Something’s wrong in The Village: issues with separatist sects (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this post, I discussed the way the secrecy surrounding religious sects like the one at the Yearning For Zion ranch causes problems for the rest of society. I argued that the recent raid on the ranch was, to some extent, spurred on by the lack of transparency about the sect’s practices. Unable to determine in any other way that children were not being abused, the Texas government had to act on the initial allegation of abuse, and their knowledge of the sect’s prior run-ins with the law, to remove the potential victims of abuse while investigations were carried out.

Today I want to look at another secretive religious sect, this time with a focus on Australia.

The Exclusive Brethren in Australia share the essential qualities of most separatist religious sects. Their members are firmly discouraged from communicating with non-members (called ‘worldlies’), and they are not allowed access to computers, radios, television, newspapers, films, and some books – pretty much anything the leaders of the sect deem inappropriate. Members breaking any of these rules are excommunicated and shunned by their families.

The Exclusive Brethren’s Australian schools are supported by the Federal government to the tune of around $20 million. To receive funding from the government, schools have to satisfy some curriculum requirements, and although you would therefore assume that Exclusive Brethren schools meet those requirements, teachers in those schools (who are often ‘worldlies’) have complained that they the materials they use, and what they are allowed to teach, are strictly monitored and censored.

The Exclusive Brethren don’t condone tertiary education:

We do not go in for higher learning. We gave up universities in the 1960s as the hotbed of atheism. They prove that everything is nothing to their own satisfaction. We have suffered no loss to our knowledge. We particularly recoil from novels and cinemas.

The Exclusive Brethren in Australia don’t vote (illegally, as voting is compulsory in Australia). They believe that government is determined by God, and so should not be interfered with by mere humans. I guess they found this view a little bit difficult to reconcile with the fact that Australia is a democracy, as the 2004 and 2007 federal elections saw much (albeit covert) campaigning by the leaders of the Exclusive Brethren.

When separatist sects aren’t so separate 
Australia, like the US, espouses freedom of religion. As long as you’re not doing anything illegal, you are free to have whatever beliefs you choose. If the Exclusive Brethren choose to live 19th century lifestyles, and keep their affairs to themselves, they are welcome to the patch of earth they occupy.

But they don’t keep their affairs to themselves. It seems that the leaders of the Exclusive Brethren believe that the devil is at play in the world, so they need to fight him by actively involving themselves in politics. Some analysts think that the Exclusive Brethren are starting to behave more like the evangelicals in the US, who believe the rapture will only arrive once they have control of the government. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Exclusive Brethren take a dim view of government by the people, traditionally eschewing politics. Since government properly belongs to God, they do not vote. But in recent years they have moved closer to the political activism of other fundamentalists and pentecostalists, including enthusiastic lobbying. According to them, God’s law rules out homosexuality, single parenthood, hate speech legislation and “big government”.

The restoration of Israel is crucial to Christ’s return, so they endorse pro-Israel policies. Holders of such views welcome authoritarian Christian government as setting the stage for the final showdown between God and Satan.

Whatever their motives, the Exclusive Brethren are impacting on the tranparency of the democratic process by secretly involving themselves in Australia’s elections.

In 2004, the Brethren leadership covertly campaigned in support of the Australian Liberal Party (which, if you’re not familiar with Australian politics, is not really a ‘liberal’ party but a conservative one). More to the point, they launched a smear campaign against the Australian Greens party, mainly because of the party’s ungodly favourable policies on homosexual marriage and adoption. They even resorted to sitting in on Greens party meetings and yelling nasty things about the Greens’ gay leader, Bob Brown.

The Exclusive Brethren didn’t mention the name of their sect in their political advertising. John Howard and the Liberal party had met with leaders of the Exclusive Brethren, so they knew the sect were supporting them, but most voters didn’t have a clue that the advertisements in their newspapers and on billboards were being paid for by a fundamentalist Christian sect. All political advertisements in Australia have to be authorised by someone, and usually, that person’s name and political affiliation is listed on the print advertisement or at the end of a television ad. The Exclusive Brethren used names of individual members of the sect, sometimes used false names, and even set up front companies and addresses to avoid listing their true affiliation.

It is estimated that the Exclusive Brethren pumped $370,000 to the Liberal Party’s campaign in 2004.  

There are calls for the Australian Electoral Commission to investigate the actions of the Exclusive Brethren, but I’m not entirely sure how far this has progressed. Unfortunately, once the elections were over, reports of the Exclusive Brethren’s activities also stopped being headline news. People moved on, but I’m still nursing my grudge, dammit.

And here’s the kicker: the Exclusive Brethren are not exclusive to Australia. They have also been implicated in dirty campaign tactics in New Zealand, Canada, and they spent approximately US$500,000 to support George W. Bush’s re-election campaign.

It’s a step forward that the Exclusive Brethren’s veneer of respectability has been scratched. They complain they are being attacked for their beliefs and unusual practices, and to maintain their secrecy, but adding to the reports about the sect in the media are first-hand accounts of the sect’s activities from ex-members.

Unike Shyamalan’s The Village, separatist religious sects like the Exclusive Brethren and the FLDS do not exist in perfect isolation. Their actions and beliefs impact on the way the societies around them function. Sometimes society’s suspicions are raised (with good reason), and we have to make the decision to impinge on their closed communities – because their secretive nature prevents the rest of us from knowing if everything is really ok behind those closed doors.

Sources and Further reading:
“Hidden Prophets” from the Sydney Morning Herald
Background Briefing on the Exclusive Brethren, from ABC Radio National
Up-to-date info on the activities of the Exclusive Brethren, and support for ex-members or members wanting to leave, at peebs.net
and ‘the only site endorsed by the Exclusive Brethren’