Post by KTJ on Dec 7, 2014 12:28:11 GMT 10
from The New Zealand Herald....
Destiny Church's shower of cash
5:00AM - Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Bishop Brian Tamaki called the money “A Sweet-Smelling Fragrance”.
IT LOOKED as if it was raining money at Auckland's Destiny Church on Sunday.
Photos tweeted by church leader Bishop Brian Tamaki showed many high-denomination bills on the floor.
The photos, one which Bishop Tamaki captioned: “A Sweet-Smelling Fragrance that is Acceptable to God (Phil 4:15-19). My God shall Supply all your need,” drew widespread criticism on social media.
Another photo was accompanied by the text: “The main stage at Destiny Church Auckland ... this morning ... littered with 10,000s of $100 & $50 bills ... ‘Attitude’.”
The church, which is led by Mr Tamaki and his pastor wife Hannah, has hit headlines in the past for financial expectations placed on its members.
According to ex-congregation members, families were pressured to give “love offerings” and other cash donations above the expected tithe.
However, the church has denied this and said none of its members were forced to tithe.
Mr and Mrs Tamaki have also defended their reputations in the past, following publicity around their lifestyle.
Last year, Mrs Tamaki — who owned several homes, drove a black Audi station wagon and had a $90,000 diamond ring, rejected claims she led an extravagant lifestyle.
“What is wealth? I don't have a lot of money in the bank but to me success is inspiring other people,” she said.
Last month, it also emerged the church's tax-exempt status was under the microscope after it was issued with overdue notices for the late filing of annual returns for 14 Destiny-affiliated charities.
Six of these charities, which received a combined $5.5 million in donations in the most recent returns, are more than a year overdue in filing statements with the public charities register.
When contacted by the Herald about the photos Mr Tamaki tweeted, a spokeswoman for the church said the organisation had “no comment”.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11367227
from the HERALD on SUNDAY....
Destiny's $6 million windfall
New figures reveal the deep pockets of Bishop Brian’s followers.
By BEVAN HURLEY | 5:00AM - Sunday, December 07, 2014
The Tamakis have refused to release a more detailed breakdown of where the charities' money is spent.
DESTINY CHURCH-affiliated charities received nearly $6million in donations in the last year after self-appointed Bishop Brian Tamaki demanded churchgoers give generously for the so-called “City of God”.
Destiny's finances are back in the spotlight after Tamaki last weekend implored his parishioners to shower the stage with high-denomination bills during a church service, boosting church coffers by $100,000.
He later tweeted: “A Sweet-Smelling Fragrance that is Acceptable to God (Phil 4:15-19). My God shall supply all your need”.
A Herald on Sunday analysis of Destiny's latest charity statements show its 14 charities received $5.75m in donations in the 2013-14 year, up from $4,610,023 the previous year.
The figures are in financial reports to the Department of Internal Affairs Charities Service. The charities include individual churches, the Destiny School, social services and housing organisations, and receive hundreds of thousand of dollars annually in Government grants.
The rise in donations follows several years of declines in charitable donations to the church. When unveiling plans for Destiny's “City of God” in Manukau in 2012, Tamaki said: “I don't care what the media say. I don't care what your relatives say. I don't care what the world says. Nobody should be not tithing.”
Charity deed papers show Tamaki has been removed as a trustee from all of the church's charities, but retains “absolute power of veto of any decision made by the Trust Board” over the Destiny Church Auckland Trust, which received more than $2m in donations last year — the highest for any of the charities. Hannah Tamaki is a trustee of 11 of the charities. The Destiny charity statements were uploaded to the Charities Service register in October, after the Herald on Sunday revealed the 14 charities were overdue in filing their returns, in some cases by more than a year.
Emails released under the Official Information Act show Internal Affairs issued a “please explain” to Destiny after Herald on Sunday inquiries about the late-filing charities.
The Tamakis have refused to release a more detailed breakdown of where the charities' money is spent, or how much they are paid in salaries. They have been criticised for their lavish lifestyles, enjoying overseas trips travelling business class, buying expensive cars and jewellery, but say how much they are paid by the church is their business.
Destiny Church spokeswoman Anne Williamson said: “The church has experienced a steady growth in membership since our move to 25 Druces Road, and that is reflected in our donations.” The church's financials were available to the “giving community of Destiny Church”, but they would not be posting details of staff wages to “others”.
Destiny also receives more than $1m a year in taxpayer funding for its school and social services.
Its trust Te Roto Taone Nui Trust, which provides housing, received $507,158, in Government funding, up from $392,460 the previous year. And the school received a Ministry of Education grant of $269,179, up from $266,400.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11370108
from the HERALD on SUNDAY....
Your Destiny is to pay and pay
By PAUL LITTLE | 5:00AM - Sunday, December 07, 2014
Money is acceptable to God — and Brian Tamaki.
FOR Hannah Tamaki it must have been the week from — you'll pardon the expression — hell. First, her husband, Bishop Brian, receives a set of orders direct from God in his avatar as the Holy Spirit, telling him to instruct his parishioners to take bills in large denominations and place them on the stage during a Destiny Church service. Because this is the sort of thing God thinks about all the time.
Hannah may have tried to discourage the bishop but from what I hear, Destiny Church hews closely to Ephesians 5:23 — “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.”
Anyway, as if that wasn't enough for her to deal with, doesn't the big lummox go and post photos of the event on Twitter, which quickly alerts the world to the fact that Brian Tamaki does one mean Scrooge McDuck impression, even if he does stop just short of actually diving into the money.
A social media-driven firestorm erupts and what does the Bishop do? He goes pig hunting with the builders. And guess who's left to front the media?
That's right. Hannah has to try to explain to the likes of TV3's John Campbell what on Earth her husband was thinking.
Chance would have been a fine thing, because all Campbell wanted to talk about was how much money Hannah and Bishop Brian had.
As far as organised religions go, the one with which Destiny has most in common is Lotto: a large number of people pay out regularly in the hope of receiving a windfall that is actually never going to happen.
That, of course, is their choice. But not everyone who donates to Destiny gets that choice. You and I, for instance, who as taxpayers contribute to the church via taxpayer-funded grants such as the $860,000 it received from the Ministry of Social Development for youth programmes.
Bishop Brian specifically told his congregation that by laying down their money at his feet, they would qualify for “unprecedented favour” from the Lord.
Bishop Brian is effectively selling God's services as though the Lord is a deity for hire.
This sort of thing, when done by the Catholic church centuries ago, so incensed Martin Luther that it led to the Reformation, one of the greatest upheavals in European history.
Here, it has led to Campbell having a tawdry conversation with Hannah Tamaki about money.
She and her husband, she confessed, are humble wage slaves, receiving a salary signed off by the church's board.
She wouldn't say how much they are paid, but she did acknowledge that they travel business class, which means it's an obscene amount.
She also discussed her jewellery, which, she confirmed, includes a $90,00 ring.
How did she pay for that? Well, she saved up. Have you ever tried to save $90,000? It's nearly impossible.
She wasn't wearing the ring because she was having it insured and getting quotes. I can only imagine what it must be like to have jewellery so valuable that you have to shop around for insurance.
Doesn't hearing about other people's problems make you grateful for your own lot in life?
What critics get most agitated about is that the source of these wages is ultimately the poor people who come to Destiny in the hope of finding wealth rather than providing it.
But giving Destiny your money won't make you richer, it will only make you poorer.
How much poorer?
That's up to you, really. How much are you prepared to give?
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11370070
from the HERALD on SUNDAY....
Destiny shows its true object of worship
EDITORIAL | 5:00AM - Sunday, December 07, 2014
What was the point of placing the money on the stage?
SELF-APPOINTED bishop Brian Tamaki was immensely proud of the money raised by his self-created Destiny Church this week. He asked parishioners to put their tithings on stage, and posted pictures of the sea of $100 and $50 notes on Twitter. He called it, “a sweet-smelling fragrance acceptable to God”.
Later, he was proud of the media attention it attracted. “Top 10 news every time,” he tweeted. “Media criticise but boy, they love the ratings they get.”
There is something endlessly fascinating about Tamaki. To see him doing an imitation of a slick American-style evangelist in a Kiwi accent is to wonder every time how gullible people can be.
It is their own money, of course. They will be aware of the lifestyle they are providing their pastor and his wife. Whatever he is putting into their lives, they must think it worth the money.
That haul on stage, Tamaki told his congregation, was an idea the Holy Spirit had put in his head the night before.
What was the point? Were they celebrating money itself, or the sacrifice of a congregation who probably have not much to spare, or the charitable purposes for which it might be spent?
If the latter, they were not saying what those were.
The point was publicity, which is good news. It suggests business has been slowing for them and needed a boost.
It is nearly 10 years since Tamaki's delusions of a large following led him to think he could be elected to Parliament. Destiny received just 0.62 percent of the vote in 2005, less than half the number who voted this year for Kim Dotcom's Internet-Mana Party.
There is seldom a second coming in politics and Tamaki has not tried again. He has contented himself with maintaining his church, based in South Auckland where, sadly, his is not the only Christian sect that collects a great deal of money from people who can ill afford it.
The churches demand much more of these people than the fees asked by the schools that teach their children. Yet fees go unpaid while churches rake in the money.
None have done so as tastelessly as Tamaki did this week.
A man who displays donations as some sort of evidence of divine favour and self-worth is not a Christian many other churches would recognise.
Some of the harshest passages in the New Testament are directed at the worship of money.
These are probably not passages the Destiny congregation hears.
But in the end, it is their money. They can throw it away if they like.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11370063
