Members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church reveal beliefs and secret practices
For decades members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church have kept their beliefs and practices secret, until now. See the list.
For decades members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church have kept their beliefs and practices secret, until now…
RADIO
Charles Hales: This was from one of our leaders from 1941… “Can I have the radio, which is like a pipeline carrying all the filth of the world into my house? I’m responsible to cut that off.” There’s no rules to say you cannot listen to the radio, And I’m sure people would. But we would encourage them not to, because we believe that you can’t control what’s going to come over it. And it only needs to be one thing.
MOVIES
Dean Hales: We don’t (go to the movies) but we might watch a few documentaries and a few interesting things at home.
SPORT
Dean Hales: We love rugby (union). We don’t attend rugby games but we tend to watch a few highlights.
Charles Hales: I wouldn’t encourage my child to be obsessed with individual football stars and find them as idols, or be obsessed with sport to the point where he then walks away from God and Christianity. That can happen. However we encourage physical activity. We love our sport.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Dean Hales: If you take my daughter, she’s 19, I don’t believe she has access to Facebook or Instagram… typically, we try to keep them off Facebook.
Charles Hales: I would say the word “encourage.” We would teach them of the dangers and encourage them not to. But again, it’s not this hard and fast rule. If someone’s daughter was on Facebook… like what you do in your household is up to you.
PETS
Charles Hales: We used to have a lot of dogs in the community, and they used to have to be in houses. We believe there’s a scripture that speaks about going from glory to glory, which we refer to as our housing and the assembly, which is where you were last night. And we don’t believe that a house is a pure place because with a dog in it, living in it, because dogs are spoken of in the Bible.
Dean Hales: There’s no rule, per se - no one’s going to be excommunicated or shut out of the church if they’ve got a dog.
CHRISTMAS, EASTER, BIRTHDAY
Dean Hales: We don’t typically celebrate Easter and Christmas because we celebrate Christ’s death every Lord’s day. But birthdays are probably a fairly local event, but it happens in the family setting.
WEDDINGS
Dean Hales: Weddings are on Tuesday. They’re done in the house now. And they probably do the house up… nice food and drinks… immediate friends and family… they’d have a Brethren photographer present.
HOLIDAYS
Dean Hales: The basis to get away would be to go and see some friends and family. I went to the US nearly two weeks ago, and I did a couple of days of business. And then on Thursday and Friday, we went into New York, did some shopping, went out and bought lunch, took the kids around, went for a swim at a lake.
Charles Hales: But we’re not going to go to Bali for two weeks because there’s no church there. We are going to go somewhere - we typically believe that it needs to be for a purpose. So it’s either business or to see family and friends to encourage them.
SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY
Dean Hales: It’s not mandatory for the Brethren kids to go to OneSchool, the Brethren school, but I would say probably 95% do. For the first three years - kindergarten to second grade, they go to government schools.
Typically we don’t go to universities on campus because we say on campus life doesn’t align with our values and way of life… but we have plenty of our high-performing students doing extracurricular and postgraduate studies via correspondence.
FELLOWSHIP
Charles Hales: Because of the fact we only eat and drink with those that we go to the Lord’s Supper with - if you picture, if someone wanted to join the church, for instance, you’re gonna have to stop eating and drinking with a circle of friends that you’ve had for many years. Doesn’t entirely make sense.
That’s part of our suffering. We seek to be unworldly and to be less worldly every day of our lives. And it’s not that we think we’re better than the world or better than those that are outside of our church.
It’s almost like an unwritten contract or a covenant with those Brethren.
“CONFINEMENT” OF MEMBERS
Dean Hales: (the term “confinement”) means you would be restricted from coming to the Church services. And typically, in that situation, they would make a decision on whether they want to mend their ways and put things right and then be re-allowed back to the church for their earlier privileges.
Charles Hales: they’re not locked in their bedroom or locked in their house… and mostly it would tend towards some kind of unfaithfulness, or something quite serious.
FORMER MEMBERS
Dean Hales: “excommunicate” is when someone has been confined, they’ve been appealed to to say, look, can you change the error of your ways and get reconciled and come back to the church and they decide not. Could be years. And generally believe that they’ve gone and pursued a pathway or lifestyle that’s completely at variance by what we live by.
Charles Hales: In the last 10 years in Sydney, which is about 800 to 900 people, eight people have left. Four were young people that just chose a different pathway and we are in touch with all four of them. The other four were husbands that were cheating on their wives and decided to leave.
GAY MEMBERS
Charles Hales: Dean and I both know of individuals who have come out as gay and have remained in the church for more than 10 years…
They ultimately departed, this was amicable. Coming out as gay does not mean you are immediately put out of the Brethren or asked to leave…
The nature and character of the lifestyle of a gay person is regarded by the Brethren as against the law of God which finally means their situation becomes incompatible with the Brethren fellowship.”
HEAVEN
Charles Hales: There are billions, billions of Christians, all through time, that are going to be up there with us. We don’t think we are the only ones.
Dean Hales: We believe that God will have a majority when the rapture comes into the next world. And we believe that all men will be saved, and come to the knowledge of God.
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Originally published as Members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church reveal beliefs and secret practices
