Who are the Brethren and what do they believe in?

A family arriving at an Exclusive Brethren meeting in Surrey, England in 1964.

Keystone/Getty Images In recent days, investigative journalists have accused members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church of mobilising far-right influencers to harass and heckle Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as well as Labor and Greens candidates, during the 2025 federal election campaign.

Media reports have also linked Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Liberal Party President Tony Abbott to the Brethren’s public-facing charity during an event this weekend.

The church has denied any involvement with harassing politicians.

It maintains only individual members campaigned during the election.

I started researching the Brethren about 20 years ago due, in part, to my interest in the way the group intersects with modern-day Australian society.

While the sect has some very conservative views that many Australians would disagree with – and has been somewhat politically involved in recent years – its political impact has been limited, in my opinion.

Who are the Brethren? The Brethren have their origins in the 1820s in Ireland and England.

They were primarily evangelical Protestant Christians who grew frustrated with mainline denominations and wanted to meet on a very basic premise of sharing the Lord’s Supper together.

The sect gets a name, Plymouth Brethren, because one of the early leaders, the Irishman John Nelson Darby, went to the town of Plymouth in England and began meeting at a private chapel with others who had seceded from the Church of England.

In 1848, the Brethren split into what’s known as the “Open Brethren”, a large group that is quite active internationally today, and the “Exclusive Brethren”, who are far more stringent about who belongs in the assembly and how they relate to the outside world.

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church is the largest of the Exclusive Brethren sects.

It has around 50,000 followers worldwide, the largest number of which are in Australia (about 15,000).

The Brethren are a very conservative Christian church.