In The House Of Brian (Pt. 2)

It's fair to say that the three of us were gripped by senses of anxiety that varied in strength as the musicians and singers took the stage and burst into epic, albeit repetitive, song. The heaving mass of the churchgoers standing below the stage swayed excessively from side-to-side, clapping to the beats of the songs (although they wouldn't have been doing this if the singers on-stage had not been doing it). Alison, Robbie and I had to join in so as to attempt to reduce the air of suspicion that was surrounding us. In light of the fact that church officials had been talking to each other and glancing at us earlier, we had to do all we could to seem really into it though.

The woman doing the lead singing cried out praises repeatedly, attempting to sound like a gospel singer. "I can see some closed mouths!" was one comment that the singer made. Alison told me afterwards that at that point she was beginning to feel increasingly conspicuous. Church officials patrolled the aisles, slyly surveying the worshippers. The music in itself was not bad at all; more disconcerting was the drawn-out nature of the songs, and the inevitable increasing feeling of suspense that developed as a consequence. We were constantly aware that eventually, Brian Tamaki was to appear on stage, and were decidedly uncomfortable because of that fact. After the music had finished, there was a brief moment in which we were morbidly concerned that Brian was not going to be speaking, as a Destiny pastor rose to the paupet to speak to us about the importance of tithing. He made several references to the scriptures (I apologise for not having noted them down) in support of his argument, and emphasised that two gold coin donations were encouraged -- one for the church itself and one to fund Destiny TV. We were enlightened to the idea that Destiny sermons are now apparently broadcast live on Prime.


The pastor then took the highly-esteemed privilege of welcoming Brian Tamaki. When the man himself did at last find his feet amidst the ranks of church officials sitting in the front rows immediately before the stage, the amount of approval that he received from the assembly was incredible. The response he got certainly was a lot more rousing than the praise that had been directed at God at the conclusion of the two songs that opened the service. All the musicians save for the keyboardist filed tidily off the stage, and infinitely powerless synths began to flow through the speakers as Brian basked in man-made light and proudly took up his influential position behind the paupet. It took a while for everybody to settle down, especially since many more were still arriving.

Brian opened his time of speaking by making a few decidedly heavy comments that had seemingly been dumbed down so as not to register as too depressing to the faithful. He promised that it was going to be a more leisurely sermon than usual, allegedly in light of the fact that it had been "a hard weekend" and "a hard three years, actually." These two statements of course were undoubtedly in reference to the General Election, and Labour's term in government in which it had initiated the Civil Union and the Prostitution Law Reform Bills, respectively. As he broke the spine of the Bible so that it would remain on the page from which he was about to read scripture, he briefly mentioned the sermon that had happened that morning and how successful it had been.

However, Brian was not to make particularly extensive reference to the scriptures, instead choosing to go off on a tangent that simply used one or two pieces of the literature as a starting point. Again, allow me to apologise for not having recorded which ones they were. Brian explained that the evening's sermon was going to be about the "face, space and place" of the individual as a part of "the whole." As it turned out, his entire one and a half hour speech ended up being based around those three rhyming words, with it being a not-uncommon occurrence for all three to appear in the same sentence, and usually spoken within three seconds of one another. This butchering of logical sentence structure and spoken language was, however, evidently taken in with great enthusiasm by his supporters in the crowd. The huge man next to me -- clad in his blindingly white "Destiny Kapa Haka - Traditional Family Values" jacket, which made swishing noises every time he made the slightest movement -- scrawled every "major point" that was made onto his A4 notepad.

One such point that Alison, Robbie and I have found particularly memorable is when Brian said something along the lines of "Our keyboard player Andrew here... If I were to go over there and invade his space, and threaten to take over his place, he's gonna say 'get out of my face.'" The disordered and, as a consequence, almost incomprehensible nature of what he was saying was met with thunderous laughter and applause from the crowd, no less. What I have articulated gives a fair idea of the sort of irritating slapstick lunacy that Brian was giving off, but the fact that the sentences he speaks are so chaotic gives me little ability to give a totally accurate quote without actually possessing a recording of the sermon.

At times when he was speaking in a more composed manner, it was almost equally as difficult to take him seriously, and this was not helped by Andrew the keyboardist's contributions to the atmosphere. Weak music that sounded like it was trying to be New Age and Gothic at the same time incessantly buzzed along in the background, its poorly-conveyed mood changing in correlation to what Brian was saying. It jabbed abruptly -- disruptively -- whenever Brian uttered a word such as "liberal." To me at least, the keyboard synths were more irritating than anything, although I can see that the intended use would be to affect "appropriate" feelings on the crowd, in terms of reinforcing the nature of what Brian was saying. It was an interesting concept but I don't think that it was executed very well. The poor choice of synths, sound effects and incoherent musical structure ended up reminding me of the soundtrack to the TV show Big Wolf On Campus.

Having spoken extensively about the "places," or roles within "the whole," of the musicians and singers that had participated in the opening of the sermon, Brian moved on to another case study -- that of "the CEO." He imitated the detractors of the CEO of a company, gesturing towards the administrative part of the church building: "That guy down the hall, the CEO, he's always got his feet up on the desk and his hands behind his head, with his eyes closed, like he's asleep; dreaming all the time."

He then set about allegedly paraphrasing the supporters of the CEO: "That's his job. His role, his place is to lie there and dream. He's the one with the vision. He dreams up the direction the company's going to take next." Proudly, with a smug look on his face and his moving his finger to point to his own chest, Brian then declared, "That man is me." The roof of the building was almost lifted off with the powerful roar of approval from the crowd that followed Brian's unashamed self-exaltation, and what I interpreted as virtually an admittance to the fact that Destiny is more of a profit-making undertaking for its leader than anything else. Immediately after Brian had made his assertion, I gave out an involuntary groan. I simply couldn't help myself. He had succeeded in absolutely disgusting me and at that moment I felt certain that all I'd heard about Destiny Church being an ultra-conservative personality cult was true. It was becoming very hard to fight the waves of nausea and I was beginning to greatly look forward to the conclusion of the sermon.

However, there was one more serious hurdle to endure before the end. "The whole" was never solidly defined throughout the sermon, leaving the term open to interpretation until the very end. I do not recall Brian ever mentioning God in the context of the whole; rather, it was distinctly focussed on the church and the furthering of its interests within both the local and international communities. The idea of Destiny's superiority to other churches and the expression of the need for it to influence other churches was constantly emphasised. Also, the subjugation of the individual churchgoers for the benefit of the whole was promoted. It is decreed that they each have a role to play in the hive of activity that is the church.

In the final prayer that closed the sermon, all of those points were covered, with Brian making a call-out to his supporters, imploring them to "serve the corporate body." The prayer was the first time in the sermon at which the term "corporate body" had been substituted for "the whole" -- needless to say, I was shocked at the language that was used to describe what is supposedly a church. As he dismissed the sermon at last, Brian's parting words were telling unnerving: "Go forth and multiply." Alison, Robbie and I left hastily, wisely ignoring the invitation to supper. Enough was enough.