{"id":434290,"date":"2026-05-19T01:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/434290\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T01:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:59:08","slug":"brethren-religious-sect-orders-members-to-get-rid-of-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/434290\/","title":{"rendered":"Brethren religious sect orders members to get rid of pets"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Brethren member who spoke to The Age anonymously said directives from the leadership are rare and her heart \u201csank\u201d when this one was read in the meeting.<\/p>\n

The woman said she could never bear to get rid of her service dog. \u201cIf I\u2019m asked to choose between my church and the dog, it\u2019s going to be the dog,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The church has denied claims of a pet cull, with a spokesman telling The Age the recent message was \u201csimply a reminder of a principle that was established some time ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

They also denied the vastly documented pet purge in the 1960s, saying it was \u201ccompletely untrue \u2026 to the best of our knowledge”.<\/p>\n

Former members of the religious sect now worry that a large-scale pet cull could happen following the recent directive.<\/p>\n

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church has an estimated 54,000 members worldwide, including around 9000 in New Zealand. <\/p>\n

Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Brethren member who spoke to The Age anonymously said directives from the leadership are rare and her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,50,85,14645,5432,222244,10704,82648,12897,1017,42607,48050,1333,1360,97687,33450,101,4754,111,43,139,69,1118,19719,6848,1523,31252,49267,82649,17182,211241,222245,165,61,102,80],"class_list":["post-434290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-animals","tag-australia","tag-beloved","tag-between","tag-brethren","tag-choose","tag-christian","tag-church","tag-exclusive","tag-followers","tag-formerly","tag-get","tag-having","tag-heartbroken","tag-known","tag-left","tag-members","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-ordered","tag-orders","tag-over","tag-pets","tag-plymouth","tag-religious","tag-reportedly","tag-rid","tag-sect","tag-their","tag-to","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}