Post Archive

Having deleted the earliest posts for reasons that I'll explain later, I'm preserving the content of them here for posterity.

Post Leicester Low

Late June is a good time to begin a blog about the Exclusive Brethren.

The universal meetings have come and gone, and the usual fevered anticipation of radical "tests" and other bombshells has given way to the usual air of let-down that nothing much was said out of the ordinary. It rarely (I was going to say "never") is. I don't know why brethren expect sweeping changes in June, they just do. I suppose it suits everybody, leadership and all, because, post-hype, even obvious banalities are picked over in search of something about them that must be deep in some way. It must be nice to be at the apex of that, and all you have to do is throw out some seeds to get the credit for a whole blossoming of ministry.

If you know nothing about the brethren, then the above has a lot that needs explaining. The universal meetings are a little like the World Series, in that they are only universal if you discount vast swathes of the universe; in this case, starting with everything that's not Earth, then everything that's not human, then everything that's not brethren, and finally all the brethren who don't count. Other than that, they're universal, and at least somebody from everywhere where there are brethren is present. If your blinkers are set narrow enough, that's pretty wide. And exceedingly important. And they happen once a year, in June, and since 1994 (I think) have been in Leicester, UK. It's a long weekend of sitting and listening to the dear leader, sorry, the Elect Vessel. More than that I wouldn't know, because I've never been.


Computers

I've been chuckling to myself a lot lately.

It's the incongruousness of OPENLY using a computer in a brethren office. I do it, the girls do it ... but not as much as the bosses do. It's not called a computer, of course, and it's custom built and comes with pre-approved applications, but it is so obviously a computer that I can't help smirking All this time my computers have been illicit, and here's the new approved item taking pride of place, and everybody loves it. Well, not quite, but those who are doubtful are the suspicious characters who have no faith in the way we're being led.

It makes me think a bit, though. I'm sure not so long ago Bill Gates was described as "a prototype for the Man of Sin", which is quite damning, even for brethren. So why are the brethren computers all, without fail, exclusively Microsoft affairs? Besides this footling issue of principle, surely there would be less risk of brethren getting the hang of this PC stuff who ought not to, if it was all a tightly locked-down open-source system? It's not as though the high command wanted a cheap off-the-shelf system. Maybe that's just too simple. There's an element of mystery to these things, as might be said in a meeting.

Another thing it makes me think is that I really dislike Word. Mind you, what with a capitalised Word and a Brother printer, computers don't get much more brethren-friendly. But seriously, what an obstructive application that is. I get given the awkward computer jobs to do, because I know more about it (and why would that be?), but Word is doing a very good job of making me seem not TOO familiar with PCs. I've had Office on my own computer since 1999 if I remember rightly, but never got into Word. Excel is OK.

And don't get me started on the mythical laptops that appear provided from some central source whenever something officially important is going on. I'm all for computers in general. Great labour-savers. But let's please use them properly, so they actually save labour.


Time To Get Personal

After two posts, anyone might say "why do you stick with these idiots?".
They have a point.
The lifestyle is restrictive to the point of absurdity, without the consistency of other hyper-conservative sects. There's a lot of pressure in numbers of ways, mostly a variety of requirements to conform. To measure the narrowness of outlook would need a whole new system of microscopic units. And, not least, it gets more tiring than you'd think giving the impression that you believe every single dull yet specific pronouncement.
So why not get out?
That's something I often wonder. Really, it's the people. How such a good-hearted set of individuals can combine to make such a mean-spirited group is hard to understand. I would (and probably will) miss many friends after leaving, and that's without considering the agony of breaking up a family. One thing the Exclusive Brethren understand very well is that you can make people value something by imposing high costs both on keeping it and losing it. So the restrictions while in are matched by promised restrictions once out, in the form of an utter severance from everybody you know and care about. Of course, that wouldn't matter if there was nobody worth caring about, but there is. I have many friends, and the fact that they believe unbelievable things doesn't stop them being friends.
Then beyond that is the difficulty of making a new life once well into adulthood. Among the brethren, you get everything on a plate, from what to do with your time upwards. Jobs are provided, and help given if you start a business, and because brethren don't get worldly qualifications, it would be very hard to match your earnings with an outside job. And while dealing with that, you need to find a new home, new friends, all the components of life that you need to feel human. Brethren get more reliant on close society than I think they realise.
So, to sum up, if you think it's hard to be in the Exclusive Brethren, you will struggle to see how hard it can be to go. That's why many ex-members are so bitter even after years. They resent having to make such an intolerable choice.


Beatles Ban Anniversary

It just occurred to me today that we have now had a Beatles-free year. What we suffer to remain pure!
Back in the sixties the group became personnel non grata (sorry), and then gradually OK again, but we're in a time of sixties revival so maybe it's not so surprising that this ban should revive as well. In another way it's strange though, because through the seventies and eighties, a lot was made of music, and it was said that all music was of God. Well, I'm sorry to differ in this, but as far as I'm concerned the Beatles' music still is. I'm not so sure about Elton John, who's the other banned person so far, but on the Beatles I won't budge.
Actually, it doesn't make a big difference to me. If I want to listen to the Beatles I can. But I have to say there's not much to match their songs for a good singalong. And now that's out, and I have missed it.
We'll see if the ban lasts longer than it did four decades ago.


Care Meetings

Care Meetings have changed in feel over the last few years. Maybe it's just where I am, but I don't imagine that can be all it is.

It's some time since it was a kind of free-for-all, giving away a medium-size pot of money to deserving causes (within EB parameters) and making decisions on the spot. It gradually developed into a pre-arranged list of donations (sorry, "gifts"), with the fig-leaf of a check with the assembled company that it met with their approval.

These days, there is very little scope for any input at all. Fixed sums of cash to Levites (the catch-all name for men who've achieved a certain minimum status among the brethren) take up about half the amount to be disposed of, and the list is stitched up in advance. It has to be, because only people in the know can tell if a particular person qualifies.

The real let-down is in the area of what might cynically be called real need. There are funds for poor brethren in deprived areas, funds for those with large travel costs, places with building expenses for their meeting halls - and in the little world of the exclusive brethren, these count as real deserving causes. It used to feel good selecting one or two of these for some money. But more recently, most of them have been lumped together into one or two "general funds", and it's left to some central committee to decide who gets what. Donations are required to be large, but they must all go to the shadowy organisation who knows best what to do with them.

What's more, the building costs have been separated out into a collection of their own at another time of the month, so the drain on the wallet has been doubled. And even that isn't consistent. I heard of one place where they collected some really big sums of money, really sacrificing significant quanitites of their income for a few months, because they knew they'd soon be starting work on a meeting hall themselves and would want funds to draw on. Then, when they started their building work, they applied to that same fund, and were told they wouldn't be getting any funding because they'd proved there was enough money in the place to provide for themselves. I haven't heard whether they're still collecting much for that fund.

But to return to Care Meetings, it may not be long before brethren only meet together quickly to rubber-stamp a single payment directly to the Man of God(tm). That's because the instruction from on high is to send something every month, but to vary the amount. The net result? Well, when you have everybody anxious to show that they appreciate the leadership at least as much as everybody else, and hopefully more, then it's very difficult to vary that amount downwards. The ratchet effect should ensure that eventually there is no money left for any other causes.