"No church involvement"

The Exclusive Brethren Church has denied it had any involvement in the 2005 election [audio], saying that "there was certainly no church sponsored involement in anything political" and that the publication of anonymous smears, running of push polls, funding and support for the National Party and hiring of private investigators to stalk the Prime Minister and her partner were all the actions of a few individual members.

Of course they were. The facts that the "secret seven" were all high up in the New Zealand Church heirarchy, that hundreds of rank-and-file members contributed to National's campaign as volunteers, that children in Brethren-run schools were given push-polling as "homework assignments", that their political activities followed the same pattern set by the Brethren in the Australian, Swedish, Victorian, Tasmanian, and US elections, and that this is a cult where people don't wipe their arse without a note from the "elect vessel" obviously mean nothing. And if you believe that, I have a god to sell you...