LIFE MATTERS – Enough is enough, we all get it – you don’t like Brian Tamaki!

Life Matters is a weekly opinion column which appears
EXCLUSIVELY on Semper Vita every Friday morning

By Brendan Malone

About two weeks ago the NZ Herald broke a story about Brian Tamaki and his Destiny Church group which detailed a covenant signing service where approximately 700 men signed a written covenant of commitment to Brian Tamaki and his Destiny Church.

Now, there is no doubting that this was a newsworthy story, as the covenant contract that the Tamaki 700 were asked to sign contained many troubling clauses, some of which demand an unquestioning obedience to Brian Tamaki, and others which require him to be treated like royalty in certain situations.

In a nutshell, this covenant is not compatible with authentic Christianity because in many places it requires adherents to surrender their God given gift of human reason over to Brian Tamaki, and his mandate, and it is also incompatible with Christianity because it lacks the humility required of genuine pastoral authority and leadership.

Okay, so as you can see, I am no apologist for Brian Tamaki, and I do not in any way endorse this latest development at Destiny, but what happened since this story broke has been nothing short of a bloodthirsty witch hunt on the part of the NZ media .

Things even got as ludicrous as the NZ Herald running a story which featured actors from a NZ television series called The Cult, providing their own critique of Brian Tamaki by comparing him and his Destiny movement to the fictional characters on their show.
And it seemed as if TV3‘s Campbell Live had decided that they were going to do their darnedest to turn this into the story of the year for their show.

Okay, so we all know that Brian Tamaki has an unhealthy fixation with material wealth, and that the Tamaki covenant is not a valid expression of authentic Christianity, but why haws the media whipped itself into such a frenzy over this issue?

The media’s standard response was to suggest that Tamaki was running a cult, and as the self-appointed moral guardians of the nation (ba, doom, boom, chish!), they had a mandate to warn the NZ people of this sinister development.

Now Brian Tamaki may be a lot of things, but cult leader is not one of them.

In fact, if you wanted to be correct about this issue, then it would much more truthful to suggest that Brian Tamaki is the manager of a very successful corporation which has made its money from running its own Christian credit trading scheme.

The fact is that Brian Tamaki isn’t running a cult, but, as I stated earlier, I do believe that the original story about the covenant ceremony was a newsworthy event, because the framework it puts in place certainly does lend itself to Destiny easily evolving into a cult, built around the personality and agenda of Brian Tamaki.

So, if Destiny isn’t presently a cult, and they aren’t doing anything illegal, why did the media embark upon such a vicious witch hunt after the original story about the covenant ceremony had been broken and then resolved?

Well, I think it was a classic case of leftist payback.

You see, several years ago Brian Tamaki dared to speak out publicly, and vocally, on moral issues, particularly the issue of gay civil unions and decriminalized prostitution – two pet projects of leftist politics, the brand of politics that most people in the NZ media are rather fond of.

Not only that, but it is no secret that Tamaki does have a large and growing following around the country, and while the left likes to talk a good game when it comes to tolerance, they actually aren’t at all tolerant of people who happen to disagree with them on moral issues, especially those people of a Christian persuasion who disagree with them.

So I think that many in the media saw an opportunity for bit of good old fashioned vengeful payback when the original story about the Destiny covenant was broken, and after that it didn’t take long for the bloodlust to set in.

I think that there was also an attempt to put Brian Tamaki in his place here, as there is no doubting that many in the media would rather see Tamaki, and his stance on certain moral issues, throughly quashed – the last thing they would be happy with is to stand by and watch as his particular interests and groups grow in number and kind.

What I don’t think the media counted on though was the backlash they have encountered since choosing to embark upon this little revenge mission, especially from with their own ranks. At last count, at least four major talkback, and other radio show, hosts have expressed strong dissatisfaction at the media handling of this issue.

And these media personalities aren’t the usual suspects either, I mean you’d hardly expect Mike Hosking or Michael Laws to come out in support of Brian Tamaki, but that’s exactly what happened last week on their shows.

Like Mike Hosking said, on the nation’s top ranking breakfast show, sure, Tamaki and his lot are a bit weird, but there’s plenty of weird groups and individuals in this country, but none of them are receiving this sort working-over by the media.

So where does that leave the rest of us Christians, the ones who don’t embrace the theological and ecclesiological errors of Brian Tamaki?

Well, the last thing we should be doing is joining in the frenzy in the shark pit and putting the boot into Brian Tamaki and his Destiny movement.

You see, despite the serious errors that are part and parcel of the Tamaki package, there is no doubting that Destiny is also doing some important and fruitful work in transforming the lives of many of the most criminal and broken members of our most impoverished and socially messed up neighborhoods.

Yes, it is right, when asked, to give a reasoned and charitable explanation of the things within the Destiny movement which don’t correspond with authentic Christianity, but there is no way that we should be reveling in, or joining in with this sort of bloodthirsty attack on other fellow Christians.

Sure, it’s already tough enough to be a Christian in secular culture, without our fellow brethren engaging in this sort of craziness, but we must always be careful not to give in to the temptation to join in the attacks in an effort to make our own faith look better.

The simple fact is that it isn’t just Brian Tamaki and Destiny who come in for this sort of overzealous and vengeful media attention – the entire Christian Church is also on the unwritten list of groups that the media believes it is free to attack with impunity, and without balance or fairness.

And the one thing that the devil loves more than a media witch hunt against Christians, is when Christians start viciously turning on each other in the public square, because he knows that such a witness severely weakens the Church’s ability to effectively proclaim Christ to the culture.