This blog post was originally written in 2006 and posted on my old blog Nemeton. Some friends had asked why I tended to make statements about the awfulness of Christianity.
Don’t be fooled by the cranky exterior of the Exclusive Brethren. They’re the religious equivalent of Vogons.
I know because I was brought up in them till the age of 9. For those who don’t know me, no, this does not make me sad and repressed. (Aleister Crowley was brought up in the Exclusive Brethren also – it’s why he was so vehemently anti-Christian and outrageously hedonistic).
The Exclusive Brethren prevented their members from watching TV, listening to the radio, using mobile phones and computers, using contraception, eating with non-believers (this includes other Christians), going to pubs, having pets, and talking to members of their family who have been thrown out for committing any of these offences. They make their women wear headscarves and don’t allow them to cut their hair (you can spot them very easily, they’re the exhausted-looking ones with the bovine expressions and umpteen kids in tow). And the Gods help you if you were discovered to be gay. Two women who lived together (dunno if they were lesbians or not) were excluded on suspicion of being lesbians. Pets were banned sometime in the mid-sixties; this resulted in a number of people gassing their budgies (this was still the time when gas ovens used coal gas).
As a result of the behaviour of this delightful organisation, I didn’t see either of my sets of grandparents for the last 20 years of their lives (they were forbidden to talk to us); and my aunt’s husband intercepted all my mum’s letters to her mum (when her mum was dying) and didn’t give them to her. I only found out that my other grandfather had died because someone who worked in the Register (of births, marriages, and deaths) told me.
They stick rigidly to everything it says in the Bible (you can find sources in the Bible for all the practices listed above).
All of the above is why I’m opposed to fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity.
The original post linked to a support site for survivors. The owner of the site was forced to take it down by a law suit from the Plymouth Brethren.
Since I wrote my 2006 post, they now allow limited use of the internet and computers in their schools, and use blocking software to block sites they consider objectionable.
But they’re still a very controlling group. Members generally work in companies owned by church members, and it’s still the case that people who leave are shunned, so it would still be very difficult to leave as the person would become unemployed and potentially homeless.
Changing Paths 