Original link can be seen here. Credit to Third Sector. Preston Down Trust meeting hall

The Preston Down Trust will continue discussions with the Charity Commission as the deadline is extended by four months

The appeal to the charity tribunal by the Preston Down Trust has been put on hold for a further four months.

The trust, a Plymouth Brethren congregation in Devon, originally appealed to the charity tribunal last year against the Charity Commission’s refusal to grant it charitable status. The regulator was not satisfied the trust had been established for the advancement of religion for public benefit.

In February, the trust was granted permission by the tribunal to put the proceedings on hold until 1 May. The hearing was originally scheduled for the end of March.

At the time, the commission said that trust representatives had told it the tribunal appeal process would incur significant legal costs and asked it to find an alternative. The commission then began discussions with the trust.

After a further request by the trust to the charity tribunal on 1 May, proceedings have been put on hold until 1 September.

A spokeswoman for the commission said that “confidential without-prejudice discussions” were continuing between the trust and the commission. But she said the commission was unable to register the trust if it did not meet the legal requirements for registration. If the discussion did not result in the commission agreeing to register the trust, she said, it could continue with its tribunal case.

“The commission cannot register any organisation as a charity if it does not wholly fulfil the legal requirements for registration,” she said. “Despite the extended stay, if it is not possible to deal with the issue this way, the trust cannot be registered, and the trustees will have the option of lifting the stay of legal proceedings and continuing with the tribunal process.”

In a statement, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church said that discussions with the commission had been constructive and the extension to the deadline would allow them to continue.

The statement said: “It is now expected that the dialogue will reach a conclusion by the end of August and, to that end, the trustees have, with the consent and cooperation of the commission, applied for and been granted an additional stay in proceedings until 1 September.

“The effect of this is that no further steps will be taken in the proceedings until at least 1 September.” A fictionalized memoir which has humour to it, but also attempts to break down exactly what the unspoken realities of PB doctrine and practice were and ended up meaning to those of us raised under them:

Lulu.com – All boys from 10 to 54 who like long, gloomy church stories packed with melancholy introspection and soul-shattering
morbidity will want to read every one of the Wikkid People church adventure books. Son of a disgraced Plymouth Brethren preacher man, Peter Grey is drowning in bitter disillusionment as he discovers that almost everything he’s been told to do and believe in is either breathtakingly ill advised or else simply wrong.  When his questions no longer match everyone else’s favourite answers, he is ostracized.  Failing at romance, his solution is to dig the deepest hole he can, climb into it and stay there, basking in self-loathing.  Read these thrilling books after school hours and during vacations to experience unprecedented depths of unadulterated angst and unrelieved ennui.

Here is a sneak preview:

Peter lived with the sort of family that goes to church five times a week, doesn’t allow television or any books with ghosts, monsters or magic in them, and never goes to the movies.  In Peter’s house there was no smoking or swearing of any kind.  Loud talking or laughing were frowned upon.  (Literally.)

There was no entertainment, wine, dancing or celebration either, nor the music that would have gone along with those.  There wasn’t even any Christmas or Halloween.  These holidays celebrated the devil, and why would anyone want to do that?

There was a long wooden paddle with bible verses written on it that Peter’s father had made to hit him on the hand with when he felt Peter needed to learn a lesson, or when Peter didn’t agree with things or wanted to argue.

When he’d been small, his father had always used to hit Peter on the palm of the hand with his own heavy, callused, brown hand, but when Peter had flinched away from his father as he’d been stepping over Peter to get past, this had upset Barry Grey deeply. Barry had decided Peter needed to know that he would never get hit, unless it was with that wooden paddle with the bible verses written on it.  So he’d made it, as Peter watched.  He was very careful as he sanded it, and as he took a large black magic marker and wrote the bible verses on it which explained why he had to hit Peter with it.

In Peter’s house, when someone wasn’t getting hit with the Paddle, there wasn’t usually any touching of any kind going on.  When the children had got too heavy and large to comfortably sit on their parents’ laps, the hugs and pats had stopped.  Only the paddling remained.  Like in fairy tales, affection,-if it was shown at all-was shown by giving you food, rather than by touching.

Peter got paddled a lot.  Peter argued about the things he wasn’t supposed to do, instead of just going and doing them anyway without saying anything, like his younger sister Beth tended to do.  He was confused by the fact that arguing made his father more angry than defiance, sneaking or lying would have.  It was like his father almost expected Peter to try to sneak or lie when he was wanting to do something there was a rule against, and didn’t like Peter arguing instead of just doing it.  Other people’s kids just did things.  “Stop being a Philadelphia lawyer!” Peter’s father would howl at him.

So Peter was odd.  If he couldn’t argue his way to freedom, he didn’t normally help himself to any. This meant there was very little freedom to be had.

Usually Peter’s dad hit his hand with the Paddle only about ten times. Some kids had parents who hit them a lot more than that and with belts and breadboards, paint stir sticks and even wire whisks.  Some of the other church families had had close calls with the Children’s Aid Society.  When Peter’s father punished him, it did not leave a mark on Peter’s hand, once the redness and heat had left it.  This was, Peter’s father felt, the right way to do things.

When hitting Peter, his father always said he wasn’t angry, but usually Peter could tell that he really was.  Especially if Peter was being hit for arguing.  More than that, Peter could tell that his father was terrified he was losing control of his children.  Peter’s father felt that if he were unable to control his family, if his children did anything he felt church children ought not to do, he would then have to stop doing his work at the church. And all Peter’s father ever did was work.  He worked as a gym teacher in a school, he worked outside at home, and he worked at the church. If he went to visit a relative, it was often either to fix something, or to borrow a tool to use in fixing something.

Peter’s earthly father hitting him with the wooden bible verses did not really teach Peter to love the bible or God his Heavenly Father much.  But he definitely took both of them very seriously.  They were facts of life, like dogs that bit and bees that stung.  And God had made things like dogs and bees and cancer and deadly nightshade, on purpose, and people’s ability to feel pain as well.

He’d not, apparently, intended for them to die, though. Not at first.  Nowadays, however, it was part of His Plan.  He needed it. Peter had taken this in at church from a young age.  God used pain and death to make us good and get us to heaven.  He’d even used them with His own son. Pain and death were the main part of how God worked.

Peter’s father told him how, just as he punished Peter because he loved him, God punished everyone because He loved them too.  Only God was angry when He punished people.  He made no attempt to hide this.  And His anger was so divine that it had a special 17th century word to describe it: wrath.

The church folk sang about God’s judgment pouring out in “billows,” like tsunami waves.  Peter wondered if they knew what they were singing.  They didn’t seem to be paying any attention.  Why were they singing about God being angry?  When people lost their tempers, this was embarrassing, so you waited until they were done embarrassing themselves, and you never mentioned it to them again.  And they also pretended that it hadn’t happened.  How rude to draw attention to God’s uncontrolled outbursts!

But Peter got hit with the Paddle often, and it was always either because his sister had provoked him so he’d lose his temper and get into trouble (her favourite game), or it was about him arguing about all the rules (which his father hated above all things).

And the rules weren’t to be called rules.  They weren’t to be examined or discussed because of course they were just right.  They were necessary.  It was the kind of house where you just had to know things were bad and the less said about them, the better. It was like the Emperor and his new clothes.  If you couldn’t see something was bad, you clearly weren’t as wise as everyone else.

Sin, Self, This World

and The Old Nature

“Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS, and again I say rejoice.” Phil 4:4.

One is shocked and dismayed that we hear so much nowadays of “stress,” of “depression.”  What Christian, in meek, faithful service to and time spent low at the feet of his Blessed Saviour has the time to waste in complaining of these self-focused, fleshly weaknesses?  Who can be discouraged who has Christ?!

If delighting in prayer, and time spent over the Word with other believers of like precious faith is not something we, as Christians, are rejoicing in regularly, then we are hardly worthy of the blessed title of Christian at all and should ask ourselves if we truly are redeemed sinners, saved by the freely given, unearned grace of God which we have chosen.  If we have not joy, we have not Christ.  May this be a solemn exercise to every one of us.

It is very fashionable in today’s world, so antagonistic to our Lord and His things, to speak of these kinds of melancholy emotional self-indulgences as if they were something that a hapless person might simply contract, like a case of the flu, or the common cold.  How contrary to the clear teaching of the precious, divinely inspired Word of God!

God in His infinite wisdom has ensured that, clearly laid out for our learning in the pages of the precious scriptures, is a formula for joy itself.  If we have no Christian joy, we are not obedient to the Word.  If we are discouraged, this is clear evidence that we have turned our faces away from Him.  Surely time spent in considering this blessed little formula puts paid to any complaints of “stress” or “depression”!  We do not serve a saviour who walked this earth “feeling a bit blue.”  We serve a glorious, rejoicing Christ who delighted in bringing the good news of God’s salvation to all true Christians.   How blessed!

The formula for joy, seen all throughout scripture, has been perfectly crafted by the Holy Spirit Itself to form a convenient axiomatic acronym spelling out in modern English the very word “joy”:

J-O-Y.  How precious!

J – comes first, of course, and stands for the Christian name of our blessed Lord Jesus himself.  The very first step of the unbeatable Joy Formula which surely covers all eventualities is to put Jesus first.  All the leeks and garlics that tempt us, all of the worldly pastimes and leisure activities that seek to beckon and draw us away from contemplating and leading others to the precious One who died for us on the Tree must go.  Would we cling to them, brethren, when they certainly mean letting go of him?

When we seek our own joys, when we indulge in going through our lives in search of fleeting things to enjoy, in the flesh, in a natural, human way, we must inevitably miss the spiritual joy, the loftier, divine, true joy that the God Who loves His own would have us experience, and even more so as we see the day approaching.  What person worthy of the name of Christian finds himself in this world, seeking to entertain himself among those who crucified his blessed saviour?  Can we ever find true joy in a world that hates our dear Lord? No!  Joy will never be found there.  It can only be found in the company of His own people, those who are dear to His heart.

All forms of fleshly, human, earthly entertainment and pleasure, so tempting to our faithless, wicked hearts, must be sacrificed upon the altar of the sin offering, ascending up into heaven as a sweet smelling savour of our own obedience to His commandments, which tell us to sacrifice ALL of our joy to Him!  What could be more important than this sacrifice we are privileged to make for Him?

My hope on nothing less is built.

O – is, of course, the second letter in this happy, alphabetic, acronymic trinity. “O” stands for “others.”  We will find that in the flesh we wish to please ourselves (the wrong “o” entirely!) and that we are apt to seek the dubious pleasures of our own company.   This means that we are putting ourselves first, in direct contradiction to the example given us by the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us.

His blessed “J” was a “G,” as he always put first the wishes and instructions of God the Father, just as we faithfully, humbly and meekly always put HIS concerns and commandments first.  After God the Father, he always put others.

He never uttered a harsh word or turned a single person away in his thirty-three and a half years on earth.  We read how he was always gentle, meek and mild to everyone.  Surely we should be the same! (Except, of course, in the case of those not going on for Him in their lives, those wandering sheep, and then only to faithfully draw their attention to their error, for their own good!)

If one who calls himself a true believer is not coming out to church regularly, is not sitting at the feet of those the Lord has given to us (and He gave some prophets, some teachers, some evangelists…), is not putting in the time properly spent each week in dutiful Christian fellowship with others of like precious privilege, who have alike been gathered by the Holy Spirit, rather than merely attending a human gathering center, then is it any surprise that all is not well in that misguided person’s soul?

If one who claims to be a believer finds time in the day to “entertain” himself, how can he claim to be serving the Lord?  There are scarcely enough hours in the day to help out others.  Every moment stolen from those around us must be a moment stolen from God Himself, who holds the power of life and death in His Hand, and decides how many moments will make up the lives of each of us!  Would that we remember this every moment of every day.

Well and good to cut lawns, carry groceries or seek to do other good works in a natural, human way, (and there is nothing wrong with it) but the Lord’s heart for us, the real, true benefit comes when we are together over His Word, basking in the blest lineage of those of blessed brothers and sisters who have gone on before, walking the pathway of faith!

When a sheep strays foolishly (our hearts are daily tempted so to stray!) from the flock, that sheep will not be long among us and is headed straight for this world.  Vital for us, beloved, that the straying Eutychus sheep in question be pointed out, and the little lambs and old rams and ewes as well (that blessed ninety and nine) be alike warned of the error and sin that has been seen, inevitably drawing that wretched creature perversely away from the flock where the Lord has set His Name! Vital that a word to the conscience be given not to gaze after or follow that straying sheep, lest the blind lead the blind and all fall into the Jericho ditch together, where we do not walk.

Who shall inherit salvation?  We know from the teachings of the holy Word of God that it will not go to fornicators, men who make women of themselves, rebels, those who seek their own pleasure or yet ones who deviate from the path clearly laid out for us faithfully; ones who stray from the ninety and nine who dutifully follow the flock wherever it leads, in blessed, happy Christian fellowship.

Many a beloved Christian, long gone to be with his Lord at last in that dear home above, has spent a life filled with sweet, obedient, uncomplaining service to others.  No young person could miss church, or seek to follow the fashions of this world without this faithful, loving older one clapping a hand to his callow shoulder, with a well-timed word to his conscience, lest his very soul be lost.  Many a dear one spent his last years saving with fear, hating even to touch the garment spotted by the flesh!

Y – is here, by the blessed wisdom of the Holy Spirit Itself, not to emphasize the “yourself” it stands for, but rather to remind us to put Your Self last.  In the place of death.  “Wherefore I ABHOR mySELF, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:6.

The scripture instructs us to ‘kill’ our Selves daily, mortifying our members in the Lord.  Of course we cannot live for the Lord, yet also live as a normal person in this World at the selfsame time!  A solemn choice must be made daily.  Will we be our Selves, or will we live as redeemed children of God?  “For if we would JUDGE ourSELVES, we should not be judged.” 1 Cor 11:31

We know, of course, that we can have no worse enemy than our Self.  A worldly person is internally united, being cut entire from the same cloth, wholly contrary to God, hating Him and His Own.  He is irredeemable, but for the work of those faithful evangelists who can spread the glad tidings to these poor wretches.  We believers, however, have had a second nature added to that first one.  A second nature which hates our Self. Once we can hate our Self, we can truly live and love our Heavenly Father and our precious fellow believers.

A “nature” is the essential, central NATURE of a thing, what it is, deep down.  When we were lost and without God in this evil world, we only had that wicked sin nature that we still wrestle daily with each day, lest we fall short of the grace of God.

Because of the cross work of the blessed Son of God, however, we now have two natures at our core, two cores, two hearts, two essences, two central things we truly are, as believers.  The first nature is that OLD NATURE (spoken of plainly in scripture).  It takes true Christian vigilance each day to fight it with prayer, reading and time spent in the company of other believers as the Lord would have us do.  How solemn should we neglect this even for one week!

The second is the NEW NATURE (which the beloved apostle writes about at great length as well).   It is but the earnest of what we will one day enjoy unadulterated in heaven; a new, incorruptible nature that loves to read God’s word, to pray, and to spend time in the company of others of the people of God.  It can do these things; as we have said; because it hates our Self every bit as much as does God Himself from Whom it came and from Whose grace that first nature fell so heinously.  How blessed!

The scripture clearly teaches us that (practically speaking, of course) Christ accepts us only so long as we reject our Selves.  (He has forever accepted us as to our STANDING before him eternally, but as to our STATE of soul, day to day, it is a very different matter.)   We are saved by God’s grace, despite our disobedience, but we are blessed, as Christians, only through our own obedience to His precious word, seen in our dutifully sacrificing everything for Him and spending our time with His people, in following His will, which must, by its very nature, always be the opposite of our own.  We must sacrifice and obey, and God must bless!  Christ gives us the new nature of course, but it is OUR job to deal with the old one.   How solemn and precious!

Grace is blessing from God which we did not earn and do not deserve.  How ungrateful we are if we do not seek to walk worthy of it!  We must remember every day; when we wake up and read our chapter of scripture; to reject our Selves.

An accepting heart is His work, and not ours.  God “so loved” this world, but it is up to us to shut it out, neither loving it, NOR the things that are of it.  If we faithfully do our rejection work, He must needs honour this and do His blessed acceptance work.  We know that this is the very essence of Salvation.  Let us never lose sight of this blessed relationship as we live out our poor, wearisome earthly lives in these wretched bodies of humiliation given to us by God Himself!  Only in keeping this solemn prospect before us, making it our watchword, can we be blessed as were those faithful brethren of old.

We know of course that this NEW NATURE given us through the work of Christ and fostered through our own rejection of Self is not one we often see at work.  We can feel it, judging Self, reproving, filling us with disgust at how wantonly we would otherwise seek to follow the natural urges and paths of the children of disobedience.  We can perhaps feel it urging us to spend time with others of like precious conviction, or seeking to set straight the crooked paths of those in the middle of straying, but that is all.  A leopard cannot change its spots.  We will have to wait for glory to see much of in action.  In glory, we will have had the old nature cut out of us like a diseased heart, and will enjoy having only that new nature; for the first time; free to act within us.  We will then, need worry about Self no longer, for it will be entirely eradicated, through the blessed work of our Lord Jesus, who came to die for us for this express reason.

Of course some of us have been privileged to witness the new nature active and able to stalemate for a time that pervasive, wicked old nature, in the lives of those older ones who have now gone on to be forever with the Lord and sing his praises eternally.  Many of them could have been great men or women, gifted as they were, in the flesh, by birth.  But how wonderful that they were instead, through the leading of the scriptures, able to give all of that up to humbly, uncomplainingly follow the precious Word of GOD!

Let us, in any difficulty or misunderstanding that may arise among us, never seek to mold the minds of other Christians through our own personality or presence among them.  Self must not be allowed to act.  At the first sign of Self raising its wicked head, it must be judged immediately.

And so we see that the Christian’s lot is to be divided.  To war daily against Self.  To seek to repress the unceasingly self-pleasuring efforts of that old nature, always remembering how active, deceitful, and above all things ALIVE that old nature is.

The scripture teaches us that we were crucified with Christ, and this is true, in a sense at least.  But surely none of us can claim that our old nature is DEAD?  Ridiculous!  Far be the thought from us!  We fight that old nature every waking moment of every waking day.  What is the only thing that can rob a true Christian of his happiness?  Thoughts of Self.  Seeking to please and follow and be one’s Self.  This is something we must give up, if we are to ever please our Heavenly Father above.  How solemn if we try to, like Jonah of old, run off into this World, with its leeks and garlics, its apes and peacocks, to follow a path of self will!  There must always be cleavage.  We must needs cleave to Him lest we walk unworthy of the vocation in which we were called.

God has boundless wrath toward our Self, and so we MUST NOT be our Selves.  The personality we were born with, which came to us with our mother’s milk, clearly must go.   Can anyone ponder what has been laid out faithfully here in this little booklet, and these clear directives from the precious Word of God and still complain of “depression”?  How sad, when the Word of…See More

-from George Shovel’s “Sin, Self, This World and The Old Nature” (1923) Wasp Tent Publishers.  Print. Our hearts go out to the family of this young EB man. Published on Tuesday 12 March 2013 09:00

Plans to sell a defunct middle school to a secret bidder have been criticised as an odd way to dispose of a publicly-owned asset.

It was confirmed this week that a religious group called the Plymouth Brethren is behind a bid under the name Larchcroft Education Trust to take over Stoke-by-Nayland Middle School when it closes in July.

Chris Napthine, a consultant based in Manningtree who is working for the trust, said the Christian church plans to consolidate a senior school in Ipswich and a junior school in Colchester into an independent faith school for 150 children aged 3 to 13, and will be fully subscribed if it opens in September.

He said there were plans to use 85-95 per cent of the existing school with no plans to build on its nine-acre field. He would not reveal the bid price.

The church group says it holds the same faith as other Christians and has 46,000 members in the UK. It has been described as exclusive with strict codes of conduct.

Suffolk County Council confirmed last week that it had received a “time-limited, unsolicited approach” from an independent school.

It asked to hear from anyone who had an alternative, sustainable proposal to purchase the site by Tuesday.

But Robert Lindsay, co-ordinator of the Babergh Green Party, said: “If the site is going to be sold, the process should be open and transparent. Giving people in the village just two weeks to come up with an offer is not likely to lead to a fair and open market for the property.

“People may be perfectly happy for this conservative evangelical Christian group to set up a private school in the village, but this is publicly-owned land and residents and parents whose children attend Stoke-by-Nayland deserve to know.”

Mr Lindsay, who lives in High Street, Bildeston, added: “Keeping the bidder secret is a very odd way to dispose of a public asset.” The county council said it would not disclose any information at this early stage. Marion Evans – her very personal story

I have decided to tell the extremely abridged version of my very personal story and those that protest in support of the Exclusive Brethren, may be interested to know how my family has been treated by these people.  It is especially relevant at a time when this cult is fighting to retain its charitable status and doing its utmost to convince the outside world that the Exclusive Brethren is there for public benefit and indeed they state on their new look website “family is central to our beliefs”.  Those of us who have decided to leave the Exclusive Brethren to live in the real world, of course know that the truth is starkly different to what the Exclusive Brethren would have the wider public believe.
My story begins in 1986 when as a young adult I left the Exclusive Brethren religion in which I had been raised. Leaving my family in the Exclusive Brethren was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but also the best one.  Many would be aware that if one leaves the Exclusive Brethren, either by choice or through being been told to leave (known as being “withdrawn from”) they are cut off, shunned and treated as if they no longer exist.

This was the case for me when I first left.  I remember walking past my father in the street and him looking through me, as if I wasn’t there.

Adjusting to life outside of the Exclusive Brethren was not easy and I struggled a lot in the first few years.  Five years after leaving I married my husband Dave and we have two children, who are now adults.  Over the years the four of us developed a relationship with my parents.  My parents just could not abide by the Exclusive Brethren doctrine of treating me as if I was dead.  Due to the extreme unbiblical doctrine of separation we were forced to keep the relationship secret, to protect my parents.  Discovery would have most likely resulted in my parents being excommunicated, and this would have prevented them having a relationship with my Exclusive Brethren brother and his family.  This was the only way my parents could keep in contact with both their children.   The contact grew from infrequent phone calls and letters, to a much deeper and close relationship, to the extent that Dave would often call at my parents’ house during the week when he was working nearby and my mother would make him tea and scones and he would sit and chat with Mum and Dad in their lounge.

In February 2008 my father, aged 95, passed away.  The Exclusive Brethren tried to bury him in the grave of a non-related female Exclusive Brethren member who had died many years previously.  The reason for this became clear some months later.

In September 2008, we found out quite by chance that my brother was sending Mum to New Zealand for a few weeks on “holiday”.  Mum told Dave about this when he called to see her with some home-grown tomatoes two days before she left.  We were very concerned about Mum’s welfare; she suffered from severe back and hip pain, Dementia, and recently had undergone surgery for breast cancer.  We spoke to a local Exclusive Brethren member who told us that they had recently learned that an Exclusive Brethren spinster was going on holiday to New Zealand and thought it was a wonderful opportunity for Mum to have a holiday too.

Two days after Mum left for New Zealand I received documentation from the Court of Protection, advising me that my brother had applied for sole Power of Attorney.  I objected to this being filed, as I did not believe he had our mother’s best interests at heart.  I was proved right.

Dave managed to obtain a telephone number for Mum in New Zealand and we kept in contact.  Each time I rang, Mum told me she wanted to return to her home, in England.

The “few weeks” holiday turned into six months and when I called New Zealand on 8 May 2009 to speak to Mum again, it seemed that she had disappeared.  My relatives with whom Mum had been staying in New Zealand led me to believe that she had returned to the UK to live with my brother.  However, it became clear that this was not the case.  I made numerous enquiries with many Exclusive Brethren and they all deceived and deliberately misled me as to Mum’s whereabouts.

Finally some weeks later on 2 June 2009 my brother rang me.  He refused to give me any contact details and would not tell me where he lived.  All he said was that he lived north of Sydney.  When I asked to speak to Mum he refused, saying she was unavailable, and put the phone down.

I was distraught and feared the worst.  The following day I traced Mum to a hospital in Gosford, New South Wales.  I rang and I was advised that my mother had suffered a number of falls in my brother’s house (medical notes confirm they were unseen and unheard by my brother or his family), hence her admission. My call was transferred to Mum’s bedside phone.  My mother was clearly thrilled to hear from me but our conversation went no further because my brother was with her.  He took the phone from her and told me he would not allow me to speak to her and put the phone down.

My family and I abandoned our booked holiday to Portugal and travelled to Australia in June 2009 to try to bring Mum home.  Sadly we were unsuccessful.  We were visiting Mum for six days before the Exclusive Brethren we aware of our presence.  Once they found out they flooded the hospital, and from that point onwards when we visited Mum they were all grouped around her bed, so much so that we could not get near to her.  A nurse was so outraged on our behalf, that she asked the brethren to leave, telling them that the family from England wanted to spend some time with their mother/grandmother. Whilst we were there, my brother obtained my mother’s signature on a bridging visa application form.  However, in 2008 medical professionals had stated under the Mental Health Act that Mum had lost capacity due to her Dementia; therefore she did not have the capacity to make such a life choice.  My brother did not have Power of Attorney, so what he did in obtaining Mum’s signature was illegal.  He knew this.  It is documented in hospital notes that Mum did not want to reside in Australia, and that she wanted to return to her home in England.  My brother insisted and still does insist that before my father died they had all planned to emigrate to Australia and that this plan was carried through after Dad died.  This then begs two questions:

1) Why did my brother tell Mum that she was going on holiday, and indeed why were we told by local brethren that Mum had gone on a holiday?

2) Why is it documented in hospital notes upon Mum’s admission that my brother’s wife told hospital staff that Mum was holidaying with them?

My father told me when he was 92 that my brother was desperate to move from his tiny house in the UK, to Australia.  However he could not afford to do so and had asked my father if they (Mum and Dad) would go with them, in order to provide financial assistance.  Dad told me that he had no intention of moving anywhere at that late stage in their lives.

There are obvious discrepancies and it seems to me that my brother, with the help of the Exclusive Brethren, acted very dishonestly in every aspect of this and forced Mum into Australia via the “back door”. It is not rocket science to work out. Dad (who had refused to relocate) had passed away, Mum had Dementia AND my brother had access to our parents’ finances as well as help from the Exclusive Brethren.

We returned home and I fought through the courts in both the UK and Australia in order to ensure Mum and her assets were protected.  Guardians were put in place in both countries as well as a financial manager in Australia. These are decisions that are not taken lightly and it seems that the authorities saw the need for my mother’s assets to be protected from my brother, so that further monies could not be taken. In the Australian Guardianship Tribunal that took place in 2010, my brother informed the panel that he had not thought it was “appropriate” to tell me of his plans for Mum, and that although her express wish was to return home to England, he said it would be “unthinkable” to allow it and he would refuse to facilitate it.

I had sight of my parents’ bank statements during the UK court proceedings and it became clear that my brother had taken money from my parents’ accounts, for flights for himself and others.  This amounted to thousands of pounds.  My brother admitted to this. However, the money was never returned.  After my father had died, my brother had substituted his name for that of my father’s on the bank accounts and this enabled him to help himself to our parents’ money.

Mum went into a nursing home, but before this, was charged by my brother for the privilege of living in a converted garage at the front of his house, in a country where she had no wish to reside.  She had her own home with no mortgage in the UK and wanted to return there.  She was charged by my brother for electricity, etc., despite the fact that she was already paying for Electricity, Gas, Water Rates and Council Tax on her UK home.  Mum also had to reimburse my brother for items/services that she would have received free of charge in the UK, such as prescriptions, eye care, etc.

As if this wasn’t enough, my brother and his wife abused my 88-year-old mother by tying her to her bed, to prevent her getting up.  Nursing home staff told us of this elder abuse in 2011.  In a meeting at my brother’s house on 5 January 2013 my husband challenged my brother regarding this.  He admitted, in front of witnesses that they did indeed treat my mother thus.

My mother died in July 2012.  My brother and the Exclusive Brethren refused to postpone the funeral to take into account the 25 hours it would take for us to travel to Australia. We were told in an email that the church service was private.  Note, “private”.  This, from a group of people who are trying to convince the public that they are an open church.  So Mum died in a country in which she had no desire to reside and my brother refused to allow her to be returned to her home in England so she could be buried with her husband.

My brother and I are sole joint beneficiaries to the Will.  My brother is also one of the Executors (along with another UK Exclusive Brethren member).  The Will is very simple, it states that the estate and personal effects are to be divided equally between my brother and I.  However, my brother is not carrying out his legal and moral duty to honour our mother’s wishes.  Instead he is making this simple matter extremely difficult. Marion’s Brother

My husband and I flew to Australia on 26 December 2012, to try to get matters in relation to my mother’s Estate sorted.  When we first called at my brother’s house on 29 December 2012, he opened his front door only just wide enough to get his head through and he kept the fly screen door closed.  He refused to talk to me.  The image supplied is of my brother standing at the door of his house.  The following day he emailed me and said he was sorry but we had caught him “on the hop”.  He was apparently very anxious to meet with us after all.  He sent several emails and even rang our friend and gushed about how much he thought of us all and said he was so sorry he had acted the way he did at the door.  A meeting was subsequently arranged for 5 January 2013 and an Exclusive Brethren elder, Nathan Kennard, was present.  My brother and his wife both said they were sorry if they had ever acted wrongly or said anything wrong to us.  My brother told me he wanted to look at all my concerns.  Nathan Kennard said to me “there has been a lot of water under the bridge”; he went on to say “what we can do is do things different from today”.  When we left, my brother and his wife plied us with gifts, mostly alcohol. The following day we returned the gifts and said we could not accept them.

The meeting was shallow and meant nothing.  It was obviously just another of the Exclusive Brethren’s delaying tactics.  Since the meeting my brother will only communicate with me via his solicitor.  So despite Nathan Kennard’s words, nothing has changed.

After one month no progress had been made and we had to extend our stay another month.  We have put our work, personal and family lives in the UK on hold and now have been here for nearly ten weeks and we are still no further forward.  This is at massive expense to us as Dave is a self-employed sole trader and cannot work all the while we are in Australia.  Over the three trips we have made to Australia (2009, 2011 and 2012/13) we have incurred expenses in the region of £30,000 (including 95 days where Dave has been unable to work and earn money) plus we lost £600 on our abandoned Portugal holiday in 2009.  It is a shame that due to government policy, the State Trustee’s role in relation to my mother’s finances lapsed at her passing.  This then meant that the finances were passed back to whom I believe to be the perpetrator.  Had the State Trustee retained the responsibility to divide the estate, this would have been finalised weeks ago.

Last week I had to meet my brother and a lawyer in a public car park to view my mother’s massively depleted possessions, having only a few minutes to look at them. This was after my brother and his lawyer had delayed for two hours, leaving us standing in the scorching sun.  What I was presented with was a few of my parents’ belongings in four broken cardboard boxes in the back of a work van in full view of the public.  When I became upset, my brother’s lawyer told me that she understood, and that she had lost people too.  I was stunned at her insensitivity!  I was not allowed to take any of my mother’s possessions away with me, apart from my mother’s wedding and engagement rings.  I was blackmailed into agreeing a “without prejudice” document in order to take these.

I have now been presented with a Deed for signature, including a confidentiality clause, and nothing of my inheritance will be released to me unless I agree to sign it. They have offered me A$20k (approximately £13,500) towards our expenses claim and as you can see above, this comes nowhere near to reimbursing us the expenditure to which we have been put, which would not have been incurred had Mum not been taken to the other side of the world and held there against her will. The Exclusive Brethren are holding me over a barrel and lumping this separate issue in with the Will.  There is absolutely no reason why that which is not in dispute can’t be released.  The matter of the money my brother took from my parents accounts has not been addressed and the Deed dictates that I must remain confidential about my monetary claims and the ex gratia payment.  This is emotional blackmail of the very worst kind.  I have signed nothing to date, so see no reason why I should not be open about what is going on and how they wish to silence me.

Sadly, this is how this group of people behave.  A group, who call themselves Christians, yet are not in the slightest bit Christ like.

This is only a very abridged snippet of a story that will shock people in the extreme. Those who know me (including my late father) have encouraged me to write a book.  So this I am in the process of doing.  The longer this painful matter is drawn out, the more chapters it adds to my book.

Hopefully the readers of this post will be able to look at my story and ask themselves, are the Exclusive Brethren truly what they purport to be, or is there another sinister side to them?  A side, which they would prefer to keep hidden from the public?  I know the truth and I dearly hope that others will see the Exclusive Brethren for what they really are. As posted on Richard Stay’s Blog here:

You can’t fool all of the people Mister Hales.

I know Mister Hales is supposed to be wise and great and chosen and everything, particularly as he models himself as the “Minister of the Lord in the recovery” and “the personification of Christ on earth” – but he is fast proving himself perhaps the most inept “Man of God” yet.
And this includes other masters of ineptitude like three of his predecessors.
·         (JT Jnr for allowing his most mortal of desires to take over the last stage of his life. And for introducing the most Un-Christian of dictums – namely separation.)
·         (JSH for compromising his Man of God status in getting withdrawn from three times and for telling blatant, childish fibs.)
·         (JHS for dumbing the Brethren down to a point where most have no real education and for stripping them of their real estate assets and making them live in dreadful locations for a period. Financially many never recovered.)
Bruce however, has made some appalling decisions over the past decade –some of which will go into the annals of history where the Brethren are concerned. This is ground breaking, benchmarking ineptitude.
Let’s take this current debacle as a case in point. First off – you NEVER change your name! It is a negative thing. You change your name because there is something wrong with the original one. And that suggests that not everything is as it should be. Which in the case of the Exclusive Brethren is right on the money. Their name stunk. But at least it was their name. Change it – and alarm bells start ringing. As indeed they should.
Let’s think of an example of this marketing wisdom that might resonate with your PR advisors. I know. KFC! See- Australia had Kentucky Fried Chicken joints all over the landscape the same as the good ole US of A. You could not drive down a Main Street without seeing good old Colonel Harland Sanders smiling down on you in his bootlace tie. Then one day we woke up and it said ‘KFC’. And everybody said…. “Woo – what gives here?” And then the media said…. “Er there’s a problem with the word ‘Fried’. And everyone went “Woo….fried….. not good.” So poor old KFC suffered a fairly serious drop in confidence and I daresay sales as a result. I never had it again and I can only speak for myself. They are still here I know but that must remain as one of the boldest and most trepidicious marketing moves in history.
So by trying to deflect media recognition and attention by changing their sullied name- the Brethren have lost serious currency as regards their credibility. And it shows how shaky they really are as a so-called religious body. Now we see the dodgier of sects and so called churches changing their names all the time. Look at every preacher who has left the Assemblies of God over the past 20 years and there are 20 new breakaway church names. None of which mean anything at all. And just as long as people remember why these people left and from whence they came – their profile and credibility suffers dreadfully because everyone knows it is fake. Made up. Not real. You cannot set up a new church and in three minutes call it the ‘only true church’.
And that’s the problem with the Brethren. Rather than be honest and stick to their guns and their strange beliefs– they paddle around on the periphery of the world which they despise- pretending to be ‘normal’ and kind and decent. None of which is even remotely true. They are as shifty as the shysters they get to represent them. And trust me on this- their bottom line is the same as their PR spin merchants and lawyers. Money. Greed. And the never-ending grab for more money.
Suddenly they are thrusting pies and bibles under people’s noses. Suddenly they are wishing anyone who will notice them – a Happy Christmas. Even though they have banned it for 50 years. Suddenly they are embracing mobile phones and computers when only a handful of years ago they were wrecking people’s families for the same thing. See – not consistent. Not real. Fake.
People are asking the question “Why are these people who have been locked behind metal fences and gates with their security guards for years -suddenly thrusting pies and bibles at us?
Answer? They must want something!
And want something they do. They want the World’s money. Your money – to prop up their dodgy schools and meeting rooms. There’s your answer right there. They want to live off – US! And they want the right to hate us as well. Talk about bite the hands that feed you.
Do you think for one minute – that once the Charities Commission had found in their favour – (God forbid) – they will continue to serve pies and thrust free bibles into the hands of anyone who dares to walk past one of their car parks? Not for one second. You won’t get a crumb! The bibles will be in the back of someone’s garage gathering dust. The pie warmers will go mouldy. And Bruce Hales will be saying in his ministry – That was the testimony we had to make -in the filth of the world – to get them to see how good and right we are. He will make it up as he goes.
These people get what they want and move on. This is probably the very best example of their inherent dishonesty that I can muster. They are a fraud. They always have been.
So now we see their PR spin starting to unravel. We see at least one regional British Politician who has worked it out and sees them for what they are. Who was it who said- you can’t fool all of the people all of the time? Well Mister Stay is not fooled for one minute. He can see right through their tissue of deceit. And he is trumpeting it from the roof tops God bless him.
He sees that they have thrown 1.5 million British Pounds at fighting this Charities Commission thing and he says to himself – ‘Why?’ And he sees what they are really after. It’s not about helping others. Or rushing about like a spinster at a square dance telling everyone how good you are. Or about asking your Brethren congregation for any examples anyone can recall of where they might have done something good for anyone who is not one of them in the past. (It will be very slim pickings trust me.)
The Brethren have helped no one in the world for nigh on 50 years. They never gave to charities. They don’t vote. They hate the world. Their words not mine.
So this is yet another Hales led soiree into the unknown that has failed. His Citation has sucked a bloody great big goose into its intake. Take this latest technology embracing ‘normality’ that Hales has championed. One day they throw you out for a computer or a phone and take your house and family off you.
Today however – having now thrust them into the hands of his flock (for the extra dollars that will come into his bank accounts) he has another debacle.
The kiddies – their kiddies are like all other kiddies. Inquisitive. And when the other day they start a Facebook page – the poor little blighters are ‘shut up.’ Which in Peeb terms is Defcom 2. For dicking about with Facebook one poor little kiddie got 37 days in solitary. Or as they call it- ‘Shut up’.
Now the teachers at the Brethren school see this and they go “Hang on – you can’t do that to a kid! For that!” So it’s hit the fan again for Hales. No amount of brainstorming by Brethren PR guru Mister Jackson will help them out of this one. While it has fees written all over it- you cannot talk yourself out of a conundrum that is of your own making. It has credibility and human rights issues that no one can explain. And now they have shut the whole bloody school down because of the fallout. All over an innocent little Facebook page
And we see the gobsmacking anomaly of watching them fill sandbags at flood sites and making sandwiches for fire fighters when a few short years ago they withdrew from a man and wrecked his family because he went and helped a fire brigade put out a fire. It was an unclean thing to do! Explain that one Mister Jackson if you can.
So Hales would have been better off just trying to be a good Christian instead of changing the world. His world.
Sadly – it has now gone too far for that. And they will lose their charitable status, as they should, because they are not Christian in their actions or beliefs. They are shysters – who masquerade under whatever name they think will give them anonymity and some credibility.
But trust me- whatever they call themselves these days- it is still the same old wolf under the mangy old fur. With a whole new bag of tricks.

An ex-Peeb who knows Mister Hales only too well.
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