Destiny Church is an institution that has been scrutinized for years. They seem to bounce back and forth from being irrelevant to the front page of the news.
Over the last few days, they’ve made their way to front center again with the recent protests of a children’s show that they led. You may or may not have heard about this incident; but either way we have all been lacking a lot of context and further information about the incident.
The protests were directly led by Destiny Church,
the protestors stormed Auckland Community Centre where a children’s science show was being held- led by Auckland drag king Hugo Grrrl.

Destiny Church was founded by Brian Tamaki and wife Hannah Tamaki in July 1988, in South Auckland.
Destiny Church is a New Zealand Christian fundamentalist organization that has been described as a church, a religious movement, or a cult.

The movement was founded by 20 members of Lake City Church in Rotorua and was initially called ‘City Church Auckland’. Brian Tamaki and his wife continue to run the church, serving as Visionary and Senior Ministers of the church. The church campaigns for a return to so called ‘Christian moral values’ in New Zealand society. They have especially campaigned for the ‘sanctity of marriage between a husband and wife’.

The group advocates strict adherence to Biblical morality and their negative reputation largely comes from their position against homosexuality, for its patriarchal views and its call to return to biblical conservative family values and morals. The direction and ideology of the church is highly personalized around Tamaki- whose title is ‘Apostle Bishop’. From a 2018 New Zealand Census the organization has recorded 1,772 followers.

This institution has come under fire multiple times for their outlandish protests. In August of 2004, Destiny Church members marched NZ Parliament as part of their ‘Enough is Enough’ rally. This rally drew 5000 protestors against civil unions legislation.
The group wore black T shirts and track pants while protesting, which prompted negative comparisons to Nazi storm-troopers.

In the times of Covid, Tamaki incorporated anti-vaccination theories into Destiny Church’s ideology and denied the existence of covid altogether. The group took part in the 2022 anti-vaccine protest in Wellington. Tamaki has also publicly blamed ‘sexual perversion’ of gay people for the 2011 Christchurch earthquake (no idea how the two correlate?). The church has also come under scrutiny for their ‘covenant oath’. In October 2009, 700 male members of the church attended a conference in which they swore a ‘covenant oath’ of loyalty and obedience to Tamaki. A document recording the moment and asserting Tamaki’s authority states that ‘Bishop (Tamaki) is the tangible expression of God’ and instructs the sons to follow numerous protocols, defer to Tamaki with unquestioning loyalty and obedience, to follow his dress code, and to never tolerate criticism.

And people still don't believe the cult allegations?

The church claims to provide biblical guidance, teaching, budget advice, family and parenting advice, support for drug and alcohol abuse, anger management, and provision of food and housing. Their preaching and teaching are very conservative, based on literal interpretations of biblical teachings. Their members are predominantly of Māori and Polynesian descent, and from all levels of the socio-economic classes of our society.

Destiny Church and Brian Tamaki have filled the news recently, after the group led a protest of a children’s science show that was part of Auckland’s pride events.

Parents and children were barricaded inside during the incident, while the church members stormed the library. This protest shows that the group’s views are not and have never been just kept to themselves. Their protest was aggressive, violent, and terrifying. They willingly put children in danger. Police are investigating allegations of assaults after 50 members of the church entered the building and refused to leave. After their protest, Tamaki told his congregation he had instructed a group leader to ‘storm the library they’re in and shut it down’.
He also told his congregation he would ‘smack someone who was trying to pervert my child in a room’.

In defiance of the Destiny Church protests, a political activist group- People Against Prisons Aotearoa- led a protest last Sunday at Auckland’s Albert Park

“They have especially campaigned for the ‘sanctity of marriage between a husband and wife”.

They planned the protest to ‘show Destiny Church that they are a tiny, hateful portion of our population’. The aim of this group’s protest was to demand the Government to dismantle Destiny Church organisationally and deregister all of Destiny’s charities. Destiny Church stated that they would ignore the protest, as leader Brian Tamaki’s father died Thursday morning, and he has been in Te Awamutu of recent for his tangi.

The speakers of this protest included Sharon Hawke, Dr Emmy Rakete, Chloe Swarbrick, Rev Mua Strickson-Pua, Eru Kapa Kingi, and Medulla Oblongata. On the PAPA website, they have stated they will demand the government agencies sign memoranda of understanding with Auckland Pride and affirm they will no longer refer people to Destiny Church front groups like Man Up. They have also stated they will warn Destiny Church that queer people are not defenseless victims who can be assaulted at will, and they will stand their ground.

Among many others, Labour MP Phil Twyford has asked the charities regulator to take Destiny Church charities off the register, following the events of the 15th Feb. Twyford made a formal complaint to the Charities Service which reads as follows ‘I’m concerned about the impact of Destiny followers violently forcing their way into the Te Atatu Peninsula Community Centre last week; punching, kicking and shoving Council staff and bystanders, while parents and young children were attending a story reading by a drag artist put on by Auckland Council as part of Pride Week’.

He also commented that ‘Destiny targeted this event because these children were being read to by a drag artist. Destiny leader Brian Tamaki vilified the artist by maliciously and wrongly equating the event with child abuse and pornography. This clearly amounts to improper discrimination, which is another example of wrongdoing included in the Charities Act’.

This event has sparked fire from the queer community in New Zealand. This harsh display of clear homophobia and hatred has shown that our country is still stuck and has a long way to go before our society is accepting to all. However, we cannot let this incident bring down spirits. It has simply shown us that our community can and will fight back. The ‘Defying Destiny’ protest was a beautiful display of this, showing that we can’t let these kinds of views and morals slide.