Te Atatū MP Phil Twyford has written to the charities regulator asking for Destiny Church to be struck off.
Around 30 adults and young children had to be barricaded into a room in a library in West Auckland last weekend when a group linked to Destiny Church tried to drown out a Pride Festival Event in Te Atatū.
Twyford’s formal complaint to Charities Services alleges the church engaged in wrongdoing.
“Destiny’s actions were certainly oppressive, which meets the definition of wrongdoing in the law, and so they should lose their tax deductible status,” he said.
I have condemned what Destiny did. But if using force to disrupt an event qualifies as wrongdoing under the Charities Act 2005, then so does using force to disrupt legal meetings and operations, such as Greenpeace does. You have to be consistent.
My long held view is that in fact no church should automatically get charitable status. They should only get it if their actions are charitable, rather than merely because they have a religious belief.
The Act defines charitable purpose as:
charitable purpose includes every charitable purpose, whether it relates to the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion, or any other matter beneficial to the community.
I don’t regard advancement of religion as any more beneficial to the community that advancement of socialism or advancement of capitalism or advancement of political beliefs. Just because your organisation claims its beliefs are linked to a God or spiritual belief, why is that automatically charitable? Why should the Church of Scientology be a charity?
Now don’t get me wrong. Many churches do many charitable things. And all the activities done by Presbyterian Support or the Salvation Army etc that help struggling families should be charitable and tax deductible. But preaching a series of beliefs should not be charitable. Why should Brian Tamaki as a political party leader be non-charitable if you donate to further his beliefs, but Brian Tamaki as a religious leader be charitable if you donate to further his beliefs?
So I would remove advancement of religion as a charitable purpose and allow churches to gain charitable status on the same grounds as everyone else – do they relieve poverty, advance education or benefit the community.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
24 comments:
Am in total agreement with the closing para.
Agree completely, David.
You have got it in one.
Before Churches lose their charitable status the corporate iwi should be first up.
And at the same time remove the charitable status from the Maori incorporations which have resulted from often over generous treaty settlements.
Am in total agreement with Non above too.
Gosh, I have agreed wholeheartedly with TWO commentators today! Must be something in the stars, will check my horoscope! :)
"Many churches do many charitable things. And all the activities done by Presbyterian Support or the Salvation Army etc. that help struggling families should be charitable and tax deductible. But preaching a series of beliefs should not be charitable."
While Destiny Church promotes Christianity per se, it does so partially by way of the many charitable activities it undertakes. The two are deeply connected, what with "charity" being a central pillar of Christian doctrine.
David Farrar has publicly stated that he doesn't have a problem with drag queen story hour, as long as it is privately run. In other words, it's the public funding that's immoral, not the activity itseIf.
With this attitude, it's no surprise that he doesn't think advancing Christianity in itself should be a charitable purpose. Obviously he doesn't have a Christian sense of right and wrong. But is this any surprise?
I wonder what David has to say about the 18 Jewish-related charities currently registered on the Charities Service? Granted, some will be secular and will promote particularly Jewish ethnic (rather than religious) interests.
Farrar seems to oppose Destiny Church mainly because, unlike David, Destiny opposes drag queens and transgenderism.
The issue here is not Destiny or any other church but the tax status of charitable organisations and what qualifies as a charitable organisation and charitable activities. The law tacitly recognises proselytising as a charitable activity, which David and I argue it is not. Things become very interesting indeed when we move out of the Christian domain into e.g. the Hare Krishna movement who also carry out charitable activities and proselytise. I've got a funny feeling many Christians wouldn't agree with them being regarded as a 'church'.
Farrar's logic is impeccable.
The Charities Act has deep roots which reach back to the The Charitable Uses Act of 1601. But times change and 21st century New Zealand has let go of many of the things the 1601 Statute deemed important. For example, the 17th century idea of advancing the cause of religion included burning dissenters at the stake. Not a lot of support for that proposition today here in New Zealand, and religion itself is no longer a significant force in our society. To the contrary. Religion is usually authoritarian and reactionary, which is a bad thing, and some religions could even present a threat to our modern liberal society.
Of course, people can believe what they like, but it's not the place of the State to support or encourage any religion through the law of the land.
Jones Boy
"Religion is usually authoritarian and reactionary, which is a bad thing, and some religions could even present a threat to our modern liberal society."
Why would being "authoritarian and reactionary" be a bad thing, and why would "a threat to our modern liberal society" be undesirable? You treat these propositions as being self-evidently true, when in fact, there is plenty of room for argument.
For someone who believes that modernism and liberalism have been extremely deleterious to society (for which there is plenty of supporting evidence in the form of the social decay we can observe), modernism and liberalism are precisely the root causes and the ideas that should be wound-back.
We have a language problem here. 'Liberal' is a term that arose during the Enlightenment with the ascendancy of human rights and the distancing of law and ethics from religious dictate. The Enlightenment man was a Liberal (capital L) man. He believed in liberty and freedom of expression. Unfortunately the term 'liberal' has over recent decades come to be associated with that form of fascism euphemistically called 'political correctness' and its concomitants. The americanisation of English is largely to blame for that.
Classical Liberalism is not the enemy within, Mme B. In fact, we could use a lot more of it, as it is in effect the exact opposite of liberalism=with-a-small-'l' viz marxofascism.
Barend
I disagree. "Liberalism" of all kinds is really a form of "anti-politics." Politics presupposes difference, disagreement and conflict. As a doctrine, Liberalism denies/opposes essences and natures, and believes that Man (an abstract concept, a blank slate devoid of all essence and nature) has limitless access to the world through the faculty of reason, that people can agree to "contract out" of their innate differences and identities.
The problem is, Liberalism was developed by White men in a highly homogeneous White society (primarily, England). It doesn't work when it is exposed to, for instance, mass immigration, because mass immigration brings differences in natures and essences to the fore. So-called "Enlightenment values" mean very little when most groups of people (other than White people inculcated by Enlightenment values for 300 years) retain and assert their ethnic and religious loyalties and tribalism.
Liberalism persistently fought against its political enemies which had offered alternative systems; that is, conservatism, monarchism, traditionalism, fascism, socialism, and communism, and by the end of the twentieth century had defeated them all. Liberalism, which had always insisted on the minimalisation of the political, made the decision to abolish politics completely after its triumph.
Liberalism starts with the "rational individual” and, at bottom, it is a project of liberation from all collective identity. This means there are just atomised "individuals." If everyone is an "individual" then they needn't identify as a male or a female, a Frenchman or a German and so on - how could they, when these "collectives" are seen in Liberalism as abstractions with no basis in reality - only the "individual" is real, they say.
If there are no collectives such as men and women, there are no male and female roles; if there are no French and German collectives, there are no such things as "nations." Even “human being” is viewed as an abstract collective category, which logically leads to transhumanism.
If we think about it, the idea that we are all unavoidably parts of various collectives (rather than individuals floating in space) and that we have obligations to our collectives that may affect our “individual rights” is more concrete and reflects reality better than the Liberal idea. We all have ties that bind and allegiances to collectives.
If Liberalism is true and humanity is comprised, not of diverse groups with different natures and collective interests, but of unfettered individuals, then, seemingly paradoxically, we are inexorably drawn towards universality and globalisation.
Ideas like nations, traditional gender roles, differences between racial groups etc., and egalitarianism generally, are all illiberal ideas, whereas their opposites (the global borderless village, feminism, and radical egalitarianism) are all liberal ideas through and through.
How far back would you propose winding back society Madam B? What about forty-five years to Robbie Muldoon’s day. You know; when men were men and women knew their place. Gays didn’t exist of course. Or how about 1840, or in fact any time pre-colonial? That was a fine authoritarian society. Do what the chief said or have your head caved in by a small but beautifully carved rock. But then, given the context of this thread, perhaps you feel 1601 is the place to be. Anyone smell burning? One thing is clear however. You would thoroughly approve of Bishop Tamaki’s old testament values and leadership style. Which is where this discussion started I believe. In the meantime why don’t we all have a nice cup of tea and join in a rousing chorus of “Fings aint what they used to be” which undoubtedly will make you feel a lot better.
I think your description better fits libertarianism than classical liberalism, Mme B. You are certainly engaging in 'reductio ad aburdum' here by claiming that liberalism leads to a negation of nation, race and sex. Classical liberalism does not sit at all well with utopianism.
Jones
It's hard to point to a determinate moment in time, but I'd say that things started to go wrong in about 1789. Really, the current political paradigm has its genesis in the French Revolution.
Barend
Well, something akin to "classical liberalism" is at the root of today's world, and we can observe for ourselves the playing out to its logical conclusion. If "freedom" (in the modernist sense of doing whatever one wants with as little restriction as possible, as starkly opposed to the traditionalist sense of being "free" from bondage to one's sensual desires) is the highest ideal, then naturally all social cohesion will eventually be lost.
There is a deep philosophical issue here which is not going to be easily resolved and that is - What is a religion?
In his blog "Darwinism as Religion-a Review" Ruse a philosopher but neither a creationist nor even Christian writes that evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science . Evolution is promulgated as an ideology , a secular religion -a full fledged alternative to Christianity . Religion calls , for what is called a 'polytheistic ' definition -there is no one feature that is necessary , but having several is sufficient. Evolutionary thought through Darwin became a secular religion , in opposition to Christianity. It for example requires faith just as Christianity requires faith.
In 1945 , Dr Ernst Chain , co- discoverer of penicillin and Nobel prize winner said ' Theory of Evolution , (TE) is a very feeble attempt to describe the development of life. I would rather believe in fairies than such wild speculation. ' Albert Fleischman , professor of Geology said' Darwin's theory has not a single fact , to confirm it , in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research but product of imagination' .
Despite prevalent and dogmatic support among the scientific community there are a growing number of honest scientists that following a 150 years of fruitless searches for evidence for proof for the theory
admit none has been found.
We have had Darwinism forced onto us as fact for so long and the debacle at the library is I think part of the conflict - the elephant in the room. Fundamentalist Christians vs transgenderism . However violence is not acceptable but the fuel for this, I think
may have been rooted in the way non -traditional (ie non Christian) practices like transgenderism are being supported by public tax payer institutions. That makes me angry too . Flawed Darwinism has been presented as the main theory to support atheism and anti Christian activity for too long.
I support Madame B. Keep it up . Barend's faith is not built up on as solid ground as he thinks but it gives him license he thinks to rudely attack and ridicule Christian thought whenever he can.
I won't be dragged down to your level (I have no 'faith', that is the preserve of those down in the intellectual pits you inhabit) so won't say much about this rant.
However, for the sake of those perhaps not as well read about the topic as they could be, let me point out that Darwin was a deist when he wrote 'The Origin' and for those who can be bothered, you will find reference to a Creator on the last page of the book.
The 'Development of Life' refers to abiogenesis which does not come under the umbrella of biological evolution.
Readers might be interested in my 2019 published paper "The Haeckelian hijack of Darwinian deism" JBE 54(4), 454-459. It provides a useful historical insight into the tensions between abiogenesis and the emerging Darwinian framework with Ernst Haeckel and deism (just about down and out by the end of the 19thC) thrown in for good measure.
Darwinian biological evolution is about Natural Selection, which was first measured in the field in the late 19th century. "Fruitless searches for evidence", my arse.
Oh, and Fleischman died in 1942. Good to know the opposition is thrashing around for appeals to authority going back 80 years plus.
I have licence in a free society to critique any ideology I like. And I will do so when faced with this kind of bottom-of-the-barrel intellectual bankruptcy.
".... Then eventually all social cohesion will be lost", Mme B? That's not even reductio ad absurdum, it's extrapolatio ad absurdum!
Liberal laissez-faire and individualism combine with the realisation that personal liberty can only thrive in an orderly society. Hence Rousseau's social contract and the social cohesion that flows from it.
I think I am starting to see the light........ 1789 was when things went pear-shaped, you say......... let me take a guess and venture that your family was an aristocratic one either in France or perhaps Poland, maybe Russia, who were trashed by the French revolution either directly or indirectly further down the road ....... hm I really am putting my head on the chopping block now and handing you the axe....... please be nice and understand that there is no malice whatsoever in my words.
At any rate let me ask you whether your heart remains with the 'ancien regime' because that would explain rather a lot about your aversion to Classical Liberalism.
Charity is the love of God. The advancement of the true religion is the only truly charitable activity.
If David is looking to remove organisations from the register he might start with organisations like sexual wellbeing Aotearoa, formerly family planning NZ, an affiliate of planned parenthood international whose sole role is to pervert our children and promote abortion in order to reduce the population.
Dear reader judge for yourself whether derogatory comments Barend made about my intellect were ridicule or not .
Development of life is not really the same as abiogenesis which is origins of life. James Tour an eminent chemist has revealing comments about this topic. He is a world expert in nano technology and oh my goodness has faith in Christianity. Poor fellow how could you achieve that with such limited intellect.
I am genuinely impressed by your erudite articles on deism but for me it doesn't relate to Darwinism or neo Darwinism since Darwin himself can't be held responsible for the course these took . Some scientists don't believe he would have supported the latter. He did have severe doubts that his theory could explain the Cambrian Explosion.
The big problem is extrapolating the accurate natural selection Darwin saw on the Galapagos in the 19th century in finches to the entire animal kingdom .
WRST Fleishman and other early scientists was that even early on when it was still thought the fossil record would eventually reveal the gradual changes predicted by the theory perceptive leaders in geology were skeptical .
Evolution is not happening today and was not observed in the past.
I could mention many other aspects like the violation of the second law of thermodynamics, failure to account for irreducible complexity complexity and more . Will leave it for when I have grown some more grey matter, which I lack, apparently.
Magic wand theorists are always on about the 2nd law of thermodynamics but don't seem to understand the basics of it like the diff between and open system and a closed system........ or deliberately misrepresent it.
Irreducible complexity is yet another fabrication tailor-made for the magic wand case.
That last observation seems an opportune moment for me to say "Over and out", hopefully for keeps.
>"The advancement of the true religion"
Which is...............
Catholicism if you're a Catholic
Mormonism if you're a Mormon
Islam if you're a Muslim
The Vedanta if you're a Hare Krishna devotee
This list could get very long.
Kindly specify when making such statements. Do not assume clairvoyance on your readers' part.
You disappoint me, Mme B! So many hints in your replies to Jonesy and myself to the effect that you are an 'ancien regime' officionado but you won't show your cards! Come on, put me out of my misery! :)
PS Correction: aficionado
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