In response to Tamaki\u2019s recent rhetoric, Wellington Anglican priest Scottie Reeve said Tamaki wants to \u201cmandate a vision of a theocracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two very different visions of Christianity,\u201d Reeve said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s what Jesus put forward, where he talked about us \u2018salting or seasoning the world\u2019 as Christians and being a positive influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen there is Brian\u2019s perspective, which we\u2019re seeing come from [Donald] Trump and lots of his acolytes and folks around the world, which is instead of Christians being a positive influence on the world, we\u2019re meant to \u2018dominate and control\u2019 the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus steps into people\u2019s lives with hope; Brian instead wants to mandate a vision of a theocracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a moment globally of fear and uncertainty \u2013 economically, politically, socially. And in those moments, as you saw in the 1930s and in other moments in history, we tend to look for someone to blame, and often migrants and foreigners, those who are different from us, are an easy place to scapegoat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brian Tamaki’s incendiary online comments have been condemned by Christian leaders. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Reeve said that Jesus himself \u201cwas a migrant and a refugee in his life\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Brian doesn\u2019t think there\u2019s room for migrants, then he\u2019s actually saying there\u2019s no room for Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reverend Dave Whitaker, from the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Christchurch, said Tamaki\u2019s \u201cresponse is not in line with either the teachings of Jesus or the mainstream Christian church\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s potentially dangerous as well, in terms of radicalising people towards extremist activity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitaker, who has researched the risk of Christian radicalisation, said Tamaki\u2019s \u201cincreasingly violent\u201d comments are concerning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do find his rhetoric is getting increasingly violent. My concern is that it only takes one person to misconstrue the teachings of Tamaki and have a major incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it is good to see Brian is concerned for the welfare of Christians around the world, I just think, on this issue, it is contrary to the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki at his home in South Auckland. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Anglican Bishop of Wellington Justin Duckworth said Tamaki\u2019s rhetoric is \u201cvery sad\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s counter to the gospel as I understand it. I think it feels to me like it\u2019s making a statement at the cost of people\u2019s lives. <\/p>\n
\u201cJesus himself, in his early life as a child, his family migrated to Egypt due to difficult situations in his birth context. You know, Jesus was a migrant in his early childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such an unusual statement for a Christian leader to be making, and I think it feels to me that it\u2019s generative in fear, not in love. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think the gospel flows from love, not from fear. As Christian leaders, hopefully most of us disagree with the statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duckworth said \u201cthe gospel is really clear that we\u2019re called to turn the other cheek\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in Jesus who changed the world by non-violence, by laying his life down, not by resorting to violence. <\/p>\n
\u201cJesus turned his back on violence. It is counter to the gospel to think that we would respond to violence against Christians around the world with violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this moment in history, it\u2019s really easy to propagate one\u2019s cause by building on fear. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think for all of us, whatever our beliefs, what history calls of us is not to propagate fear, but to propagate love, compassion and belonging. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re starting to talk a lot about social cohesion. That\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to be about. We\u2019ve got to be about not continuing to be seen as people who are peddling a narrative of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In response to Tamaki\u2019s recent rhetoric, Wellington Anglican priest Scottie Reeve said Tamaki wants to \u201cmandate a vision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,9092,5159,82648,12897,5782,38607,2841,8452,12896,16959,305,40683,67209,13489,26477,19339,3429,111,43,139,69,1642,3111,675,36200,53545,7812,12641,5815,250518,6736,5977],"class_list":["post-502272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-against","tag-brian","tag-christian","tag-church","tag-comments","tag-condemned","tag-country","tag-dangerous","tag-destiny","tag-firearms","tag-have","tag-incendiary","tag-jesus","tag-leader","tag-leaders","tag-licence","tag-migrant","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-online","tag-out","tag-police","tag-potentially","tag-revoked","tag-seen","tag-seized","tag-speak","tag-tamakis","tag-was","tag-which"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}