Tamaki's focus was the election result and the state of Kiwi society.

The outspoken Bishop began his address with an apology for being late, attributing it to watching the All Blacks.

Still, his speech quickly turned political and confrontational as he addressed the election outcomes.

"So did National win last night on the back of the fact is that we're so anti-Christ that a person (Simon O'Connor former Tamaki MP) can't any longer stand up for their Christian faith?

"Just to say: I agree with the abortion changes in America?

"What sort of Christians are we breeding? ... Gutless Kiwis ... gutless Christians!"

Despite Tamaki's fervour, the Destiny Church-affiliated Freedoms NZ umbrella party managed to secure only 0.31 percent of the total votes, totaling 7031.

Hannah Tamaki, wife of the Bishop also shared her thoughts on the election results during the gathering.

"I'm actually quite glad that the prime minister of the day is a married man who has a beautiful wife and children because the exiting one told everybody last night that 'a lot of you don't know my partner Toni.' Well, we knew, but we didn't know," Hannah said.

This impassioned gathering highlighted the ongoing debates and divisions within New Zealand society over issues related to faith, politics, and societal values.

Source

• Stuff

Tamaki went live on social media with the video message this morning, using the sermon as an extended promotion for a nationwide protest planned for October 2. Continue reading

Roughly 1000 people gathered in Aotea Square to hear the pair make their pitch for their party, Vision New Zealand, ahead of the upcoming election. Read more

Quick, name the most prominent New Zealander you can think of who is a Christian.

Chances are if you follow the news at all, that the first name that comes to mind is probably Brian Tamaki.

The leader of Destiny Church absolutely dominates media coverage of Christianity in this country.

It doesn't matter that his version of Christianity is an extreme form, with relatively few adherents.

During the absolute peak of its powers Destiny Church had around 10,000 members.

At the time of the last census, there were close to two million Christians in New Zealand. The share is tiny, and the attention is wildly disproportionate.

We've seen this time and again with Islam.

The voices of the most hardline extremists get amplified, while the vast, overwhelming majority of Muslims get next to no coverage.

It's not excusable, but it is explainable by the fact that ‘ordinary person who happens to be Muslim does something' isn't much of a story.

What needs to be stressed a lot more is that there isn't one Christian perspective, and that the loudest voices don't necessarily speak for many people at all.

With that in mind, we at The Spinoff have put together a list of Christians with completely different points of view to those of Destiny Church.

It's not meant to be a comprehensive list of all strands of Christian thought in New Zealand.

There are dozens more that could be included.

Nor are these people necessarily spokespeople for anyone over and above themselves.

Some of them are media commentators, some are elected officials, some are figures within church hierarchies, some are activists, and some are a combination of all four.

All this list is meant to do is show clearly and easily that there are far more points of view within Christianity than typical media coverage would indicate.

Some of the people here are more liberal, others are more conservative. Some would be considered to be on the left, others to the right.

The point is, the extremists are in the minority.

So when the question comes up about what Christians think about an issue, perhaps asking one of these people would elicit a more representative position than that of Destiny Church's leaders. Continue reading

• Alex Braae is a staff writer for The Spinoff.
• Image: YouTube

Tamaki made the comments Monday, on Q+A.

Threatening to re-enter politics if nothing is done to stop Maori families suffering and to fix the prison system he said he may need to talk to Hone Harawira about taking Corrections Minister, Kelvin Davis' Te Tai Tokerau seat.

Calling New Zealand prisons "our rotting dark shame", Tamaki's concern is that the Government is not allowing his Man Up programme in prisons.

The programme targets troubled men, particular Maori men, and claims to help to break cycles of violence and repeat offending.

Calling Davis a liar, Tamaki also threatened to call on inmates to revolt if the Government continues to deny the programme.

Saying the justice system is broken, he told Q+A that it's not him on trial but Kelvin Davis.

Questioned about his comments last week attacking the Government, Tamaki said he would apologise if the Government came to the table.

"Someone needs to have the political courage to stand up in Parliament or in this Government and say, 'You know what, we're not going to continue to see our Maori families suffer'.

"I mean we need a change, we can't leave it like this.

"So if that (political courage) does not happen then maybe I'll have to ring my mate Hone Harawira up in the north and say, 'Brother we might have to take this electorate'."

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis denies Tamaki's claim that the Government has stifled his attempts for the church to work in prisons.

Instead, he claims Tamaki has not applied through the proper channels.

Tamaki says he tried email, formal letters and talking to ministers.

He says he applied through Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, Justice Minister Andrew Little and Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis himself.

Tamaki says he has spoken with Peters and Little and that both are mystified Davis would not receive his formal approaches.

The Man Up programme is affiliated to Destiny Church.

Sources

• NewsHub
• Twitter
• CathNews
• Image: Man Up

Tamaki took to Facebook to blast United Future leader Peter Dunne, calling him a "rat" and a "pathetic specimen of a man", following Dunne posting an open letter to Donald Trump criticising the US President. Continue reading

And in the latest book released by the church leader, Tamaki has also delivered a new chapter on the Kaikoura earthquake saga - and that he predicted the 7.8 magnitude quake, which killed two people.

A collection of four books, dubbed "Revelatory Notes by Bishop Brian Tamaki", are being sold by Destiny for $60. One of them "Demons in my House" contains warnings about fictional wizard Harry Potter as well as observations about the obese and unemployed, and claims about sexually-transmitted diseases.

Destiny declined comment when approached by the Herald on Sunday. Continue reading

But Tamaki's wife has tweeted, her husband will receive a tax return to the value of one third of every donation over $5.

Rainbow Youth supporters were encouraged to make the donations in Tamaki's name, using Destiny Church's office email address, to get back at him for things he said in a sermon Sunday before last.

In the sermon, given less that 24 hours before a massive 7.8 earthquake struck central New Zealand, Tamaki blamed gay people for causing natural disasters including earthquakes.

But as Tamaki's wife has tweeted that her husband will receive a tax return to the value of one third of every donation over $5

"Just letting u knw. if u do this. Brian will get a 3rd of that money back. in tax return. so go ahead. make a donation towards us. Thk u"

An online petition calling on the prime minister John Key to strip Destiny Church of its tax free status has been signed my more than 120,000 people.

Earlier prime minister John Key labelled Tamaki's remarks "ridiculous".

"The facts of life are New Zealand is a seismically prone country, with a number of very well identified fault lines," Key told RadioLive.

"It's nothing to do with people's sexuality. I mean, it's just madness."

Attorney General Chris Finlayson, who is gay, said "I think he needs a bit of counselling, frankly. He's a sick puppy."

Internal Affairs Minister, the United Future Peter Dunne tweeted:

"I do not favour taxing genuine churches & real charities, but as Destiny is obviously neither it should pay taxes like every other business"

As Internal Affairs Minister, Dunn oversees the registration of charities. But a spokesman for Dunne's office said removing the church's tax-exemption status wasn't within his power.

He told the Herald deregistering a charity was a lengthy process and if the petition went before Parliament a select committee would make a recommendation before referring the issue to Charities Services.

The Charities Services would then conduct a review determine whether the organisation fulfilled the criteria, the spokesman said.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: gaynz.com

The first is this: As Christians we do not accept every word of the bible as being the literal "word of God" addressed to us at this time, directing our lives.

We do know that the Bible contains writings of various kinds: history, poetry, myth, legend, story, law, parable, song to name a few.

So let us be quite certain what we are dealing with in the book of Leviticus, the bible book that Tamaki gets his "teachings" from.

This third book of the Old Testament is basically a set of things that, Israelites and Judeans were forbidden from doing.

It accounts for the bulk of the 636 Biblical laws and regulations designed to make the Jewish nation distinct from those among whom they lived.

Leviticus contains two types of laws: rules that are concerned with moral sin and rules related to ritual cleanliness.

Uncleanliness for Hebrews was caused by touching something forbidden or doing something forbidden (such as eating pork); though generally less important, some "unclean acts" were also major enough to involve the death penalty.

As such Leviticus contains the "rule book" for the Jewish people of that time.

• Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, which they had just built (Lev 1 - 10).
• Leviticus 11 - 15 contains the rules for clean and unclean, which includes the laws of slaughter and animals permissible to eat.
• The Day of Atonement is covered in Leviticus 16 and various moral and ritual laws sometimes called the Holiness Code in Leviticus 17 - 25.
• Leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following God's commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them.

So returning to our list of what the bible contains Leviticus is a historical record of the laws that the Jewish people at that time followed.

That time was around the year 600BC give or take a few centuries, and it took quite a time to write.

I will not analyze the text other than to say that in the 16th chapter of Leviticus dealing with atonement for sin, the priest is to sacrifice a bull for the sins of the priests, and a goat for the sins of the laypeople.

A second goat is to be sent into the desert bearing the sins of the whole people. (Hence our word scapegoat).

I am not holding this up for ridicule but I am trying to give a feel for the era, the law and their ways of dealing with sin and atoning for it.

Leviticus and seismic events

How much did the people of that time know of the physics of seismic events? I'd suggest almost nothing.

Can we say that there are bad things that happen in the world because of sin? Definitely yes!

Selfishness, greed, inequality, injustice, war, racism, sexism, and many other personal, societal and global sins cause great harm in our world.

Can we say that if we treat the earth badly that the earth will treat us badly? Well yes, we can even say that.

Certainly if we continue to pollute, deforest and overuse the world's resources as if there are no consequences then we and our children will soon discover that such recklessness and selfishness has seriously negative outcomes.

But what is important to note is that we use the word "earth" in two different ways.

The first is literal... the ground on which we live, the planet, the ecosphere even. But when we say that the earth will treat us badly we are using a metaphor, meaning there are consequences to damaging our ecosphere.

An earthquake is not an act of God in the sense that God actually causes it to happen by command or button push.

God does not punish sin through earthquakes.

• Tim Duckworth is a Marist priest, science graduate from Victoria University, theology graduate from the Angelicum University in Rome. He currently serves as and full-time Society of Mary provincial councillor.

"The earthquake that struck midnight Sunday (sic), the 13th of November 2016 was warned of that Sunday morning at 10:45am, during the Sunday morning church service of Destiny Church Auckland, NZ - that person was me!"

Tamaki said "No other sin in the whole of the bible has any connection to earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions, but Sexual Perversions alone."

He admitted "most men this would seem ridiculous and judgmental by God and US! But God is not judging us, nature is! The environment is suffering under mankind's iniquities."

He said many natural disasters have obvious connection to man's blatant disregard to the environment. Some can be explained through human causes.

"But there are some disasters that are directly related to the (above) scriptures and previous explanation. It's not going to get better, but worse!"

"The Diminishing of our Christian faith in modern society and the increasing aggressive reaction to Christ and His Church in social, political and family life has hastened the frequency of natural disasters around the globe!"

Tamaki said his Sunday morning talk was "not a church service not a political speech." ... it was God speaking.

Among many other things he advised those listening no to "sit here and ever think that it couldn't happen for you and me."

"The comes a day when the Father says listen, I've tried every love option. I've tried every-long suffering way of waiting for you and you're still stamping your foot, and you're still huffing and puffing."

"Well the next time you stamp your foot there's going to be an earthquake. The next time you put push out your chest and huff out there your house is going to come under some serious trouble."

"The next time you throw your chest back and huff out of your mouth, os you think you are invincible you are going to face a horrible illness in your life."

Source

• bishoptamaki.com
• destinychurch.org.nz

On March 23, Bishop Tamaki put out the following tweet.

"Jesus spoke to a tree/fish/wind/water [a]nd other things ... i spoke to a $100 bill early in my life [a]nd said 'you [a]nd all your whanau come to me'."

Twitter users expressed their outrage at this, describing Bishop Tamaki as "greedy".

This isn't the first time Bishop Tamaki has tweeted about money, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Last May, Destiny Church circulated images of wads of cash and the Twitter hashtag "#iwannagive" to followers before its annual conference.

In the same month, Bishop Tamaki again tweeted along with a photograph of $100 bills saying, "The Bible speaks of a Blessing (includes $$$ too) that 'Overtakes You'... time for you to be overtaken!!"

In 2014, the church received widespread criticism after Bishop Tamaki asked followers to "shower the stage" in money during a Sunday morning service.

Thousands of $100 and $50 bills were strewn across the Destiny Church in Auckland.

The scene was photographed and posted on Twitter by Bishop Tamaki.

He captioned it: "A Sweet-Smelling Fragrance that is Acceptable to God (Phil 4:15-19). My God shall Supply all your need".

This also drew widespread criticism on social media.

According to ex-congregation members, families were pressured to give "love offerings" and other cash donations above the expected amount.

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Group Sects

PPTA president Angela Roberts said the union is concerned about how surrounding schools might be affected, the New Zealand Herald reported.

The school is within Destiny Church's "City of God" complex in Manukau, and had a roll of 150 last year.

If approved for state integration, it would receive the same government funding for each student as state schools, but retain ownership of its buildings and land.

Integrated schools usually charge compulsory fees called attendance dues to meet property costs.

State-integrated schools teach the national curriculum but keep their own special character - usually a religious or philosophical belief - as part of their school programme.

Destiny Church, led by Bishop Brian Tamaki, has been controversial in the past with its political activities and tithing practices.

Ms Roberts said smaller schools such as Destiny's were relatively expensive to run, which would place more pressure on the wider public school network.

"It's not like they [the ministry] are building a new school because of roll growth - this is something that is going to have an impact on the surrounding schools," Ms Roberts said.

A Destiny spokesperson said integration "will enable us to offer [our] transformational model to more students in Years 0-13 in south Auckland".

Nearby schools are being consulted as part of the application process, an education ministry spokesperson said.

Factors to be taken into account include the impact on other schools in the area, education quality at the school, and the cost of integration, the spokesperson said.

A previous application to integrate the Destiny school in 2009 was rejected.

The school also failed in a bid to be a "charter" or "partnership" school.

It charges tuition fees from $65 to $85 a week and received a $266,000 operations grant from the Ministry of Education, according to its 2011 financial statement.

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Newstalk ZB