The news coming out of destiny church is becoming more alarming by the day as the herald reports this morning on members paying to see the swearing of an oath to Brian Tamaki by 700 men.

Scrubone at Halfdone Blog has written a good post on the issue: http://halfdone.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/cults/

His key comments are:

Someone commented over there (sarcastically) asking what the difference between a cult and a church is. Well, if you’re not “permitted” to listen to Radio Rhema or “attend any other Christian ministry”, you’re in a cult.

Cults try to shut down all independent thinking. The activly control what members do and say. Only the thoughts and idea of the leader are allowed.

On the other hand, a good church will encourage (Biblical) independent thought and study and cooperating with other churches in the Lord’s work. Naturally, there are plenty of bad churches out there, on both extremes.

Update: Immediately after I wrote this Scrubone just did another great post: http://halfdone.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/brians-cult/

All I can suggest is Tamaki should get a new theme song, how about this one:

If you desire more entertaining information on Tamaki’s background here is the Uncyclopedia article on him:

“the development of his theology, a radical and innovative doctrinal system that dispensed with annoyances like humility and love for fellow man and replaced them with the more progressive and modern virtues of materialist greed and unbridled judgmental bigotry. They kept their doctrines nice and flexible so they could make them up as they went along. The only thing set in stone was that the congregation had to give them plenty of money.

such a skilled orator was Pastor Brian – it was positively ingenious the way he could turn any sermon on any subject around to the subject of money, and how God needed more of it. No matter what the theme of his sermon, whether it was “Socialism is the Tool of Evil”, “Homosexuals and Women with IQ’s higher than 50 will burn in hell”, “Thinking is the enemy of righteousness” or “Fundamentalist Indoctrination is the true path to Holiness” – all would eventually find their utmost expression in the familiar mantra – “It’s time to take up the tithe and offering now” – at which point the Armourguard security van would back up to the door of the church and the security guards would cock their weapons.”

Tags: Cults, Humour

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Comment and Opinion, Just Plain Weird. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.