Talk:Exclusive Brethren/Archive 1

message: I've looked through the official Exclusive Brethren website , and I haven't been able to find any contact information.  The domain was only registered 5 months ago, and it's administered by a law firm somewhere in Canada.  This doesn't surprise me given who they are, but I was wondering if there's actually any evidence that this is their official website.  Otherwise, perhaps we should point out that it's possibly a hoax, if only because there's no verification available that it's not.  If the Exclusive Brethren really are so exclusive of the rest of society, they might not even know about it. Izogi 03:17, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't heard from anyone about this, so I've just edited the article to indicate that it's unverified as official.  If anyone has something to cite to indicate otherwise, by all means change it back. Izogi 22:02, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The official EB website 

message: In his addresss to the Westminister Fellowship of Ministers on 19 June 1963, entitled 'Consider Your Ways'  The Outline of a New Strategy, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones included the following:
"Another reason, upon which I am not going to dilate, concerns what has been happening among the Exclusive Brethren.  I am myself very deeply impressed by this, as I know many of you are.  I feel that it creates a new situation for us.  Here are numbers of people who have come out of the bondage in which they have been held for so long, and they are scattered all over the country, not quite knowing what to do or where to turn.  They are a body of people who in many respects have unique qualities, and I feel that it is a challenge to us to determine our relationship to them."  ((p.166 in Knowing the Times, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth (1989) .))
It is clear from these remarks that MLJ regarded these former EBs as fellow-believers, and that he wanted to help them.
DFH 21:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have moved this piece to the "Where are they now" Section as it demonstrates that not all who left were in fact seen as damaged, warped or in fact adversely affected but were seen as Christians with something valuable to contribute to the Christian community at large.  81.137.208.199 22:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the EBs 

message: Isn't a bit POV to start it by flat out saying they "are a secretive Christian cult?" They might be a cult, what little I know makes it sound plausible. However Aum Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians are just called "a religious group" in the first sentence of their articles. The word "cult" apparently doesn't even appear in the first paragraph of either article. The article on the Church Universal and Triumphant doesn't even mention a leading member stockpiling weapons and dismisses any cult allegations way down the line and in quick fashion. So considering all that I don't see why this group gets called a cult right off the bat. Are they like killing and raping people en masse? And if it is so clearcut that they're a cult shouldn't they be in :Category:Cults?--T. Anthony 10:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The opening still mentions cult allegations, but I took the word out of the first sentence.--T. Anthony 02:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Umm POV issues?

message: Just some thoughts rather fragmented: would be glad of some feedback
Definitions of Exclusive Brethren
‘’’PB’’’ Plymouth Brethren the name given for the whole Brethren movement. This divides into 2 groups. Exclusive Brethren and Open Brethren
‘’’EB’’’ Exclusive Brethren or perhaps more accurately “Connexional” brethren as opposed to Open or Independent Brethren. They are also commonly known as “Darbyites” after John Nelson Darby one of the early Brethren leaders who brought about the rift with Open Brethren.  EB believe that there is a necessary unity of the assembly which has to be practically expressed. Matters of fellowship and church discipline are not merely a matter of local responsibility but must be taken account of universally: actions in one meeting are universally to be accepted in the others. There are common threads throughout all groups, eg the practice of household baptism and the centrality of the Lord’s Supper in weekly worship [NB Need Truth are connexional even though they are associated with Open Brethren”] There are two main branches of EB.
‘’’Raven/Taylor’’’ Brethren sometimes known as the “London” Party after their HQ at Park Street. These brethren accepted the ministry of Mr Raven particularly in respect of his teaching on Eternal Life and also the ministry of Mr James Taylor Senior with respect to the Eternal Sonship question and the ministry of addressing the Holy Spirit in worship. They are a diverse group today. Some of this group have modified or qualified their acceptance of or rejected the teachings of Mr Taylor Senior but generally accept that of Mr Raven perhaps with reservations in some cases. [Glanton meetings initially accepted, albeit with reservations, the teachings of Mr Raven but should not now be grouped with Raven/Taylor]
‘’’Kelly/Lowe/Glanton’’’ This group represents over 50 years of reunions amongst non-Taylor/Raven Brethren culminating in 1974. Whereas Reuniting Brethren would have been an apposite label, recent divisions have split the movement. This group is the largest single group by far of Brethren on the European mainland. In the UK they have absorbed many of the Tunbridge Wells meetings and sundry other smaller groups. Reunion with ex-Taylor meetings has been hampered by mutual suspicion and disagreement on the doctrines of the Eternal Son, Eternal Life and the matter of addressing the Holy Spirit in worship even though there is often a great measure of agreement in theory, in practice there is often not the liberty to differ. 
They have the closest claim to be called "Darbyite as they do not accept the concept of "progressive ministry" by which the practices and teachings of brethren evolve according to "current light" or "current ministry". Neither do they accept the concept of "authoritative ministry" as being divinely sanctioned and binding on those in fellowship. 
‘’’Raven/Taylor Divisions’’’ Generally speaking at present, the Raven/Taylor Group divide into 3 groups:
Taylor/Symington/Hales often confusingly called “Exclusive Brethren” Those who remained in fellowship with James Taylor Junior after 1970 have remained broadly undivided although they along with all other exclusives but perhaps to a lesser degree suffer from defections to other brethren, other denominations etc. They practice separation from the world in its strictest form among brethren generally and have generally ostracised those who have departed from them though they are quite happy to engage in business activities with those not under discipline. They have been the subject of quite widespread controversy and unwelcome publicity. As regards to doctrine, while not openly eschewing the ministry of “Men of the Recovery”, their public ecclesiological stance is at odds with the published writings of Darby/Raven/Taylor Senior.
Pre-Aberdeen Outs. These meetings left the Raven/Taylor group during the ministry of Mr Taylor Senior or Taylor Junior but chiefly as a reaction to the ministry of the latter. There has been some reuniting with some of the Post Aberdeen outs but the number of meetings is very small and many have joined other brethren and other denominations.
Post Aberdeen Outs. These meetings separated from James Taylor Jnr in 1970 in the immediate aftermath of meetings at Aberdeen. They have divided several times since then and are very fragmented. Some meetings have become de facto independents others have joined with Pre Aberdeen Outs. Some retain the concept of "authoritative ministry" and they have varying degrees of freedom to attend services in other meetings and churches. They have a wide variety of doctrinal viewpoints and practices having reacted to a greater or lesser degree to Taylorite teachings. The Kingston Bible Trust under the auspices of the “Croydon” group produces a selection of ministry in the Darby/Raven/Taylor category.
:The US Library of Congress classifies various Brethren groupings by means of Roman numerals. See Talk:Plymouth Brethren#US Library of Congress classification of Brethren. DFH 21:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exclusive Brethren: Towards a more accurate Nomenclature 

message: I have just altered the section levels to improve the article structure.  However, I feel less than satisfied about the location of the Politics sub-section.  Should this be moved out-with the main section on Taylorites ? DFH 21:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the politics issue is a valid one because of the Taylorite interest in Australian/New Zealand elections etc at the moment. But there is a problem since the Taylorites are at odds with the received wisdom amongst PBs which is basically Pietism if not Quietism! This other view needs to be given as it is the mainstream view from which the Taylorites very interestingly are diverting
81.137.208.199 22:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sub-sections 

message: I have just tagged the main article as requiring some cleanup.  Reading through the discussion page, it is apparent that some of the users are not that well experienced in composing good encyclopedia articles, and this article certainly suffers because of this weakness. The difficulty is in all likelihood compounded by the fact that those with the good inside knowledge of the various EB groups are probably not so well placed for writing about them disinterestedly and so keeping to a NPOV. DFH 21:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you have made the first section much more readable. I think that is needs a lot of sifting. Part of the problem is that in many minds Exclusive Brethren = Taylor Brethren so the strands have all got to be sorted out. The politics section is a case in point. It really needs deleting and starting again. and it is a bit of a battlefield by the look of it. The converse problem is that there is a surprising amount of bitterness between Kelly / Raven Sections from which the two main sections all spring and some discipline is required to avoid the temptation to score points and to give an historical resume which is factually useful. Gregory Morris, St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden 22:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any improvements I attempt will largely be to do with general readibility and structure/formatting.  My own detailed knowledge about EBs is now somewhat dated—see the most recent section of my talk page. DFH 14:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: I've gone through the whole article and tried to make it consistent.  I've removed statements of obvious bias and shuffled content around a little.  I think there's still a lot more left to do though.  I can't do this myself as I know almost nothing about EB except for what I've read here today.  Suggested improvments include:
* I think it would help to mention that most of the time when the media talk about Exclusive Brethren, they're talking about Taylorite Exclusive Brethren
* I may not have removed all occurences of EB, JTJr etc; these should be spelled out
* Names should probably be put in full rather than saying "Mr Raven".  What was his full name?  The honorific Mr might be better omitted
* I'm confused about the London Brethren.  At the start of the article it seems to be another name for Taylorite but towards the end it appears to be part of one of the groups' schisms.
* The Taylor/Raven bit in the introduction needs work so that the article flows better.  Perhaps it should go after the Kelly stuff
* In the Kelly Lowe etc stuff some groups are mentioned who don't appear to have merged to form the reformed group.  Did they do so, or not?
* We seem to use the word Meeting(s)/Assemblies/group interchangeably.  I think it would be good to pick one and stick with it.
* It seems from the article that JTJr ran the Aberdeen meeting, caused a scene and then died.  Is this the case or is the year of his death wrong?
* Citations definitely need work.
* Is there any evidence that we can point to that the EB treat those who are excommunicated in the same way that Leviticus says God's people should treat lepers?
* There are some snarky comments in various parts of the article which need to be reviewed.  For example:
** The cult of personality has now reached the stage where God and religion have been largely replaced by references to "our beloved" who is either the current Man of God or one of his predecessors.
** Students of history could see the similarity between this and the rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky which resulted in the latter's expulsion from the Communist Party and subsequent assassination
** The "Man of God" increasingly filled the celebrity gap.
* I suspect the article would flow better if "Exclusive Brethren" was replaced with "Brethren" for most of the relevant parts of the Taylorite section.
* It would be good if the article detailed (or explicitly pointed to another page which covers) the EB tenets of faith and how they celebrate that.  This section should also provide basic glossary stuff such as what the Elect Vessel and Man of God and Men of the Recovery are and what that means.  History is good, but I want to know more about what they profess to believe, how they act, how I might recognise one in the street...
Jarich 06:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some cleanup/hints for future work

message: I've done a fair amount of the above.  The following tasks still remain
* Names should probably be put in full rather than saying "Mr Raven".  What was his full name?  The honorific Mr might be better omitted
* In the Kelly Lowe etc stuff some groups are mentioned who don't appear to have merged to form the reformed group.  Did they do so, or not?
* We seem to use the word Meeting(s)/Assemblies/group interchangeably.  I think it would be good to pick one and stick with it.
* It seems from the article that JTJr ran the Aberdeen meeting, caused a scene and then died.  Is this the case or is the year of his death wrong?
* Is there any evidence that we can point to that the EB treat those who are excommunicated in the same way that Leviticus says God's people should treat lepers?
* It would be good if the article detailed (or explicitly pointed to another page which covers) more of the EB tenets of faith and how they celebrate that.  This section should also provide basic glossary stuff such as what the Elect Vessel and Man of God and Men of the Recovery are and what that means.
* The External links section needs to be reviewed and perhaps split into favourable/unfavourable.
* The history section needs to be considered for relevance.  Think about why people are coming to this page and what they want to know.  Dirty laundry from 40 years ago may not be high on their list.  It's also confusing.
* There's a bunch of interesting information in the Taylorite section which may be better moved up into other parts of the article.
* If there is actually a requirement for women to cover their heads in public and at worship then that should be mentioned earlier.
Thanks.  Jarich 03:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remaining work 

message: Whoever it is who keeps posting the assertion that "The Exclusive Brethren are a sinister, secretive and manipulative sect." may be right in part but s/he does not seem to understand that the term Exclusive Brethren is much wider than the Taylorite Brethren and embraces a wide spectrum of Christians. That is what the summary is trying to say in order to balance a widely held but erroneous view that EBs = followers of Jim Taylor, B Hales etc. The majority of EB meetings do not fall into this category. 
I am not an apologist for the Taylorites but at least if you feel that  what you are saying is factual, insert it under the correct heading. It is very easy to post something that is emotive or sensational but much more satisfying to stick to the facts.
Toodlepip
Gregory Morris, St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden 15:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put a message on what appears to me to be the main user's talk page.  I'm not sure if it's a dynamic IP (the fact the user has made a number of changes to this article over several days suggests it may not be).  The user has made constructive edits recently too, so I'm sure this is a misunderstanding about what constitutes POV rather than vandalism. Chovain 00:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endless Reverts 

message: In the New Zealand Section-2.3.3-the following line appears in the fourth paragraph: Anti-feminist mens' rights and anti-gay campaigner Chuck Bird has claimed responsibility for the offending photograph. I can't figure out from any of the preceeding paragraphs what photograph is being referred to. R Duggan 22:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That comment came in with this edit.  The photo they are referring to is explained in this ref, but not described in the article.  This article seems to refute the suggestion that he was responsible for the photo - rather that he got the photo from 'a contact', and passing them onto a newspaper.  I say we take out the sentence altogether unless anyone can piece together the news stories. Chovain 05:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What photograph? 

message: I'm going to look into improving the references in this article (It seems drastically under-referenced at the moment).  While I'm at it, would anyone mind if I changed to CITET-style referencing? Chovain 22:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: AGoon and I have discussed our recent edits on our talk pages (a full copy is available here).  
To summarise, AGoon changed National's direction from "centre-right" to "right-wing" in order to be consistent with Labour's "left-wing" direction.  I thought subtle POV was being introduced as Brash's stated direction is "centre-right", which is also how the media tends to describe National.  
AGoon has suggested both Labour and National directions be changed to 'left/right oriented'.  I think it is an excellent idea as it avoids using terms that have much stronger meanings outside NZ, yet reasonably accurately describes their policies, and does a good job of helping outsiders understand the situation.  I assume AGoon will go ahead with the change.  If anyone has anything to say about it, it should probably be discussed here. Chovain 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed my mind :-) orientated looks a little stilted, so I've just changed Labour from left-wing to centre-left - now it looks like the Greens are centre-left too ... I'd better edit that ... :-) --AGoon 05:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direction of Brash's National party 

message: I question the neutrality of the article.  Need to state facts alone and avoid opinions or hypotheses.  Difficult when emotional about a topic, I'm sure.
Comments like:
James Taylor Jr built on the "authoritative ministry" doctrine to assert his views as dominant amongst brethren. He also filled a void in brethren's lives for a cult of personality. Exclusive Brethren were denied access to drama, cinema and television and so were largely unaware of the "stars" of stage and screen. The "Man of God" increasingly filled the celebrity gap.
are very much a POV.  Wikisuperfixer 16:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Wikisuperfixer. If you know something about this topic it would be good if you could help edit the article to help improve it. Feel free to rewrite with a neutral point of view or remove POV statements. -- Barrylb 16:14, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  I think this is a bit too much work! :-) Wikisuperfixer 16:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: I've nominated the article for POV checks as I didn't feel it's neutrality was under active discussion.  I believe that I've removed most of the non-neutral stuff, but I find wading through the history section quite irksome so I may have missed some stuff.
Jarich 09:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV nomination check