Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
The EB are far from extinct. They've just divided so many times since the 1840's. The community church where I fellowship now, the pastor was raised in the EB. Around 1990 he became personna non grata. So when saints leave the EB sect, he usually sought out. In speaking with him the EB is no different from the recovery movement. It's terminology that's different. The recovery use "the local ground". The EB terminology for "the local ground" is "the one place".
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Interesting indeed! I had visited a Brethren forum once, and the impression I got was that there were fewer and fewer members every year for decades already.... most of the young people left when they came of age. That's why I made the comment I did, but I withdraw it then, in this case.
Regarding the similarities to Lee's Local Church, I found this article in Wikipedia about the Brethren:
Accusations (against the Exclusive Brethren)
Critics of Raven/Taylor/Hales group have accused it of using
cult techniques by controlling all aspects of its members' lives.
[15] The group's influence over its members is such that many who have left the group have had trouble adjusting to life outside. To help with this problem, several websites have been set up to assist people that have left the church to adjust back into mainstream society.
[16][17]
Among the various criticisms raised against the church are:
- Members who leave or who are expelled from the group have often been treated with what outsiders may regard as great cruelty.[18]
- Leavers are shunned by members of the group because leavers are seen as having chosen the world and the devil against God, and because they could bring members into contact with the sinful world.[18] The Brethren have been accused of using their considerable wealth and power to punish members who have decided to leave the church and to have allegedly actively used their influence to split families up in order to protect the organization's interests.[19]
- For the most part, members who have left the Raven/Taylor/Hales group are completely ostracised. Members are not permitted to live with those who have left and this causes families to break up; remaining members do not speak, eat or otherwise socialize with those who have left the group's membership. To leave the group, either voluntarily or to be excommunicated, means to be asked to leave one's home, and the subsequent breaking of all normal family relationships with those who remain within the group.[18]
- Since virtually all of the Raven/Taylor/Hales members work in other members' companies, to leave the group means also that they have to give up their jobs, in addition to their family and their home.[18]
- Accusations by former teachers in Raven/Taylor/Hales group schools that the group "brainwashes" children[15] in order to control everything that children do in life; a former teacher was quoted as saying "the children are told what jobs they will do and who they will marry. They were not being equipped to live in the outside world".[15]
Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia, said in 2007: "I believe this is an extremist cult and sect,"
[20] and "They split families and I am deeply concerned about their impact on communities across Australia.".
[21]
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