New Zealand is home to a Christian group known as the Destiny Churches led by 'Bishop' Brian Tamaki and his wife, 'Pastor' Hannah. They operate a number of churches in New Zealand and at least one in Australia. A partial history of the church can be found
here and
here. Unsurprisingly, the church preaches a prosperity gospel and a socially conservative message.
Does "socially conservative" mean "rabidly homophobic"?
I presume the prosperity is all Brian Tamaki's.
The Bish and Hannah have been criticised for their lavish lifestyle, allegedly funded by badgering their followers into tithing 10% of their income lest they be under a curse.
Fair enough; god needs cash, and since they can't give it directly to the god-thing, next best choice is His Royal Highness Brian Tamaki.
In 2005 an allied political party won 0.6% of the vote at a NZ election but the party fell apart before the 2008 election (despite a divine promise that they would be ruling the country by 2008).
Don't be fooled by the basic numbers - Tamki is as cunning as a ****-house rat and his plan for Density to enter Parliament is a lot more sophisticated than you might casually think.
Tamaki has been getting families to move to a certain area for some years now and I'm quite sure his intention is to win that one electorate as a start. Probably won't be ready in 2011, but 2014 is a good show as the church continues growing.
The church is also attracting attention for its desire to create a township within Auckland that would cut off its church members from the rest of the community.
See above - it's being driven politically rather than for any other reason.
But what has really attracted
attention has been the
news this week that he has managed to convince 700 male followers to swear their loyalty and submission to him as their 'spiritual father' 'God's chosen man' and promising spiritual rewards for those who 'honour' him with 'surprise gifts'. They are also expected to stop Tamaki's critics 'in their tracks'; to protect him from outsiders and to loudly affirm him when he preaches in order to build "an atmosphere that is conducive to supernatural events".
It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Well, I have for some years been asking how long until Tamaki claims to either be a god, or at least directly descended from one.
Bishop Tamaki doesn't like me.
The most worrying thing about Density is not the cult-like nature of it, nor the cult-leader worship of Tamaki, but more the clear violence which is threatened by both words and actions.
Tamakis followers wear black shirts, which gives a nicely ironic picture, given the original blackshirts' nature.
They did a haka at the entrance to Parliament a few years back as an anti-gay protest, and let me tell you, every poofter in Welly stayed well out of the way of 500 young Maori men displaying violent gestures towards their kind.
I couldn't see anything in the links about how a "church" is defined in NZ. Do you know if it gets tax breaks, is protected from vilification by law and that sort of thing? Because it sure looks like a cult undeserving of any special status. (Yes I know it can be strongly argued that no church deserves special treatment, but that's another issue).
It is a registered church just as is the RCC.
That won't change, and for two reasons:
1 John Key cannot upset Maoridom as they form the backbone of his support.
2 Even "moderate" Maori are first and foremost Maori, so the old "My borther and I against my cousin" comes into play, and at the first sign of legal action against Density, we'd be knee-deep in gang members siding with the church, arms linked with Tame Iti.
I continue to be amazed by the likes of people who can join these cults. Brain dead people.
Correct!
That said, most of them were born brain dead, being almost exclusively from decile 1.
Or lost people; or desperate people; or lonely people. Have a bit of charity/empathy/whatever.
Lonely, desperate and lost people have lots of places to go, especially in a welfare paradise like NZ.
______________________________________________________________
gtc - I hadn't started a thread here because it's pretty obvious that no matter what happens, neither Tamaki nor his adherents will listen to an atheist, or bunch of atheists, attacking them. I know - I attacked him for years and all I had to show for it was a pile of death and miscellaneous other threats.
The blame for Tamaki's church falls squarely on the shoulders of "mainstream" christianity, which almost all church members have broken away from.
Maori have had their own church for well over a century - the Ratana Church, an offshoot of Anglicanism originally. It is largely to blame for thr Density fiasco by introducing leader-worship in churches. In fact, it seems a peculiarly NZ thing for congregations to worship their leaders. (Read,
brown NZ thing, as I don't see it outside Polynesian and Maori churches.)
I have started a couple of threads on the subject of Tamaki at christian boards, because the overriding fact to date has been the deafening silence of those mainstream churches to say a bad word about Tamaki and his blackshirts.
The clear message from theists is that the god's desire is for people to have free will and choose whichever church they want, so it's not their problem.
They will not attack Tamaki; the Ratana and other churches will not tell the members that they are wrong and extend an olive branch for the membership to change back to a "normal" church, and the govrenment will do nothing.
Accordingly, I am taking the only sensible approach:
The members are all just thick coons of no consequence, **** 'em. Why should I care that several thousand Maori are being ripped off by another Maori?
