Destiny Church celebrating its 21st anniversary. Photo / Facebook
Destiny Church celebrating its 21st anniversary. Photo / Facebook
The popular Pentecostal church that keeps getting under the skin of mainstream New Zealand has come of age.
Renowned for its denouncement of homosexuality, and later apology, its political failure, and financial success, flash cars and motorbikes, objection to Muslim ritual at the post-massacre service, and other controversies, Destiny Churchhas celebrated its 21st anniversary.
According to the church's official history on its website, Hannah and husband Brian Tamaki began their first church in Te Awamutu and it grew quickly.
They moved to Rotorua where they "transformed a small and fragile fellowship into one of the largest churches in the Bay of Plenty".
Lake City Church at Rotorua in 1998 gave birth to Destiny, at first called City Church Auckland.
Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The then-Pakuranga preacher wasn't long in the big city before the headlines started to flow.
"'Devil' talk loses pastor TV slot," the Herald wrote after Brian Tamaki offended TVNZ chiefs, who pulled the original opening episode of his series.
In talking about one of the series' topics, Tamaki told a Catholic newspaper that the fatherless generation in New Zealand was reflected in 2000 in having women as both prime minister and Opposition leader, Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley respectively.
"Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against women. It is just that this is a reflection of what is happening in society - a lack of men in leadership and sky-high divorce rates.
"This is the Devil's strategy because you can't have sons and daughters without a father."
The series incurred opposition from the ecumenical Churches Broadcasting Commission, whose chairman, Anglican vicar Ray Oppenheim, dubbed it an infomercial.
From one church in Auckland, Destiny grew to 19 throughout New Zealand and more than 5000 adherents within six years.
It still claims to have a similar number of people praying at its 10 New Zealand churches and a number of satellite churches called iwi tapu. There is also one church and several iwi tapu in Australia.
Based in Wiri, South Auckland, Destiny also has a school and an early childhood centre and runs the Man Up and Legacy self-improvement programmes.
Man Up ran in prisons, now isn't and Destiny is trying to get it back in - a path which led to a slanging match with the Government which even drew in Mana Movement leader Hone Harawira.
Tamaki warned of revolts in prisons if the programme continued to be kept out.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was "irresponsible" to incite prison violence.
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis said on Newsroom he didn't trust any Corrections money from a Man Up contract "wouldn't go into funding an extravagant lifestyle, overseas holidays, cars, jewellery, and Harley Davidsons."
But Harawira said Man Up had changed lives for the better.
"It's real because I talk to the wives who have blossomed in the new life afforded them through Legacy. It's real because I see the kids happy to have a daddy who is a good man. It's real because even some of the greatest sceptics, the police, are starting to have a grudging respect for men they hunted just a few years ago.
"Man Up isn't about Brian Tamaki's clothing, or his wife's car, or his personal philosophies, and it shouldn't be judged on those things."
Hannah Tamaki's Mercedes-Benz vehicles have been a lightning rod for criticism of Destiny.
In 2017 she bought a V8 Merc valued at $207,900. It was an upgrade on the 3-litre V6 Mercedes she had bought in the preceding 12 months.
The costly cars are naturally paired by media with the practice of tithing - the church regularly asks members to give it money.
Destiny Church followers and Brian Tamaki (carrying bottle) arrive at Te Tii Marae for Waitangi Day events in February this year. Photo / Michael Craig
The Herald was moved to editorialise on this in 2011: "We maintain the view that living in luxury while ministering to a disproportionately poor congregation is, to put it mildly, an untenable position."
The context of the editorial, however, was to defend Brian Tamaki against a cult-watch group's claim that Destiny had become a cult because of bishop Brian Tamaki's beliefs about the resurrection of Jesus.
The paper didn't try to resolve the doctrinal row, noting that biblical debates over such matters as Noah's flood and virgin birth date back centuries.
Literal interpretation of the Bible is also key to Tamaki's troubles over his relationship with LGBT communities, after his sermon on sin causing natural disasters, the day before the destructive and fatal Kaikoura earthquake in 2016.
Herald reporter Cherie Howie in 2015 heard Tamaki say that a generation of children will be bisexual because the "perversion of homosexuality is leading the charge".
Destiny members had marched on Parliament against the civil union legislation in 2004 and marched again, with other churches, in Auckland the following year.
Last month, Tamaki invited 50 members of the rainbow community to the church's conference and said: "I want to personally say to anyone in your community that has been hurt ... I want to say sorry."
Commentators later connected the dots to the latest Destiny-linked political vehicle - Hannah Tamaki's leadership of the Coalition New Zealand party, which she has said is not a Christian party, will promote family values and will speak for the "silent majority".
At the 2005 election, the Destiny New Zealand Party won less than 1 per cent of the vote.
A Destiny Church elder, Jenny Marshall, told the Herald the bishop's apology to the LGBT community was "most definitely genuine".
Asked if it was about gaining political support among mainstream Christians, Marshall said, "No, not at all. The Tamakis, they have a lot of close personal friends that are from that community. They have never liked the way there's been a stigma attached to themselves and the church saying that we do not like that community, because that's never been the case."
When asked about the perception of Brian Tamaki condemning homosexuality, she said he was relying on the Bible, but he referred to all sin - and God's grace.
Marshall said Tamaki was "immensely proud of where Destiny Church is these days - turning 21 years old for an organisation, it's definitely been very much a coming of age for us as a church."
