Destiny's actions mirror core issues within the Christian Community / A.J. Hendry
Most Christians like to distance ourselves from Destiny Church, but if we were honest, are our faith communities much different?
It's Holy Week, and Christians have dominated our headlines and our public consciousness. If you read that sentence without context, you would be forgiven for thinking this was due to the Christian community’s preparation and celebration of Easter: our faiths most important religious festival where Christians like myself celebrate the amazing and unconditional Love and Liberation of our God.
But no, that has not been the story that has driven public conversation this week. Christian's have dominated the public consciousness because a few within our community have decided to protest children's story time events at Library's, paint over Rainbow crossings, and generally find ways to attack, degrade and denigrate our Rainbow Whānau.
Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church whānau were at the forefront of this attack on the Rainbow community, and yet others - including City Impact's Peter Mortlock - bolstered, amplified and supported the movement.
It's sad to say that these events are becoming more and more common. And whenever they do most of us within the Christian community like to distance ourselves from the rhetoric and actions of Destiny Church and their allies at City Impact, we like to frame them as outliers, as different, as extreme.
And yet, an uncomfortable reality for us to wrestle with is that in reality, we are not so different. In many ways Destiny Church and those who vocally support their movement are simply a mirror exposing the same homophobic and transphobic ideology and rhetoric which exists in many - if not most - of our Christian communities.
I know this is hard to admit. Most of us like to think that the 'disagreements' with the Rainbow community within our own church communities are more sound, more reasoned, more loving.
And yet, my personal experience is that there is nothing that I have heard this week from our Destiny whānau which I haven't also heard within most mainstream Christian circles and faith communities I've been a part of.
This reality is something we have to face.
Most people I speak to in the church, nice people, kind people, loving people, are uncomfortable with the way Destiny go about things, and yet shrug their shoulders, and sadly mumble about truth and love when their uncle in the back pew grumbles about the Gay agenda, and the insidious Trans plot to steal free speech and sexualize our children.
When you feel that discomfort next time, I want to encourage you to explore it. To look inward.
To ask yourself, why do I feel this?
And perhaps when you do, you may begin to recognize that this ideology many within our communities hold so tight to, this ideology which is amplified in its ugliest form through the mirror Destiny are holding up for us, is so contrary to the Love, Grace and Mercy we know to be core to our faith and to our own values.
It's easy to point the finger, but in these moments, I want to take the opportunity to encourage us to look inward.
If we're uncomfortable with what Destiny are doing, maybe we need to start addressing why that same ideology feels comfortable sitting in our own pews?
At its core, the Christian faith is about Love and Liberation, it’s about care for the most vulnerable in our world, it’s about the Divine loving humanity so much that They chose to become one with us, to become human, to suffer and die to reveal to all of us the almighty Love of our God.
And that Love, despite the way it has been revealed this week, is beyond unconditional. It is open and accessible to all God’s children.
And my dear Rainbow Whānau you are God's children. You are loved. You are welcome. You are image bearers of the Divine One.
And none of us have the right to say otherwise.
#LoveIsTheWay
A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and a Youth Development Worker and rangatahi advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads Kick Back, a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.
Thank you. Beautiful.