All week the New Zealand news media has been digging hard into Destiny Church and Brian Tamaki over the walkout of the head pastor of the church’s Brisbane congregation. Some of the media reports have been a little over the top in their criticisms and approaches such as TV3’s John Campbell who has gone from being a very good investigative journalist to be a little bit creepy in his abilities to stalk people involved in the Church. Another major criticism of the church has been the fact that it uses and EFTPOS machine for receiving offerings. In the last 10 years I would have not been in a single church that did not have an EFTPOS machine for receiving offerings.

Having said this I commend the actions of Andrew Stock who stood up for what he believed in a walked away from the church. There are a lot of things that Destiny practice and believe that I fundamentally disagree with. However, until this morning, I have been muted in heavy criticism of the church as other blogs have been doing this well. I also hold a strong belief in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” And that the differences in beliefs between church denominations come down to additions of man and not God and that fundamentally the majority of churches that have John 3:16 as their base are on the right track.

However as pointed out by Scrubone at Half Done and before that Dave at Big News, Brian Tamaki has now gone beyond the point of just being another brand of Christianity with his personal website declaring: “Bishop Brian Tamaki is the physical manifestation of God.”

Manifestation is one of those “church words” that you hear tossed about from time to time, “manifestations of the spirit” for instance. But I am certain that I have never heard someone be described as the “manifestation of God”.  To figure out exactly what Tamaki means by this I looked up the dictionary definition:

manifestation
–noun

1. an act of manifesting.
2. the state of being manifested.
3. outward or perceptible indication; materialization: At first there was no manifestation of the disease.
4. a public demonstration, as for political effect.
5. Spiritualism. a materialization.

I think point 3 sums up what Tamaki is saying. Tamaki is saying that he is the materialization of God. That makes me sick to the depths of my stomach for a “church” leader to be saying that. There is only one person ever who was the manifestation of God and that was Jesus Christ.

Unless Tamaki is trying to say that he is the second coming of the Messiah then he is very badly off track in his beliefs. Anyone who truly believes in the words of God written in the scriptures needs to get out of that church because it is no longer a church it is as the media has been reporting now  a cult of personality.

Furthermore in doing some research into this post I came across this:

The Manifestation of God is a concept in the Bahá’í Faith that refers to what are commonly called prophets. The Manifestations of God are a series of personages who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world for the progress and advancement of human morals and civilization. The Manifestations of God are the only channel for humanity to know about God, and they act as perfect mirrors reflecting the attributes of God into the physical world.

Now I know that Tamaki is not practicing Bahá’í, however, it just shows the terribly poor choice of words that have been used.

I was surprised to learn that NZ Bus has decided to reject the Athiest Bus Ads that were to run on the buses in Auckland.

The ads were to read “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

However Auckland bus operator NZ Bus is not going to run the ads because of complaints.

I find this move odd and think in the long run that it is sets a bad prescient. The ads are not worded offensively and they are not provocative either.

If christians and other religious folk are willing to scream when prayers are removed form school, parliament, and other places etc, then surely they should be willing to stand beside the athiests when they are expressing their views with the same freedoms that they demand at other times.

Overall this is a bad move and look for the religious folk.

Last night I finished reading one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is called “Save Me From Myself” and is written by Brian Head Welch formerly of the band Korn. The book is an autobiography of his life from childhood, through his drug fuelled years with Korn and his coming to Christ and becoming a Christian. I won’t give too much away about the story as it is a book that any young person should read.

The one bit that really got me from a Christian perspective was towards the end of the book where Welch describes some songs he wrote after coming to Christ:

After I’d been writing for a bit, God gave me another song called “It’s Time To See Religion Die.” To me, this song has a few different meanings. For one, it’s a song that encourages people to get out of this whole “Sunday Christian” mentality and into the world so God can use them to change the world, to help people understand that God does not live in buildings made by men (Acts 7:48). We are God’s building, because he dwells in us (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Upon reading this I grabbed my bible to check the verses mentioned in context. The full context of Acts 7:48 is from verse 48 through to verse 50, from the NIV:

However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things?”

The full context of 1 Corinthians 3:16 extends into verse 17 as well:

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

This commentary was something that I had always known but had forgotten about. It seems too often that we get caught up in thinking that God is at Church. When God is actually right with us, right now. And church is something made by man to come together as a body of believers to worship God. Church is not God and does not create God, but we can meet God at church, in exactly the same way we can on our owns anywhere else at any other time.

Welch then continues:

That’s not the only meaning to this song though. Also, this song is for all the people that have been hurt by religion. All of the man-made religion crap in this world has to die. Whenever it’s Christian man-made religion crap or some other man-made religion crap, it all has to die. It must grieve God’s heart when he sees Christians fighting about whose doctrine is right; he doesn’t see denominations, he sees one big glorious bride. When Christians argue about doctrinal issues, all he sees is carnal people acting like children. All that prideful, controlling religious crap is what drives young people away from churches, and it has to go. Much of the world’s population is under the age of eighteen, and we have to bring the love of Christ to them without all this controlling crap going on. Because, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

I found this point quite interesting as well. I think it is important to be able to freely and frankly discuss your differences of points of view on doctrine but many times church groups take it way too far (catholic vs protestant for instance). And it does put people off. If we put as much effort into working with young people as we did discussing the finer points of some minor piece of doctrine how many more people would we save?

You can buy the book on Mighty Ape

When I was in Sydney a few months back I picked up a book at the airport to read on my flight home entitled “The Genesis Enigma – Why The Bible Is Scientifically Accurate”. I was surprised to find what at first I considered to be a creationist book in the popular science section of an airport bookshop. Furthermore the book is written by Dr Andrew Parker an Honorary Research Fellow of Green Templeton College at Oxford University, Research Leader at the Natural History Museum and a Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University none of which are the typical credentials of a creationist.

The book takes a very different approach from most books on God, science and the origins of the universe. The typical approach is to use the bible as a literal roadmap of creation and then tweak the science to make it fit the bible stories. However, Parker takes the opposite approach in The Genesis Enigma by outlining the science of the origins of the universe and life and then tests if the bible can line up with this. Surprisingly with a little less literal interpretation of the bible it does.

The main thesis of the book is:

• The bible is a historically accurate record of people and events.
• The six days of creation are not a literal six days but instead refer to the order in which science now reveals the universal comes into being. Something that no one writing a religious book a few thousand years ago would have been able to know, or understand unless the knowledge came through divine intervention.
• The evolution is an undisputable scientific fact. However atheism is not a fact or theory it is as much a religion as any other faith based religious belief.
• There is more to life and God than just science. And science cannot explain everything in the world. Science is not the be all and end all of explaining the meaning and purpose of life.

Overall the main ideas in the book make a lot of sense and while I do not necessarily agree with all of them it has provoked my intellectual thought around the subject. The end of the book also finishes with a discussion of intelligent design and atheism which is very interesting independent of the rest of the book. In particular:

“One’s reaction to the science versus religion debate is a very personal choice. Do you believe that science will take such huge steps, changing the way in which it works today, as to be able to answer those big questions in the universe? Or do you choose God? To borrow from C. S. Lewis, do you believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, or that there is a great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest? Creationism and atheism are neither scientific theories nor demonstrably true. If we do not allow them to cloud our judgement then God can appear as a rational answer as to why we exist on earth.”

Furthermore Parker makes a very strong case for divine intervention in the authorship of the bible by stating:

“That Aaronid priest who wrote the Bible’s first page, or Moses who may have given the ancient Israelites their creation account originally, lacked any interest in natural history. Although demonstrating attention to detail in other subjects – geography, politics, economics, law – this Aaronid priest and the character Moses, provide us with no signs of biological inclination. The scientific method, necessary to decipher the true account of how the universe formed and life evolved, with its repeatable experiments, was yet to manifest itself. The ancient Israelites were not conducting scientific experiments in their sheds – if they were, they would have written about it, as they did about everything else they did. The writer of the Bible’s first page simply roamed the desert or traversed the dusty streets of ancient Jerusalem during the day, and marvelled at the stars at night. He was without so much as a magnifying lens.

Indeed, the history books tell us that science and natural history began some centuries later with the ancient Greeks, who were influenced by very different natural surroundings. So, in terms of providing an explanation for how the universe and life came to be, the Aaronid priest given this task, or the character Moses, would not have had a clue. All the same, something was written. And it made its way to pride of place in the Bible.

As such, unprovided with evidence of any kind, the creation account on the Bible’s opening page might be assumed a fantasy. But the Genesis Enigma has told us that those enigmatic phases that ignite the Bible actually mean something – they are scientifically accurate. That would be an outrageous assertion, were it not true. The conclusion that this page of the Bible could, perhaps more than any other, represent God’s hand in the Bible. The true account of how we came to exist may have been handed to humans by God.

In any case, our strong preconception that science has, with each discovery chipped away at the notion of God is proved wrong in this book. Now we can live with the real possibility that God exists while fully accepting the science, rather than straining to find contradictions. Faith suddenly appears that much stronger.”

Now as I stated earlier I do not necessary accept or agree with everything Parker has outlined in his book.  The remaining question for me is that if God is able to put in places the rules that govern the universe that make evolution work on both a small scale (as now commonly accepted by most creationists) and a large scale (as Parker and most of the secular scientific world believes) then why does God just stop there? If God can do all this stuff that makes the world tick over then why can he not decide to play with the rules and create a literal six day creation as well? It is not designed to make us confused about how old the world is, but rather to demonstrate that God ultimately has the power to influence and change the universe. It is about demonstrating that God is in control and not science.

After reading the book and pondering some of the ideas raised in it I went back and read some of the creationism based “science” that I had blindly followed from a few years ago. What I have discovered is that by arguing that evolution is nothing more than a myth and controlled “brainwashing” people they are essentially doing the same thing with “creationism”. Statements such as “long years of educational brainwashing in the mythology of evolutionary theory “ plant ideas in the minds of people that they have been brainwashed, ironically by planting these ideas creationists are doing nothing more than the same thing! Furthermore, the contradictions in their arguments and statements just scream this out.

For instance Chuck Missler who is well known for his Bible commentary and in particular his study on Daniel’s 70 weeks where he shows they are not a literal 70 weeks but weeks of years states here: http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/528/ that the earth was created in six literal days because the bible says so. However, the bible does not directly say Daniel had 70 weeks of years, no it just says 70 weeks. So how do you determine when there is a literal meaning and where there is not? Furthermore Missler shoots himself in the foot in another article on the site where he argues there is a gap between God creating the heavens and the earth and the actual six day creation: http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/821/ this makes no sense because now in one place he is arguing in an absolute six day creation, and another he argues there is a gap. What one is it?

Or for instance the finding of a city under the Black Sea as evidence for a worldwide flood http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/299/ when anyone with any knowledge of geology would brush this off as evidence of the plates of the earth shifting and changing over the years. This is not to say that the ideas of intelligent design are completely dead in the water Kent Hovind poses some good questions that have still not be fully answered by science, in particular:

• Without a creator how did time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves?
• How and why did matter create life by itself?
• How and why did early life-forms learn to reproduce themselves?
• How and why did major changes occur between diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).

The biggest problem with creationism is the way in which they throw out solid science and replace it with arguments that the Bible says this happened so it must be true. This would be the same as arguing the world is made of the Greek Classical Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether) because this is what was written on Greek tablets a few thousand years ago. The reality is the stories written in the Bible were written firstly for the understanding of the people who lived at the time the stories were written. Yes the Bible and the stories in it still have a huge amount of relevance today, however, we cannot take every single word as literal because the very first thing we would be worshipping is a lamb and not a person who lived 2000 years ago.

A month ago I asked the question “What is the purpose of Church?” (http://www.brad.net.nz/blog/2009/06/what-is-the-purpose-of-church/) and at the end I stated that it was to be continued leaving the question “What does a city on a hill look like”?

I have been slow to continue it not just because I have been busy, but also because I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about it, and how to write down my various thoughts and views.

The question is derived from the well know verse of Matthew 5:14 NIV:

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Now the verse in question is talking about Christians and the Church and how it should appear to the world.

The full set of scripture reads (Matthew 5:13-17 NIV):

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Now it is clear (I hope) from the scripture that Jesus is talking about how Christians should act and behave in the world. And plenty of people have gone out and preached that you should live this perfect life to make your light shine. But I am actually not sure if that is really what I take from this.

You see the city on the hill bit still gets me, and like my views on the church I am not sure if the city on a hill looks as shinning clean as some people make out. I don’t believe that a city on a hill is filled with people in pure white robes and not a speck of dust is to be found. And if I ever came across a city that was like that then I would have to wonder what they were hiding, what did they want you not to see?

It is like those people who appear to have it all perfect on the outside but on the inside are the complete opposites of that, a complete mess. Even myself, on the outside I am really organised and take extreme pride in what I do, but when you get to know me you know that my personal stuff is a mess, like my room is never tidy and never something to be proud of.

In fact I would go so far to say that a city on a hill is the complete opposite to roads without dust, in fact I think in a true city on a hill the roads will be really dusty and dirty with the amount of people travelling from afar to visit it, to find solace in it.

It is like when you are travelling to any city and you see the lights of it in the distance, it always looks great to the first glimpse of the eye, but as you get closer you start to spot the flaws, the cracks in the pavement, the homeless on the park bench, the regular traffic jams. So what makes the city on a hill that Jesus describes so different from any other city?

Well I don’t actually believe it is entirely who we are or the things that we do that makes the city shine. But rather it is deeper than that. It comes down to how we live our life and how God shines his light out through us. The light of the city on the hill is not visible light but spiritual light. It is love. It is accepting people as they are, not judging, not criticising, but loving people. It is accepting people as they come, and showing them the love and the grace of God.

Now that is not to say that some of the things that they do are acceptable things, but first we must show them the love of God, you need to build bridges and relationships with people, not create a pit of lions that you must cross first before you can be considered good enough.

So the city on the hill is actually and very messy and dirty place, it is filled with people who are in need of love and forgiveness. It is like the emergency department at a hospital, chaos, but organised chaos. It is like the church. And the light shinning out of it is the spiritual light of those Christians who are caring for the needy, for the sick. Those Christians who are not donating to the neediest aid agency, but those who will actually get their hands stuck in, those who will actually put on the armour of God and take their place as a foot soldier, a medic, or a counsellor.

TobyMac puts it this way on his “Alive and Transported” album:

You see it’s not our words. Our words aren’t going to be which stops the world in its tracks. Our words will not change the world. They’ve heard it all.

It is not normally our music. Normally we make our music for us, for the body, so that we can sharpen each other, edify the body, glorify our god. Once in a while one crosses over but it’s not typically the music that is going to stop the world it its tracks. Our music is not going to change the world more than likely.

It’s not our buildings, as grand and beautiful as some of our church buildings are. It’s not the architecture, that’s going to change the world.

But I believe what will change the world, is when we begin to love each other, and when we begin to love the world, and when we begin to reach out to the orphans, and the widows, and the lower income families in our communities. When the world sees that kind of love, I’m talking about undeniable love, I believe they will stop in their tracks and say “Yo, whatever you people have over there. I want some of that baby, I want some of that right there for me”.

When our houses are packed so full of love that we have gotta open up the back door to let it ooze out into the valleys and the suburbs and the city streets. When the world sees that kind of love, real love, they’re going to stop in their tracks baby. They’re going to say “Whatever homy, homy, yo homy, whatever you people have over there you Jesus freaks, I want some of that man, I want some that Jesus for me man if it is doing all that.”

How many times have you heard someone actually say something like that? Why do we have to win people for God? Why aren’t they asking if they can come to church with us? Why are we the one inviting them, begging them? What makes church so unattractive? If those modern and megachurches are really so great then why are they (mostly) always struggling for money, or even if they are packed still packed with only Christians who have moved there from other churches? If they are so great then why is the rest of the community still not interested in attending? Why is church so unattractive in today’s world?

Maybe that will be the topic of the next blog on this subject. It is something that I am still wrestling with.

To worship G-d?
To have community?
To convert people G-d, save them from sin, etc, etc, etc?

All of the above?

You argue that “i want a church who is open minded yet not following the trend of the generation” and I agree.

But shouldn’t we be taking this one step further by saying that we should not be following the trend but in fact setting the trend?

If the purpose of church is just to worship G-d, then should we throw out the teaching and just have a giant two hour worship session? I would sure love it, but is the fact that we don’t do that on a regular basis suggestion that church is more than that?

If community is achieved through church then what is the purpose of small groups? Are small groups just an admission that most churches have become too large and the small group is a simple solution to keeping the masses happy? So is community really the purpose of church?

If it is to convert people to G-d then how successful are we at that?

What is the church offering that is any better than they can get at their local dance club on a Friday night, or at the opera performance at the town hall on the Saturday night?

You see the church is not one thing, or a static body. But rather it is meant to be a dynamic organism, with many people making up its various parts, performing many services with Christ at the core.

But what happens when the arm wants to go to the left and the leg wants to go to the right?

Is that grounds for splitting the church into two and getting yet another breakaway church?

Is there one true church? Is it the Roman Catholic Church, or Christian City Church?

Is G-d in the drums, or in the soft melody of a grand piano?

Does G-d reside in the building, or in the body of believers in the building?

I believe that the church should be on the forefront of everything.

For too long the church has lagged behind, has resisted, and as a result in this post-modern world has ended up being a relic of the unenlightened past.

So is it time for another enlightenment?

I think so.

No longer can we sit back and rely on advertising and word of mouth for getting people to attend on Sunday.

No longer can we be just another social service.

No longer can we resist the constantly changing world.

The world is not flat, yet many churches still act like the wheel has yet to be invented.

For the church to have relevance it must be different.

And not different because it is boring, but different because it must be radical different.

We need to bring back some witch trials…. That set us apart. (just joking).

No, what we need to be is on the forefront of the new media.

Take blogs for instance. What an opportunity missed.

Blogs have quickly turned into a mass media entity, but were founded in political commentary, and that is the focus of many still today.

What about viral videos… already taken, with people typically doing silly stuff.

You see as much as we don’t want to mindlessly following the next trend that comes along, we are not even that good, we are still stuck in the 1500s when it is the 2100s.

And yes I did just write 2100, we need a 2100 hundred mindset.

What is wrong with a bit of experimentation at church?

What is wrong with a bit of hip-hop thrown in the mix?

At the end of the day G-d gave us these talents and these abilities to use, so why are we not using the gifts that we have been given, why are we doubting and questioning everything?

And this brings me to music.

Oh music, probably one of the most controversial topics within church communities.

No you cannot possibly have an electric guitar, electric guitars are evil because they require electricity, and electricity is scary stuff, it involves science, and science is evil (just ask Galileo)

You know what. I want to see a turntable used in church. With the Westminster Abbey Boy Choir’s version of How Great Thou Art scratched up a little.

Why? Because I can. Because if it can get people in the door and worshiping G-d then it must be good?

Well not exactly.

But it is different. And we need that point of difference.

You see at the moment the church may be living, but it is not breathing, it is in the rest home on life support.

And while we continue to play the funeral marches every Sunday morning then it will get just that little bit closer to death. Jesus may have risen, but when will the church awaken?

You see this is what gets my back up the most.

Jesus was not this holier that thou person who 2000 years ago showed up to the local synagogue in a Gucci Suit, driving a Mercedes Donkey M5, and the value of his 20,000 sheep was known throughout the land.

In fact it was the opposite, born in a manger, not a nice clean little straw bed but a pigs-sty (maybe that can be the next excuse for my room looking like one, my room is just having the Jesus experience, amen).

He did not own many possessions in fact he advocated in a minimalist lifestyle, selling what you have, and serving the poor.

He wasn’t afraid to get his feet a little dirty, and a little dusty, but these days we must always wear our Sunday best, and mud well urgh.

He was the friend of tax-collectors, and prostitutes, something that even today we continue to have issues with.

He loved these people, but all we can seem to do today is hate on them.

The church is more known for spreading a message of labeling people sinners, rather than children of G-d, or people who G-d loves.

The key thing was Jesus was not afraid to be different, on the edge, and ruffle a few feathers, he certainly was not old and boring.

But today even the notion of adding a more upbeat song to the mix (or adding a slower song at some churches) will put half the church into revolt.

The church appears to be more concerned with closing the doors on the world from Monday to Saturday and opening them up for two hours on a Sunday to let people in, never to let the warmth of G-d’s love out (it may catch a cold).

And what gets me most is perfectionism.

G-d is perfect, and only G-d can make things perfect.

The church today is too concerned with putting on the correct face, for trying to make itself look like it is one notch above the rest.

Surely the church should be a place that is one notch below, full of people who are on the outside broken, but on the inside healed by G-d.

And that healing that starts on the inside can then begin to thaw the frozen outside.

Surely the purpose of church is to be a city on a hill.

A city not a building, letting light, warmth, and love out.

A point of difference in a darkened world.

Not just a building covered with so much dust that the light inside cannot escape.

And that leads onto the next topic what does a city on a hill look like?

To be continued….

Psalm 82:3-4a

“… You’re here to defend the defenseless, to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;
Your job is to stand up for the powerless, …”

(The Message)

The state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions

With this in mind I have to ask is the following quote poverty?

From now on, I am deemed poor… coz I have money I can’t touch…

Is having you can’t touch poor? I don’t think so. If you put up a barrier to money that you have that is your that is your problem. You are not poor. You are simply acting.

Say I was to have $10,000 and I decided to lock $9,900 away into a six month term deposit. I only have $100 left. Can I honestly claim that I am poor. NO. I am not poor I have simply decided to be stubborn with my money to try and claim some sympathy. It is Disgusting Behavior. NOT because you have money. But because that you have money and at the same time you are trying to claim that you don’t. It is deceitful and lying to say that you are poor.

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Proverbs 30:8 NIV

Hebrews 13:18 NLT

Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to live honorably in everything we do.

How can we have a clear conscience if we are not honest with one and other – in our actions, in our feelings, in how we live our life?

How do we live honorably in this world? What is right and what is wrong? Are the lines that blurred? Can there be light in the darkness? Does the light shine out of the darkness? Should there be light in the darkness or should the light be surrounded by other light to make the combined light stronger?

Saw this new video on C4 a few days ago. It is awesome.

This first video I saw at a Student Life (Campus Crusade for Christ) event.

These remaining videos are parodies of the Mac vs PC ads

People often try and use science to prove the existence of God. By using creation science or intelligent design theory these scientists try to prove God by using overwhelming statistical data. By doing this creation scientists believe that they can disprove other theories on the origin of humanity, specifically evolution.

Using science to prove God will not fully show who God is. Actually it will show very little of him. This is because if God created science then, despite what some people believe, God is not bound by science. To explain this in the context of everyday life take the example of a man building a shed. The man builds the shed, but the man is not bound inside the shed that he built.

So using this reasoning, in the beginning… God creates science and man creates a shed. Science shows God’s creation and the shed shows man’s creation. Science is an example of God’s creativity and the shed is an example of man’s creativity. However, the shed does not completely describe man’s creativity, let alone everything about the man. In the same way science does not completely describe God’s creativity, let alone everything about God.

You see in the same way the man and the shed are different, one being the direct result of the other, God and science are different. Science cannot completely describe God because God is more than just science. When we realise that God is not bound by human constraints we will begin to understand that God is the only logical explanation of how we can exist.