive Brethren. The Gospel Hall Brethren are a subset of the Open Brethren, Plymouth Brethren movement.  They are "open brethren" with Needed Truth Brethren influences.  They have nothing to do with the Taylorites, and it is unfair and incorrect to associate them as such.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sayworth (talk • contribs) 14:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Lists of businesses and owners - how is this appropriate or useful?
I'm just a random surfer looking for info on these guys after reading a news article that mentions them. The bulk of the article up to the "needs clean-up" portion reads OK, though some questionable POV remains. However the listing of businesses and owners of businesses really seems out of place - I can't see how it adds to the entry any more than to simply say "they run businesses in sectors x,y,z" (which is of interest, to show that they do engage with technology to a degree). I can think of a very good reason not to list specific businesses or people - given the strong emotions about this topic, listing people who belong but are not spokespeople, and particularly their businesses (who presumably have additional staff, clients, suppliers etc who are not part of the religion) seems like an invasion of privacy and and invitation to harassment. 81.107.44.202 22:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's quite useful; people have a right to avoid doing business with people they do not like. Listing them here gives people the right to make an informed choice. McDanger 08:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that someone who wants to avoid doing business with RTH Brethren should avoid doing business with Crest Office Interiors merely because someone else wrote on Wikipedia that they were Brethren owned? Most of these business names don't come with citations.  How did the author know?  How could I know I could trust such a list?  The section - as it was before Bkingshott deleted it - was recently re-added into the middle of the media section. I thought about trying to make it work, but I've deleted it again.  This is for a number of reasons.  It's poorly written: it went from listing a couple of businesses (with citations) to being an untidy, oddly written laundry list. I don't think it's trustworthy, even if we had citations for each and every business name, journalists have been known to make mistakes and businesses change hands from time to time.  If we don't have citations then we run the risk of claiming that businesses are RTH-owned when they aren't.  I agree with Bkingshott, listing businesses merely because they are owned by members of a minority group is bordering on the offensive.


 * I don't think that such a laundry list of businesses adds anything constructive to the article nor do I think it's necessary for this article to be encyclopedic. If you really feel it essential to list some or all of the Brethren businesses then please rewrite that section and add your new content to the current Businesses section so we can work to improve the article.


 * Jarich 13:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason that we should be catalouging specific businesses here. The sectors in which they operate are more than enough. I bet you'd object if someone made a list of Jewish-owned businesses on Wikipedia, wouldn't you? Same deal. Unless you can provide some really compelling reason the list should stay I'm removing it. Bkingshott 13:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Refresh
I've tried to do a fairly comprehensive refresh to address the following points:

- As noted by others, the article still seems to confuse the definitions of various groups of brethren so I have tried to clarify this further (a) in the intro (b) by adopting the terminology Raven-Taylor-Hales brethren as much as possible to further distinguish and differentiate this more newsworthy group from the more mainstream groups and (c) by removing/ merging some of the long explanations of pre and post Aberdeen groupings from the second half of the page into the main body (though there is still an awful lot left in the second half which I'm not sure will be immediately useful to the average user although I find it very interesting myself)

- It seems that a number of shorter separate sections could more usefully be amalgamated under the term 'lifestyle' which I have done and I have removed much of the detail on businesses as I agree with the last poster that to single out and list some of them could be seen as inflammatory.

- There is an important debate about education which is wider than just schooling so I have reclassified this section.

- I have removed the 'where are they now' section. It implies that the brethren movement is something which no longer exists or that everyone has left it which simply isn't the case. I've tried instead to make sure that under the various headings there is relevant info about current numbers and practices.

I hope this has made the article easier to read and follow, but I think that there is still work to be done to condense and simplify the two sections in the second half which talk about national political campaigns and history of the pre and post Aberdeen groups.

Ben

81.153.92.83 16:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)\

NPOV Warning
I've added a NPOV warning. It seems to me that the article in general has bias problems, and appears in many places to deal in subtle apologetics. It doesn't present cult accusations in meaningful way, and seems written by a person far too aligned to the ideals of the religious group. There are little signs of appraisal or counter arguement and very problematic topics are discussed superficially. for this reason, I suggest maintaining the NPOV warning until fixed. --58.175.60.80 05:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * G'day User:58.175.60.80,


 * Thankyou for your feedback. If you are able to elaborate on specific sections and preferably specific phrases which you feel are violating NPOV, I'd be delighted to work on those to fix them.  Be aware that what you see might be bordering on POV may appear as NPOV as possible on behalf of the article's editors such as myself.  It is possible that in attempting to avoid the obvious bias about an unpopular group which is determinedly insular we have tipped a little too far in its favour and it really helps to have outsiders able to provide feedback on such things.  Please point out the specific parts you felt were too "aligned to the ideals of the religious group" so that we can work on them.


 * You say that the article "doesn't present cult accusations in meaningful way". Do you have a suggestion for how you'd like that handled?  I will personally add a section on cult accusations if you can provide me with citable references which cover the topic.


 * All the best,  Jarich 12:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

POV-check
I've downgraded the POV template to POV-check as there doesn't appear to be any active discussion about User:58.175.60.80's concerns of POV. I find it promising that the last POV complaint suggested the article was too biased against the RTH Brethren and now this one suggests that we're too aligned with them. If you feel the article has POV issues that you cannot easily fix yourself then please begin and participate in a discussion about them so we can make the whole article better.

Jarich 02:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * My opinion is this is not biased in it's present form. Though I must admit finding this level of judgement of others detestable and contrary to what their supposed authority, the Holy Bible, says.  I find it absolutely reasonable that serial killers and occultists have come from this cesspool of hate.  But who am I to judge!  Whiskeyricard 20:37, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This whole article in confused and unhelpful.
It seems that the whole debate about what should and shouldn't be in the entry is taking place in the entry itself.

Knowing nothing about the "Exclusive Brethern" I was looking for information. It is not there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hamish9 (talk • contribs).


 * G'day Hamish9,


 * Thankyou for your comments. I suspect you were referring to the odd placing of the RTH Brethren's businesses section, which is an odd resurrection of a section that was deleted a month or more ago. You also said "Knowing nothing about the "Exclusive Brethern" I was looking for information. It is not there." I first came to this page for the same reason many months ago and have worked hard to add that kind of information. Can you cover what specific kind of information you were hoping for so that we can improve the article in that regard?


 * Many thanks, Jarich 12:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I, too, came looking for information. There is quite a lot of history but the main thing I wanted was doctrine. What do the EBs believe? What is their teaching? - Pepper 150.203.224.165 10:30, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I found this whole article virtually useless. (Perhaps thats intentional). I learned very little, other than there are different EB groups around the world.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.30.104.126 (talk) 12:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I third that. I don't know enough to edit myself, but I would like a section on specific doctrine (something like Church of the Brethren). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.179.5.74 (talk) 10:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

As a member of an assembly that you would probably call "Exclusive" (we prefer simply to be called a Christian assembly), I came to this page to see what others thought about us. I found no information about our group (you may know us by our use of "Gospel Hall" for our buildings) and, quite frankly, consider the article on Plymouth Brethren a much more helpful article to those seeking information about fundamentalist Christian groups. To anyone who wants information, I'd suggest going there instead. I'd love to edit the article, but I have no time and am relatively inexperienced at editing. But here's a few suggestions: The entire article seems to focus on one radical "Christian" group. Why? There are many other branches that are not even mentioned. I'd suggest trimming the whole article and adding a section for "Beliefs", maybe some more information in the section "Listing of other Exclusive Brethren Groups", that sort of thing. If people want information on the Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren, they can go to a seperate article. *sigh* I honestly have to say, I think it would be best if someone erased the whole article and started over. 63.3.1.130 01:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that the best place to talk about beliefs is in fact in the Plymouth Brethren section. In fact most Plymouth Brethren whether Open or Exclusive agree on the vast majority of issues of doctrine. Although the commonly held doctrines are expressed practically in different ways, the EB article naturally focusses on groups that diverge from this consensus because it is these minor divergencies of doctrine that define the different strands of EBs. Gregory Morris, St Deiniol&#39;s Library, Hawarden (talk) 20:41, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments regarding the New Zealand section
No references are given to verify a claim regarding $1.2 million allegedly spent in the 2005 NZ election campaign.

this was discussed in a press conference given by simmons and the other 5 businessmen, and broadcast on all the major news programmes in nz. it's very common knowledge User:Inzy 118.92.121.29 (talk) 12:01, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Nicky Hager's book does not meet acceptable standards of reputable research and should be considered in the status of a series of allegations rather than statements of fact. PatrickDunfordNZ 13:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Have you got a source for that allegation? Malick78 09:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Simmons, a member of the exclusive brethern stated in a 4-corners interview that he has spent somewhere between $500,000 and $1million —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.14.205 (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Aberdeen incident
The Aberdeen incident description needs improving. Reference to a woman's "immoral behavior" are imprecise and whatever the behavior was, it might have been judged immoral by the EB but, likely as not, not by everyone. A simple description of the behavior, together with a statement about why it was considered to be immoral by the EB at the time would help readers from non-EB backgrounds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.10.240.160 (talk) 07:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The Aberdeen incident needs its own article really.Malick78 (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Disciplinary methods?
There should be a section on disciplinary methods - which are often very harsh. 'Shutting up' (shunning) and 'withdrawing' (excommunicating) should be explained.Malick78 (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I added details about discipline in the non-Taylorite groups (Tunbridge-Wells to be specific). The lack of a formal leadership structure to mediate discipline decisions and the requirement of complete unity among all members is a very unique organizational characteristic of the EBs that explains their frequent schisms.Georgeslivers (talk) 04:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hymn books
Does there really need to be so much about these? No other religion's page goes into so much detail.Malick78 (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It does look a trifle excessive. Must be a big thing amongst the Exclusives.--Another berean (talk) 20:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The Little Flock Hymn book is a large part of EB worship services. I am not familiar with most of the other hymn books.Georgeslivers (talk) 04:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Another Berean is obviously unfamiliar with the Scandinavian Church entries where each hymnbook entry contains a list of all the hymns in practically all the editions with a hypertext link to the actual text of the hymn: I have been using it to track down translaters of the many English Hymns translated by (non brethren)hymnwriters into Swedish. It is a gem. There is a similar database at the John Rylands Library compiled by John Greenhalgh in MS Access format giving all the first lines of all the hymns in all the EB Hymnbooks since Hymns for the Poor of the Flock. Perhaps it does all need to decamp to a new section. Gregory Morris, St Deiniol&#39;s Library, Hawarden (talk) 20:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Major change - Where did it all go?
The criticisms that this page focussed on the RTH Brethren to the exclusion of almost all other exclusive brethren are very fair. As such I've split these two pages and put all the RTH-specific stuff over on Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren. Please feel free to review, and improve both articles.

Jarich (talk) 09:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Would be a good idea to also move "Raven-Taylor-Hales hymn books" sub section as the Hymn books and music section is too long? --Another berean (talk) 09:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't the three subsections of "History" be transferred to Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren as well? The "Aberdeen incident" is irrelevant to non-Raven Exclusive groups. --149.225.92.238 (talk) 14:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Nomenclatures
It is very important in this article to get the groups right

Exclusive Brethren have 2 main groups

1) Raven/Taylor and 2) Kelly/Lowe/Glanton/Continental/Tunbridge Wells.

The Taylor/Symington/Hales Brethren are the most extreme and most numerous branch of the Raven/Taylor group. There are many brethren in Raven/Taylor meetings who are seen by their fellow christians as generally orthodox if a little aloof. Technically Glanton meetings should come under this bracket as they accepted the doctrine of Mr Raven but it is more convenient to place them with Kelly/Lowe as they joined with this group in 1974.

Taylor/Symington/Hales is a very distinct group which has remained a unified group since 1970 under the leadership of these men. This term should only be used for this group otherwise known as Plymouth Brethren number 4. It should not be used as a general term for Raven/Taylor Brethren as it is anachronistic.

All references to this group prior to 1970 should use the term Raven/Taylor as this was a fairly well-defined entity from the beginning of the 20th century.

This will avoid the inaccurate labelling of other Raven/Taylor groups with Hales and Symington

Gregory Morris, St Deiniol&#39;s Library, Hawarden (talk) 17:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing POV-check
This page has changed dramatically since December 2007 when this was added, including removing the RTH stuff into another page, and there has been no discussion of possible biases since. If you disagree please feel free to add it in and explain your concerns about bias.

Jarich (talk) 00:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Removing edits from 121.72.144.233
121.72.144.233 added the following which I found not only incorrect (the allegation probably only applies to RTH brethren) but also violating NPOV. I've manually removed these edits:


 * The cult-like control of the Exclusive Brethren is un-Biblical, and is one of the reasons why the movement has attracted negative publicity.


 * [Exclusive Brethren - Cult-like control]

The above link was inserted into the General overview after the discussion of lepers and the reference to Leviticus.

These links may be appropriate on the Raven-Taylor-Hales Brethren page.

Jarich (talk) 07:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)