Destiny Church (New Zealand)

Common card · No. 430100

Destiny Church is a New Zealand Christian fundamentalist organisation variously described as a church, a religious movement, or a cult. Based in South Auckland and with a strong Māori conservative character, Destiny Church's direction and ideology is highly personalised around its leader and founder, Brian Tamaki, whose title is "Apostle Bishop", and his wife Hannah Tamaki. The couple founded Destiny Church in 1998, and quick growth led to it peaking in 2003 with approximately 5,000 members. As of the 2018 New Zealand Census, the organisation has a recorded 1,772 followers, under a third of the 6,000 claimed by Tamaki. Destiny Church describes itself as an "iwi-tapu" or a "spiritual tribe of God's people". Its structure is Pentecostal, with Tamaki preaching the prosperity gospel to his followers, who are overwhelmingly Māori and Pasifika. The group advocates strict adherence to Biblical morality, and has a reputation for its vitriolic position against homosexuality, for its patriarchal...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Tahkyn, CC BY-SA 4.0