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The Exclusive Brethren crossed my path through marriage - father-in-law had been brought up as one before leaving because he liked playing sport - a banned past time for Brethren. While he never mentioned the subject, his daughters occasionally spoke of their rather strange cousins, uncles and aunts who lived nearby in north west Tasmania but who they rarely met.
The story they told that really stuck in my mind was the rift that occurred in the family when the order came down from 'Man of God' James Taylor Jr that whisky should play a part in life after Sunday worship. Brethren international head James, the family story went, had been exposed as a closet alcoholic but was fortunate enough to have a revelation that a tipple or two for everyone would be better than him giving up.While some relished the opportunity to brighten an otherwise pure and spartan life, others were shocked at the abandonment of almost 150 years of decreed abstinence while still others resented the cost of putting a bottle of Scotch on the table every weekend. The Tasmanian Brethren split and the drinking Ins stopped talking to the non-drinking Outs while both Ins and Outs continued to shun non Brethren members wherever possible.
I never did hear what happened within the Tasmanian Brethren following the famous Aberdeen incident of 1970. That was when JTJr began behaving erratically in meetings culminating at one in Aberdeen in Scotland where he called people "bums", "bastards" and other offensive names during services. One evening, witnesses claim to have found JTJr in bed with a married Exclusive Brethren woman which was a bit of a shock to believers in the sanctity of marriage and family values. JTJr denied the charges as lies but whatever the truth of the matter the incident further divided the international flock.
These Brethren memories came to mind in the closing days of the Tasmanian election campaign last year when members of the religion produced newspapers ads campaigning against the Greens. Such an involvement in political life would surely have incurred the wrath of John Nelson Darby, the aristocratic Church of Ireland clergyman who left that Church when his bishop insisted that converts Darby had made from Roman Catholicism should swear allegiance to the British Crown. Darby rejected this as unscriptural and when he separated the Exclusive from the Open Brethren in the 1840s he was gloomy about the state of the world.
According to a summary of the religion on the BBC website, Darby thought the only way for believers to get right with God was to keep away from the sinful world and adopt a simple and straightforward relationship with Christ. Keeping away from the secular world was a serious business and among the forbidden "too wordly" activities for members are standing for political office, voting in elections and serving in the armed services.
Trevor Christian and Roger Unwin, the two Tasmanian members of the Exclusive Brethren congregation who authorised the anti-Green advertisements, saw no conflict in their religious objections to directly participating in elections and trying to influence those people who do not have them. In a letter to the Launceston Examiner they put it this way:
We believe government to be of God and for this reason we respect it; consequently, although our conscience precludes us from voting, it equally creates a responsibility to testify to persons in government and the community to uphold right Christian principles on which our nation is founded.
Similar arguments have justified Exclusive Brethren intervention in election campaigns in the United States and New Zealand. In the US Brethren held prayer meetings and donated money for the re-election of George W. Bush as President. In the last NZ election some $NZ500,000 was spent producing and distributing to letter boxes at least eight pamphlets attacking the policies of the Labour and Green parties.
The Brethren, whose world leader is now based in Sydney, has now had an audience and prayed with Prime Minister John Howard.
I wonder if they shared a bottle of whisky?
