KEY POINTS:
God has spoken this week. It's clear that he doesn't want Gordon Copeland, Brian Tamaki or Taito Phillip Field representing him on Earth. I thought that even the devil at his best couldn't have masterminded the destruction of the fundamentalist Christians' political initiative in quite the spectacular manner we saw this week.
There is a possible niche for an overtly Christian party under MMP, but clearly it will not be with these self-proclaimed prophets.
Copeland rode into Parliament as a United Future MP on the coat-tails of Peter Dunne. The treachery he displayed against Dunne was on the scale of Alamein Kopu, who jumped off the Alliance waka and propped up Jenny Shipley's National Government.
The irony of having someone preach Christian values at the same time as deceiving parliamentary colleagues doesn't seem to register with Copeland.
Seeing him announce he would lead God's work in Parliament with Field, who is awaiting police charges on corruption and bribery, was breathtaking.
Secret discussions between these two, Bishop Tamaki and Destiny Church have been going on for months. These meetings have included self-appointed representatives from various churches and sects. But Tamaki is the only one who has any of the organisation or infrastructure a new movement would require.
He clearly sees that he and his lieutenants have to be the driving force for any successful Christian party. Destiny obviously was fairly confident it had it all wrapped up, because it deregistered its own party in anticipation of merging and dominating a new broad-based religious party.
That party launch would have to go down as the most amateur and disastrous political debut New Zealand has ever seen. It is clear that it is God's punishment for the participants' arrogance in appointing themselves as his political guardians against the rest of us sinners.
Tamaki got a bit ahead of himself by appointing his deputy, Richard Lewis, as co-leader of the new party before it had even been formed. Incredulously, Copeland, who thought he was co-leader, spat the dummy, claiming he knew nothing about Lewis being his equal partner.
Copeland then claimed Lewis wasn't up to the job and would need to be mentored by him.
Next day, Lewis reported that Copeland and he had met and made up, and all was well.
Hours later, Copeland announced he was prepared to be part of this new party only as long as Field and he were the leaders - providing God keeps Field out of jail, of course. This new Christian party obviously has an interesting way of electing its leaders.
Tamaki is a formidable operator, but deregistering his own party and throwing all his eggs in with this shambles has put the kibosh on any credible Christian party rising out of this mess - at least for the next election. As they say, God works in mysterious ways.
This amateur pantomime has been great fun for those of us who are secular and of the socially liberal persuasion. It's been even more fun than the local body elections.
However, the local government ballots are out this coming week for most of us, so we can elect other pretenders to various leadership roles in our community.
This week, John Banks - also a right-wing Christian - was on great form, putting the boot in to Auckland's current mayor, Dick Hubbard, another Christian of the fundamentalist stripe.
Banks claims he has had a personality conversion this year, and is now a Christian saint deserving of redemption and another chance at the mayoralty. Hubbard doesn't buy it and claims Banks is lying.
It is clear that these two Christians despise each other. God has run for cover and is leaving us to choose which of his two disciples is worthy. If we don't support either of these two, we always have the choice of giving good old John Hinchcliff our tick.
Out West of course, there is no claim of God. Two self-proclaimed sinners, Bob Harvey and John Tamihere, are scrapping it out in the good old-fashioned way.
The God-inspired candidates in Manukau are trailing the field, and it is a three-way race for mayor between Len Brown, Dick Quax and Willie Jackson, none of whom even mention any connection with God.
Auckland Regional Council Chairman Mike Lee should romp back into office, but he will want to get his key ally Shale Chambers in with him to sort out Auckland's transport woes.
While Lee's Regional People ticket initiative to set up a public bus company isn't as ambitious as the Residents Action Movement's free bus plan, it will have a huge impact on prices and efficiency if Lee can win a majority.
So when we get the ballots this week, we could all probably do with some divine intervention to give us a clue about what these candidates stand for or will do if they get elected.
It's all a bit of a lottery, really. But make time to study the candidate biographies that come out with your ballot papers and do your best to make an informed choice.
After the fiasco of this week, it is clear that God has withdrawn from politics and left us to take responsibility ourselves.
