Talk:Brian Tamaki

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Comments[edit]

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I dispute the labelling of his church as "conservative". The Destiny Church is nothing like a traditional, staid NZ church, of which there are very few remaining. Destiny is actually fairly typical of modern churches in NZ, but just holds a higher profile in a country where Christianity has very little civil presense.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.254.40 (talk • contribs) 23:00, 28 December 2004

It is not traditional in the way other NZ churches are, but that does not mean its values are not conservative, it is extremely conservative in relation to gay marriage and gay rights. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.155.135 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 20 January 2005

Yes, the church takes a conservative position on certain high profile issues. But much of what the church teaches, e.g. prosperity gospel is not at all conservative from a general or a specifically Christian perspective. Its style of leadership and worship is anything but conservative. To describe it as advocating a "conservative biblical morality" is very inapt, and I suspect made very much with the politics of sex and sexuality in mind. "Pentecostal and fundamentalist biblical morality" would be more accurate IMO. The Angel of Islington 06:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Destiny is somewhat of an extremist 'fundementalist pentecostal' persuasion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.155.135 (talk • contribs) 13:31, 21 October 2006

The change from 'Controversial' to 'charasmatic' is all you need to say about 210.55.9.65 's changes to this article, he/she is definetly biased Mexaguil 10:00, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Controversial' is certainly the better tag. Stombs 12:58, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

"Right wing"?[edit]

I don't think right wing is a suitable description for the DNZ party - in NZ this term is used on an economic basis, not a social one. Changing it to "authoritarian" porges 23:39, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

'A VERY VERY DANGEROUS MAN 'MUST BE WATCHED AND IF NESSARY ... STOPPED!!' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.89.155.135 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 5 March 2006

Please note the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines:
'"Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views."' Alan Liefting 00:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Is this For real?: Quote: I don't think right wing is a suitable description for the DNZ party - in NZ this term is used on an economic basis, not a social one.

Ah, no! Social conservatism in NZ is very much labelled as right-wing. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 05:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are replying to a comment made more than four years ago! However, in NZ even the mainstream parties called "right wing" tend to be socially liberal, such as in support of gay rights. I think the original poster was saying that Destiny is significantly different in its social policies from parties often called "right wing" due to their economic policies, such as National and ACT, and the label is therefore not sufficiently descriptive.-gadfium 08:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I don't think it matters when the comment was made if it is still visible on the discussion page. It is clear that you don't have a political science background. It may be a helpful rule of thumb that Left-wing parties are also generally labelled as "progressive" and right-wing parties as "conservative". Destiny is a conservative party, it's social politices are far-right. Since it also believes in "prosperity theology" which tends towards right-of-centre economic philosophies then it is clearly a right-wing party. From a political science point of view there is little difficulty labelling it as such. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 07:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

POV[edit]

As per Destiny Church this article is seriously unbalanced. I see it has a link to it's entry at cults.co.nz but has no info on it's similarities to a cult inside the article itself. I hope to ammend this, but in the meantime I am tagging it POV. Glen Stollery (My contribs) (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this article is not unbalanced - wikipedia only includes as far as i am aware, articles about well known and/or well established topics. Destiny Church is only worthy of any mention because of its controversial nature. If it were not controversial, it would have no place in wikipedia, just like all the other neo-christian faith groups in the world. It certainly has a strong anti-gay conservative feeling. I can affirm this, coming from New Zealand. I thought the article was rather fair and unbiased, and article i would have written would certainly have erred much more on the anti destiny church side. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by D4rk0 (talk • contribs) .

It's not biased. It's fair. SO I removed POV 203.109.184.252 04:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree this article seems somewhat biased, and overweighted with criticisms. I have amended the article to group criticisms together under a heading. User:A.J.Chesswas 12:03, 7 June 2006 (NZT)

I don't think its fair at all, there is alot of emotive language in this article. Don't get me wrong, I'm gay, I can't stand the party or their church. But this is supposed to be an encyclopedia. I think it needs a little revision, just to remove a few emotive words, provide a balanced article. Its also very focused on gay issues, when there is (I assume) much more to their church than just that? Icemotoboy 07:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I just finished going through it. I really think that whole criticisms section needs some real serious revision. It just smacks of what I would want to write. But thats not what wikipedia is about. I moved a bunch of criticism stuff into the criticism section. I removed some emotive language around elections. I put some citation requests in. Regarding existing sources, I think more are needed as some of the current ones (I have flagged one) links to a site that obviously has a clear POV. If this hasn't been re-written, I'll go through it myself but I will tend to delete as I can't really add much.Icemotoboy 08:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Needs serious cleanup[edit]

I just went back through again and gave it a spruce up. I removed an irrelevant comment about a musical paraody that was on someones blog. I removed an unreferenced comment that was inflamatory and largely irrelevant to the article. I did a google search and referenced what I could. I think more should be placed here ABOUT Brian Tamaki, and less about criticisms of him. In fifty years time, people will want to know about the man not just what he stood for. What he stood for is already covered in the Destiny Church article.Icemotoboy 04:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously...[edit]

It is fair to say that this article needs serious clarification and comment perhaps from Bishop Tamaki himself - your description does not fairly reflect the church vision. Much of the material is controversial, poorly sourced and potentially libelous. Would recommend that you obtain accurate comments from verifiable sources. 202.154.143.49 12:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)Truth prevails[reply]

Can you give specific examples of poor sources and potentially libellous claims? Please add the tag {{fact}} to any information that needs verifying. There is an extensive reference list from whence the information is sourced so any contested facts can be checked. Admittedly it is generally from the media so it is possibly contestable. Alan Liefting 00:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP Policy would discourage Tamaki from writing about himself on Wikipedia. However, I agree that the article is unbalanced, in that almost all of the content is in a "Criticism" section. Much of this information could be reorganised into other sections, with the addition of more facts. I suggest adding a Biography section and a section about his leadership of the Destiny Church. BreathingMeat 21:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criticisms heading now removed[edit]

I removed the heading of Criticisms and put the sub-headings in as headings. They are criticisms of Tamaki but only by those who do not agree with him. Removal of the heading makes the page more NPOV and leaves it up to the reader to decide whether they are criticisms or not. Alan Liefting 20:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say removing the heading makes the article less POV. On the contrary. The article now reads as if those subheadings are followed by an accurate, comprehensive and balanced survey of Tamaki's views. What this article needs is some material from Tamaki's autobiography and/or publications, and from more positive media sources, to bring better balance. Until this happens I would assert that this article is very clearly POV.A.J.Chesswas 21:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have planned on adding info from his autobiography (but not until after my exams finish in a few weeks). Maybe there is nothing positive that can be said about Tamaki? The points made in the article are accurate since they are referenced. Whether thay are balanced is open to argument but I think they are about right. Some of the points that were under the Criticism heading could be construed as positive especially by those who agree with him. Feel free to add info to the article yourself. Alan Liefting 23:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Maybe there is nothing positive that can be said about Tamaki" - that comment is a good indication that the authorship of this article is certainly not coming from a balanced and NPOV source. Be honest. There is probably good basis to remove what has been contributed until a fuller picture can be given. But I won't push for that because I don't believe in censorship of information and as you say everything provided is sourced. What I do hope, whether its me or someone else, is that someone who views Tamaki positively will find the time to contribute.A.J.Chesswas 23:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My questioning of any positive information about Tamaki is NOT and indication of bias in the article. All statements are referenced. If you have information that makes it less POV please add it otherwise add the {{neutrality}} tag. Alan Liefting 23:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you're not biased then you would have to pretty ignorant to think there is nothing positive to say about Tamaki. Why do you think he has thousand of followers attending his churches across the country?
I'm not going to add a tag because I'm not willing at this stage to start researching Tamaki and reworking this page. I'm hoping instead you will man up and admit you haven't sought to contribute to this article in a balanced way, and to write instead like an encyclopediac rather than a politician.
Admittedly it probably won't be long before I get amongst this page. But go on, apply some academic skills rather than polemic skills and beat me to it :) A.J.Chesswas 11:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your tone is bordering on incivility. Please do not focus on the question I posed. Please judge me on my edits. That Tamaki has thousands of followers as being a positive thing is your opinion and as such cannot be added to the article. Some of his followers are tithing to the church at the expense of their overall quality of life. This is a negative thing. Some of his followers may get spiritual satisfaction. I guess that is a positive thing. But what does Tamaki do on balancing the negative and positive effects? We can only add whatever this is from an authoratative source.

Here is a list of my edits:

  • [1] - removed "Tamaki categorically denied the allegation, which was only made following a tide of complaints about the manner with which Yardley had conducted the interview." since it was not referenced and I could find no references to it.
  • [2] - added reference to unsourced statement which i had earlier tagged as unsourced.
  • [3] - Removed "Criticisms" heading as discussed ealier.
  • [4] - added extra info on his DVD sourced from the Film Classification Office.
  • [5] - tagged sentence (which I later deleted) with {{fact}}
  • [6] - Added information about the "A Nation under Siege" tour and DVD.
  • [7] - replace deleted referenced info. (see also[8])
  • [9] - added image and some notable comments he made in Nelson.
  • [10] - removed {{Cleanup|date=October 2006}}
  • [11] - reword and supply ref to avoid POV issue.
  • [12] - minor wiki markup correction.
  • [13] - converted links into {{cite ref}}s to clean up article. remove {{infobox celebrity}} remove dead and redundant links
  • [14] - rm dead link, added autobiography, corrected capitalisation, rm unnecessary speech marks. rm POV-statement (this edit needs checking)
  • [15] - Added "On 18 June, 2005 he was ordained as bishop of the Destiny Church."

Are they polemic? Are they non-academic? Do they sound like they are written by a politician? Are they biased? Feel free to revert the ones you do not agree with. You are also welcome to add one of the many neutrality tags if you merely suspect a problem without doing the research. As far as I can ascertain none of my edits have been reverted so therefore they cannot be particularly controversial. The actual information that I have added to the article (as opposed to the general housekeeping) is a small part of the total content of the article so you cannot blame me for any perceived bias. Alan Liefting 00:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly needs a tidy up and unbiased info[edit]

For the record, his 'ordination' is pretty much a self fulfilling act; Is the 'titheing' that members have to do mentioned; is his use of male, black shirted thugs in their protest against the civil union bill mentioned.

The word 'charisma' - yes he has charisma, hence how he is able to con the disenfanchised. The bloke is a dangerous charlatan.

I don't have any evidence, but isn't he related to the other (ex-gang member) Tamaki brothers, another questionable group? Ianguy 23:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the information that you suggest should be in the article can be found in the Destiny Church, New Zealand article. Note that the use of the word "charismatic" is used in the sense of the Charismatic movement rather than Tamaki's personal charisma. Brian Tamaki does have two other brothers who are notable for driving motorbikes and tourism ventures. I am not sure if this needs incorporating into this article. Can you be more specific about what you consider to be bias? Note the you can place on of the many tags on the article to alert other editors about POV issues. As editors we cannot place our personal opinion in an article (or on talk pages). Whether Tamaki is a charlatan or not is up to the reader to decide and to this end our job is to give referenced information from authoritative sources. Alan Liefting 09:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good job on the editing[edit]

The page is now much better than it was. But it doesn't seem very balanced to me still? Surely there must have been some good things that he has done that have been reported by the media, it would make sense to me to try and balance out some of the negative media reference with some positive ones perhaps? Also, the reference to the cruise doesn't seem particulary encyclopedic to me. Icemotoboy 04:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is good and bad is subjective. Some would say the setting up of churches by Tamaki is good, some will say it is bad. Similarly with his promotion of conservative "family values" and the decrying of homosexuality. I will be adding stuff on a political roadshow of his and comments from him at the National Statement on Religious Diversity (will do it after exams!!). The reference to the cruise is appropriate since it was a notable news event and some readers would want to know about it. One of the problems in writing an article on him is that we need to rely predominately on the media at this stage. Apart from Tamaki's autobiography I don't know of any reference in books. -- Alan Liefting talk 04:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thats a very good point regarding subjectivity. It appears there is a problem in that mainstream media to report on events regarding him that tend to have negative connotations to the majority of readers. For example, if on one day Tamaki made a speech about helping the elderly, and made another speech decrying homosexuality, its plausable that the media would report the second one as it is more controversial and therefore of greater impact/interest. Perhaps we could reference off their own site more, regarding his achievements with the church. Each of these comments could be proceeded with "Tamaki claims Tamaki has..." or "Destiny Church claims Tamaki has...". I guess I like to believe that even though he's pretty nasty to my segement of the population, he must do some good stuff, and that needs to be recorded on this page somewhere. But dammed if I can find anything in the mainstream media that doesn't portray him in a negative light. Good luck for your exams btw ;) Icemotoboy 23:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bit about conversion removed[edit]

I removed the passage which said Tamaki "converted to Christianity". Unless he was a previously Muslim, or Buddhist or whatever, he couldn't "convert" to Christianity. He was brought up as a Christian.222.153.65.218 (talk) 23:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Material included from Tamakis autobiography[edit]

On this edit I added info from his autobiography. It does go against WP policy but it is better than not having this content. -- Alan Liefting- (talk) - 20:29, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weasel Words[edit]

"showed no interest in church or the upbringing of the children." This insinuates that no interest in church is somehow immoral. In an encyclopedic context I do not believe this is legible. I propose to remove this 'comment', are there any comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barfnz (talk • contribs) 22:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"no interest in church or the upbringing of the children" is out of the autobiography. I have referenced it such in the article. I don't see the sentence as making a judgment on morality. It is a statement from Tamaki on the behaviour of his father. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
it is not refuted that he said this but, this is wikipedia, not his autobiography. it just needs to be reworded so as to not contain such a fundamentalist overtone. it is almost as absurd as saying "eco terrorist and green party candidate". it is not hard to achieve objectivity in this edit. i have simply reworded it to "Tamaki describes his father as an alcoholic having little interest in fatherhood." his father's religous persuasion has no relevance here but alcoholism is a terrible vice and that deserves mention because it helps describe his background. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barfnz (talk • contribs) 07:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Money received from the Church[edit]

Brian Tamaki let it slip (before back-tracking) [16] that his income from the church is only one third to one quarter that of Telecom's CEO whose income is most commonly publicised as $7 million [17] [18] [19] Quite why he considers himself on-par with the CEO of NZ's largest company is yet another conversation altogether. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 07:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Question of Tamaki’s status as a cult leader[edit]

I would like to add an edit that I hope will clarify this issue, and may also clarify the question about Tamaki’s ‘Conservative Orthodoxy’. Please view my ‘talk’ page to view my proposed edit. I would appreciate your comments and guidance as this will be my first non-minor edit and this is also a controversial subject. I would also not like to down grade the quality of this page by making errors that could easily be avoided by more experienced editors. I look forward to your feedback. William Herbert (talk) 17:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Special relationship with Eddie Long[edit]

Why is there no mention of the rumours surrounding his relationship with "spiritual father", Eddie Long? Teroamahai (talk) 05:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To quote the article: "Destiny Church claims a close relationship with New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, USA, the church of Bishop Eddie Long. Tamaki cites Eddie Long as a mentor and "spiritual father". Is there something else that should be metioned? Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a rumour mill, blog, society page etc. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem premature at this stage since the allegations against Eddie Long are still in their early stages. However, should the abuse allegations against Tamaki's "spiritual father" firm up, then considering Tamaki's virulent, outspoken and activist stance against homosexuals, the relevance to the article would seem clear. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 11:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Balance[edit]

Balance should not be confused with Neutrality. Balance itself is outside the scope of Wikipedia edits in so far as the editor has done an honest survey of the information available and impartially selected relevant data that fits the criteria for inclusion in an article. I make this observation because several people on this talk page are mentioning the need to maintain balance on the Tamaki article. In general Balance has its place, but not here. Why? Two reasons: Balance is subjective, and paradoxically, can be counter neutral. And here’s my reasoning for this. Firstly Balance relies on discerning Good from Bad, Positive from Negative. As editor Alan Liefting said, deciding what is positive rests on a matter of opinion. Perspective also has an influence. Secondly, unlike neutrality, balance is not a criterion for an edits validity per se. When you examine the extremes this point becomes clear. For example take the most heinous and infamous individual known to society, the percentage of available “favorable” information on this person may be nil. Therefore if Balance was the criterion an article could never be written on this character; if the favorable information was nil then the unfavorable information would also be nil to maintain balance. Or take an article on a hurricane, if balance was a consideration you would need to search for the positives in the hurricane event in order to strengthen the article. This is obviously absurd. Balance is only relevant if an editor has purposefully manipulated the natural balance of the article. In this case we come back to neutrality.William Herbert (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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