Well – Bruce’s little white book on all things Brethren is a bit of an eye-opener if I’m honest. It is full of glaring anomalies, including the admission that they made young people confess to things and then booted them out for it. He now reckons this was wrong.
At least he is honest about that – it happened in the assembly I was in where they dispensed with the best part of a generation. Some church! Some Christians! Some forgiveness. It is where they lost all credibility for me.
It wasn’t God doing anything Bruce- it was a bunch of vindictive old men bringing each other down – through their children. And it was never put right. BDH has the happy knack of putting things onto God when it suits him or the answer for the Peebs is unpalatable or irrefutably wrong. But I’m getting morose…… the point of this missive follows:
In the spirit of sharing and discussion I throw a few more gems out for your edification. There is no subject left untouched. Even that of deportment is dealt with in detail.
Under the banner of DEPORTMENT, he seems to have a preoccupation with sideburns, long hair and white shirts. I recall being frequently taken to task over my unruly hair and sideburns which in reality was just bum fluff -but it was an issue that just wouldn’t got away. Or rather – an issue that grew back.
Back to the Famous “Index by BDH on all things Brethren”
(Yeah yeah… Copywrited by the Gospel & Bible Trust guys- and all power to them I say.)
General Deportment
“might have to make some external changes, sideburns, long hair, stupid coloured shirts.”
(See -I told you he had it in for coloured shirts! Silently thanks God that they don’t have an assembly in Hawaii.)
Hair– “If your father did your hair when four, why do you have to change your hairstyle when you are fourteen?”
(Psst Bruce. My father did my hair when I was 6. The bugger put a pudding bowl on my head and cut around the edges. Apart from the issue of it hurting like hell, I looked like a Trappist Monk! I made a pact with God that day that he would never let him near me again. I cannot emphasize the derogatory effect this had on Peeb culture for me when faced with a school full of jeering derisory schoolkids. Talk about testimony. Sheeesh!)
“Part in the hair – very critical” (For whom??)
“off your forehead- that’s good”
Hair – (women) “folly to put colour in your hair; God gives you hair and the colour.”
(Bruce – I hate to point this out but the Almighty has not been too forthcoming in the follicle department where you are concerned. Should you be worried??)
Sideburns.
‘Take an inch off, mightn’t mean much, it’s a moral advance, take sideburns up, take hair off your forehead”
“Stand right up to them” (the kids I’m presuming here) “if you don’t do it I’ll take them off!”
“Want them half an inch higher, that’s rigid.”
(Note to self – How come Darby and Stoney and Raven and the rest of them all had huge sidies?? Stoney looked like Bob Geldoff on a bad day.)
Scarves
“Will protect you from yourself; won’t go into a wrong place with one”
“Sisters going around without scarves on, it is painful, painful, it’s painful.”
(He means it- it’s painful!)
Shirts “colour of shirt, like the idea of being low key”
(These I hasten to add are so low key that you can pick a Peeb a mile off by the white shirts.)
He then has a global review – which might have been better placed beneath a heading –
“The Universal World according to Bruce Hales.”
I offer just a few snippets.
Asia. “Good place for wicked people to go, not for Christians.”
So that’s settled then
.
Australia “slipped when JSH unavailable” (I think he means when he was made unavailable to the Brethren. Anyway – wow- I always wondered why Australia went backwards then. I thought it was because of the lousy government. But JSH getting the boot? Who’d have thunk that?)
Queensland “thinks it’s another country; mighty hard to get them to do business – nothing before lunch”
Germany “Germans were beat, they always will be, God will see to it if there is another war with Germany, it would cease to exist”
(Sheeesh Bruce- how many times I gotta tell you – DON’T mention the war!)
Scotland “they love skirmishes, they were always coming down and demolishing part of England”
Switzerland “hides the crooks; crooked wealth in Swiss banks”
(No mention of good watches or chocolate. Pffft!)
UK monarchy “poor such and such -he married the most beautiful woman in the world and still not satisfied”
(Psst ! I think he is talking about Charles…)
USA “Einstein was helpful to the US, atomic bomb, pray they hold the initiative; it’s safe in their hands”
“If every man submits to authority, we could wipe out the deficit of USA in three months”
(….hello US Treasury? Have I got the answer for you. If every man submits to authority… no authority! A-U-T-H…ah! Forget it!)
And my biggest let down of all. When I’m dead – I not really dead because I am going to be deaded -er- again as the great Eccles would say.
Cremation “folly of persons thinking they can reduce body to ashes and escape the second death”
Yikes. ..I’m pushing my luck I can see…..
