Editorial: Cult-watchers seriously out of focus

Bishop Brian Tamaki. Photo / Brett Phibbs

This newspaper has, with good reason, been sharply critical of the Destiny Church and its leader, the self-proclaimed Bishop Brian Tamaki.

We maintain the view that living in luxury while ministering to a disproportionately poor congregation is, to put it mildly, an untenable position. But in the controversy over his "doctrinal errors", we happily support him.

Tamaki came under attack this week from Cultwatch, a Mt Roskill-based organisation which plainly espouses a conservative and orthodox Christianity. (The credo on its website does mention fire and brimstone, but there's nothing in there to alarm the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury).

Cultwatch founder and spokesman Mark Vrankovich said that a speech by Tamaki in May last year contained "doctrinal bombshells".

The most explosive was the idea that the resurrection was not a physical fact. "The flesh Jesus died in the tomb", he said, which was presumably a slip of the tongue, since the general consensus is that he died during crucifixion.

Vrankovich got terribly wound up about this "denial of an essential of the Christian faith", which, he said, required Cultwatch to deem Destiny a cult - a conclusion others may have come to some time ago.

He was joined in appalled consternation by Herald columnist Garth George, and a wet-eared TV3 reporter who demanded to know whether Jesus had a Mum and a Dad.

The editorial column of a newspaper is no place to debate the substance of the matter, but it is worth noting that Tamaki is in good company.

Debate about the literal truth of the Bible's narratives - Noah's Flood, the Immaculate Conception, the New Testament's miracles - goes back a few centuries.

Our own most distinguished theologian, Sir Lloyd Geering, was charged by the Presbyterian Church with "doctrinal error" (read heresy) in 1967 for suggesting that resurrection was not resuscitation.

Far from ending up in the Outer Darkness, he received our highest honour, the Order of New Zealand.

Perverse though it seems, Tamaki joins a long line of liberal theologians who have no difficulty adhering to their faith while vigorously debating its articles.

And in so violently denouncing what he said, Cultwatch displays the kind of hostility to spiritual inquiry normally associated with the closed minds of cultists.