As one of those Academics who were rightly in Michael’s sights, I initially read the “Covenant pledge” the Destiny Church was making with Bishop Tamaki with blinkered eyes. I decided to undertake some research for an academic article “demonstrating” why we should view the Destiny movement with real concern.

Fortunately for me, and I hope for others with whom I have shared my findings, I did take the time to go beneath the surface of the media hype.

Essentially I found three things.

First, the push to undergird the role of bishop as the core of a church is hardly new. Indeed, the notion of the Church being found only where there is a bishop began with St Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century.

Second, the Destiny movement’s appropriation of the Davidic kingship as a model for leadership (church and otherwise) has an almost equally long history – both in Western Europe in the Medieval and later times, but also in New Zealand within the Kingitanga and other 19^th Century Maori movements.

Third, Destiny has clear links with a much wider Afro-American church movement in North America, in which most (perhaps all) the churches write and act in ways almost identical to what one finds on the Destiny website and hears from the Destiny pulpits.

It would appear that a number of the rocks being thrown in Destiny’s direction are hurled by those seemingly unaware of church history or current social/ecclesial trends among minority groups.

Following on from this, the work that is being done by Destiny among some groups who have been unreachable by the mainstream church should give us all pause. Destiny does seem to promote a collective – at times tribal – approach to discipleship which seems out of step with the more individualistic thinking in Western society. However I hardly think its rejection of the post-modern approach is intrinsically unbiblical.

Perhaps, as Michael mused, these differences are more to do with class (and I would add culture) than doctrine.

This is not to say that we need agree with all that is said and done by the Destiny Church: I certainly do not. Aspects of its theology do need wiser counsel than seems apparent at present. But we would all do better to enter into informed dialogue rather than the far easier sport of name-calling.

In this vein I applaud Michael Duncan, and urge us all to find ways to enter into dialogue, not diatribe, with Bishop Tamaki and the Destiny Church.

– Anthony Rimell

Glendowie, Auckland