Some more photos

Bushman Sym trys unsuccessfully to make a bridge
















Rapids down the stream in Ashan
















A cow on its daily stroll


















Relaxing next to the stream




















Evidence of the lack of washing while in Ashan

Alas More Photos

At the Top of the Peak of Love Enjoying the View and Eating Lunch
















Me and Sveta at the top of the Peak of Love

















Russians and a strang guy with a pen held between his mouth and nose. Have we found a member of an anceint tribe. No its just sym.

















Vika















The Team, Natasha, Sergie, Vala, and thier family outside thier house

More Photos!

Jenya surveying the Territory















Pabal the machine leading the team successfully accross the waterfalls
















Nardya, Jo and Nasdia at one of the many waterfalls
















Sveta and the kids in the park















One of the soccer games that my team lost - but wasn't it great. Russians are awesome soccer players. New Zealanders and Hobbits should stick to other sports. Or resort to punching players of the other team in the back - ask sym about that one

Siberia 06 - Photos, Photos and you guessed it - more photos!

Church prayer meeting at Yakov and Natashas House
















Sym and Claire Together

















Me on the boat to Lusvianca
















Lunch at Lusvianca - Ummm Yum!
















Sym the Stonewall Strategist

















The Girls enjoying thier time in Arshan

2 Days 2 go till I go to siberia!

The countdown continues! Only 2 days now! Wow exciting!

I'm really looking forward to the trip now. All my clothes are set out in the lounge for me to pack tommorow.
I have one evening of work left tonight before I go away (freedom!) Then tommorow I have to pack and make sure everything is ready to go.

Tnt Last Night

Can I just comment that Havana Coffee Works is an awesome cafe. It has really nice ambiance and the live music is just awesome. We had an awesome time last night together the food was great! Hope you enjoy the photos! Hey Simon I hope you enjoyed your time in Wellington. It was fun having you part of tnt for the last few weeks.




















Simon from England enjoying his coffee. It was awesome meeting you mate!
















Susans Very Unflattering Picture of Me

















Umm, Nachos!!!

















Chow Time - Yum, Yum Yum!

















Nice Tongue!





















Stylee Anza Stikes a Pose!

Siberia 06 - I'm going back! In a week and a half!

As Many of you will know I'm going back to siberia from June 23rd to July 15. I am really looking forward to this trip and being reunited with people that I met last year on the missions trip. We are going back to Irkutsk where we will set up base in Ernie and ricky pruits for a week. Where we will both just rest and relax and prepare for the camp that we will be heading off to in ashan. Arshan is a rural township based in a mountainous region of siberia. It is known for its mineral pools which are supposed to have medicinal properties.

The main focus for me on this missions trip is to develop those relationships I formed last year to do develop new relationships. The other aim is to support and strengthen the church in siberia, with a real focus on teaching on unity from the book of ephesians and of course last but no means least, to see God glorified and honoured.

I have also the hope that my relationship with God would grow and be challenged even more on this trip to siberia. My aim is to see my heart for missions continue to develop. My real hope is to see people encouraged and growing in thier relationship with Jesus Christ and in some way be part of thier spiritual growth.

I'm also looking forward to worshiping with the Russian Beleivers. As a christian this is the most awsome experience you can ever have. Worshiping with other beleivers, singing praises to the lord when you come from totally different cultures and backgrounds and realising that there is a unity there that you cannot describe in words. A unity that comes from your faith and walk with God. I have come to a conclusion that this is one of the many glimpses of what heaven is like here on earth.

Missions is our heart as christians on earth. As John Piper states, It is our longing as christians to see "the world come into a white hot enjoyment of Gods Glory."

The Naked Christian

The Naked Christian is a book by Craig Borlaise. It is a book primarily about stripping back everything and looking at christianity and christians in both painful and refreshing ways. Craig Borlaise feeds off his own experiences as a christian both the painful and Good. He uses alot of bibler stories as examples to back up his argument. He is also critical and sceptical of his own conclusions.

The book first looks at the myths that surround and drive christians in in the modern world. The first being the myth of the spiritual sixpack and that the christian needs to be perfect. That the church has to do everything on the large scale and in a perfect way. That big concerts, flashy lights and all that is what God wants when really it isn't what God wants. God wants our hearts (how painful can that be.) He wants us no matter the crap we carry. He wants us to be real and he wants us to change to be loving him more, not loving the programs and the concerts and whatever we can try to create to try to measure up in some sort of way to the screwed standards we have created.

The Second Chapter takes the analogy of the waterhole. It asks the question if whether we as christians, especially in the modern contempory church are driving people away by our attempts at perfection.

Chapter three looks at evangelism and how we do it and whether we have got it all right, Particularly in how we see other people. We think there is a set way to evangelise. Borlaise argues that we shouldn't wear a mask, that we should be natural in our evangelism and form relationship with them. Be natural, showing that we are superhuman and we can show some personality.

The fourth chapter looks into the question of how we see ourselves and the fifth chapter the how we see that world and non christians. Borlaise argues that we need to get past our self loathing and realise that we have been saved by christ. We also shouldn't be about total seperation from the world as sometimes can happen.

Chapter seven was quite interesting. I found Borlaise quite harsh but that comes from where I come from and what church I go to and what I see in myself now and in the past. He is harsh on whaty he terms the "Airhead christian." The Christian who cares more for feeling and shields away abnout thinking through theology and faith in intellectual terms and then person cares more for experiences. I Stuggle with his argument but I think in many cases he is right. Many of the times the "Airhead christian" misses out on opportunities to serve God and to learn more about him. The beauty of God is he is always active. He works on the large scale and the small. God tunred up in the whisper, rather than the earthquake, fire or wind for Elijah, where are we missing God.


This book was a painful read at times and was quite a scary read. It is recommended. Read with caution, and be prepared to be offended and to think.

A Re-Dreamed Church

I Stole this from someone elses blog, this links nicely with my blog on "The Naked Christian" by Craig Borlase. I really think as christians need to be continuing to strip down to the heart of the messge of the gospel, that is The Jesus Died and rose again for our salvation, and to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls and the love one another like we would love ourselves.

A Re-Dreamed Church...
Christianity is a young girl wearing too much make-up, too many jewels.When she was a child she was beautiful. Naked, she ran through the city streets, celebrating her life, her virginity, her freedom...One day she looked at herself in the mirror. Carefully, she inspected her clean and wild beauty. Her hair wrapped around her shoulders; dark locks partly hid her face. He skin was soft and olive, dark from the sun she played in day after day. After her labored inspection, she looked around herself at the people bustling by. Businessmen, ladies and servants: they were all clothed and stylized and intent on tasks to be finished. Even the children were covered in popular, colorful attire. For the first time ever, Christianity felt naked. Returning to the mirror, she brushed delicate fingers across smooth skin... Dirty, she thought. Her hand touched her cheek. Ugly. Unfashionable and offensive.Christianity searched through others’ castaway clothing, lying in an alley. She found a tattered dress and slipped it on. It was colorful and gawdy and far too big for her small form. She found a leather belt and strapped it around her wait, cinching in the excess fabric the dress allowed. Next she found a pair of shoes. Once they had been worn for dancing, but the toes were worn through and the color long since faded. She put these on as well, though they were tight and constricted her feet. She found a pile of discarded, faux-jewelry. These items, she placed on every part of her exposed body.Christianity hobbled down cobblestone walkways now, uncomfortable but desperately focused on appearing normal to those who passed. Two young men laughed at her and pointed from across the street. One hurled a piece of rotted fruit straight at her. She called after them, pleading for them to stop as the fruit splattered across her chest and neck. Her language seemed too simple and quaint for their ears and the men seemed confused and walked away. Embarrassed at her simple dialect, Christianity wiped the rot from her body and kept walking, practicing the words her mockers used against her moments ago.Rain began to fall.Pathetic and miserable, Christianity found a street corner with a covered marquee hanging over. She ducked underneath and prayed the storm would not last. At her feet she watched drops of water form into a dark puddle, and as the lights of the marquee above shone down she saw her reflection once more in the water. It was ghastly. She had become a shadow of the beauty she remembered earlier that day. Her skin looked pale and sagged from her cheeks. Her eyes seemed hollow and lifeless. Even her wet hair appeared weak and dead as it caked to her cheeks and neck.A simple thought crossed Christianity’s mind: if she only took off these ridiculous clothes, kicked off the confining shoes and tore the imitation jewels from her body... perhaps the ugliness would fade. But she could not bring herself to reject the flotsam she had accumulated.What if I appear worse than ever? She obsessed.Instead, Christianity picked herself up off the pavement and began searching for more baubles to adorn herself. Lipstick tossed aside. A child’s broken, plastic locket. Eye shadow and rouge.Christianity held these worthless possessions in her hands as if her life depended on them. She applied the makeup and fastened the locket around her neck, but as she brought her hands back down a glint from a finger caught her eye. It was her finger, and like some forgotten dream, she remembered what was there. It was a ring.Since infancy, Christianity had worn this ring - a promise of betrothed love. She had never seen the lover whom the ring entailed, but His letters reminded her of a wedding yet-to-be.Suddenly she looked down at her covered body, her muted beauty, her shamed purity. Tears came now, washing away the red blush, the purple eyeliner and the white paste that covered her fragile skin.Slowly, ashamed at first, she removed the belt from around her waste. Her heart began to pound. Can I be unadorned once more? She slipped off the shoes and felt a rush of glee as blood returned to her cramped toes. Will I be what I was before? Trembling, she dropped the faux-jewelry to the ground and slipped out of the stained, wrinkled dress.Naked, Christianity looked around to see crowds of people gathered. Watching. Where once she had been invisible or worse, a sad joke, now her beauty brought attention like sunlight. Transfixed, the gathering bathed in the effervescent glow of Christianity’s disrobed light. Such rediscovered chastity brought tears to some - cries of delight from others.Some were too overwhelmed to endure such reclaimed innocence and fled to their own ruin. Most, however, stayed with guileless passion, won over by the transformation they, themselves witnessed. The cynics and agnostics who had scoffed at the tawdry harlot early that same day now wept openly. They loved this child-bride and found hope in her unassuming honesty.Never again would she wear the clothing of the city streets.

Under the Overpass - Book Review

I read this book a while ago. It was a really challenging story of two young men, Mike and sam who for 6 Months became Homeless people and travelled through american cities. The reason they did this was to test to see how thier faith would hold up in an environment totally different from what they were used to, totally free from any of the comforts that they enjoy in thier middle class lives. What they found was at times very challenging and very thought provoking

The most challenging thing for me was the way in which normal people treated them, they would be ignored at best and at worst have hostel remarks thrown at them and told to leave places in which they were sleeping, as it was seen by normal people as wrong for them to be there, and in some way by being there they would disturb the scenery or the nice comfortable equilibrium that was produced thier.

Another huanting factor was how christians treated them, they were treated with the same contempt or just ignored. Mike tells the story of how he and sam were sitting in a fast food joint, hungry as and they saw a group of people walk in with food. They were a bible study group, they were spending time together and praying, but they never noticed the smelly homeless men or offer them food. The prayer requests to sam and mike that those at the table were making seemed trivial compared to the requests that they had been giving up; "lord please let us get food today", "lord please find us a reasonably comfortable place to sleep etc." While those at the table were giving up prayers that seemed superficial to the two hungy souls, the prayers they were making at times were the difference between life and death. They did though get left a whole lot of food and leftovers, basically a whole meal after the group left though.

There was another case where the outcome was a bit different. One day they decided to sleep outside a church so they would be there in time for the morning service. In the morning they got a rude awakening. They got told by a man that they should leave, and that it was not right to sleep there and that there were other places they were allowed to sleep, but not right there. They left rather upset and disgusted, but latter came back. When they got there the man came back to them sobbing. He said he was sorry for the way he treated them and wanted them to stay on for lunch. He said he should of known better becuase he himself was a director at a homeless shelter.

These two learn alot from thier time as homeless people and offer practical advice about how christians should minister to homeless people.

This book has been a challenging book to me. It made me realise how I treat those that society sees as undesirable, at many times I look away or ignore homeless people. It is very challenging when you realise that Jesus says: "the way you treat the least of these people, that is the way you treat me." At all times we need to be willing to minister and serve anyone that we come across, no matter what seems to be the cost. It made me also realise how our own comfortable middle class life stunts our faith. Do we really know what it means to trust the Lord to provide in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. How would we cope in environments where we are either persecuted, or poor, hungry and need? Does our faith mean that we get out of jail free or does it mean that as christians we will have to cope with hard times, it think it does mean we are going to go hard times, not becuase God doesn't love us but becase he does and he wants us to put our whole lives in his hands.

For more information on the book you can visit www.undertheoverpass.com

Terrorism - an interesting thought

In america the case has become that the terrorist has become the escape goat for americas growing economic and social woes. America deals things it sees as destructive to its society or culture by ostracising them and then persecuting them. This happened in the salem witch trials, the McCarthy communist trials, the Treatment of supposed terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and the way they are looking to treat the mexican illegal immigrant. It argues that the freedom of some individuals should be taken away for the better of thier society yet is it really? Republicans and the American public have been in conservative backlash against the 1970s and the social upheaval of the new left for nearly forty years, hoping to bring it back to an innocent and progressive world that they had before then. This will never happen, as one you allow the forces out the box cannot be closed. This happened with the other social revolutions of our time.

We Need to realise that we have partly created the terrorist and we are as much a terrorist as those who are doing the terrorism Seems that europeans are scared to deal with the problems they have created in the world such third world povery, environmental destruction, nuclear arms, etc. I think we have been as much are terrorist as the al qaeda terrorist. In our question for progress we have created many distructive processes and the potential for evil has been made even greater. We need to make choices, diologue might be too far off in some cases, but we need to start dealing with world social, political, economic and environmental issues, but this diologue must not be just one sided, it must involve those who are going to effect or have been effected. Terrorism/ destruction is happening all the time, but it can be elleviated. We cannot change the past but we can change the future.

David Farrars Blog & the incident with Joanne Black

Well The last week of work has certainly been interesting...

On Wenesday a man came to my checkout and I started serving him. Soon I realised that I was serving Mr David Farrar the right wing blogger who also was campaign manager for Mark Blumbksy. I asked if he was who I thought I was and he said yes. 15 mins later I appeared on his blog. Obviously I have as much as a celebrity complex as he does!

Today I was serving a customer and I was talking to her. She said something about a friends news years resolution, and then I said "Oh thats just like the listener colunmists New Years Resolution to make her kids lives miserable". She then told me that she was Joanne Black. Apparently she isn't succeeding at making there lives miserable but they are still cleaning the dishes. I think she was also suprised that a supermarket clerk was reading the listener.

Now I just don't hope I appear in her next listener column!

My New New Years Resolutions

Happy New years

Three things I would like to do this year.

1)To honour God more with my life

2)To love my neighbour as I love myself

3)To not be a hypocryte and realise that I need Gods' grace everyday and to give up my pride and to realise that my identity is founded in Jesus Christ. Not in a theology I adhere to (or don't adhere to), the church I attend, the books I read, the friends I have or don't have, or the music I listen to.

We will see what this year brings. I'm ready, bring it on!

TnT Roadtrip Part 2

TnT's First Masterpiece

















ooooh they look so cute together!
















Mhhm Lunch!




















The Hobbit tries to climb a tree




















Sy Says "No Comment!"














Andrew tries to sell a new eyshadow, flower from mashmellows

TnT Roadtrip - Part 1

Buried in the sand at the beach as a result of my own stupidity

Sunrise in Wairapa

Me @ Castlepoint

TnTs Masterpiece No 2

Give me A T. Give me an N. Give me a T, what does it spell?

The Answer to the Question

I took 131 Photos while I was away in Nelson. This is incredible as the three weeks in Russia I only take 100 photos. But this could also be becuase I could take up to four hundred or so photos while in russia at maximum I could have only taken 120 or so photos.

Guessing Game

After My Trip to Nelson I have just put a whole stack of New Photos onto my computer. Guess How many shots I put up. I will tell you how many shots I took tommorow.

Nelson - Part 2

My Uncle Carlo and My Two Cousins Sam + Ella

Me + Nonna

@ The Centre of New Zealand

Nelson

These Are pictures from my week away in Nelson















The opening to the Malborough sounds














Cruising on the Interislander!















Tahuna Beech Yesterday. Doesn't it just look like a tropical getaway?














Picture taken today at the Japanese Garden














Cool Freight Plane that is in the founders museum @ Nelson















A bit of Nelson History for you

Anberlin - Never Take Freindship Personal

Finding a good christian is at times like sifting for Gold. It takes hard work and sometimes your efforts are fruitless, but when you find that CD, you cry "Eureka I've found it."

Anberlin's Sophemore release 'Never Take Friendship Personal' follows up Blueprintsfortheblack market in great fashion. It is an intriguing album that I can not stop listening to (Which I do with a number of great cds). This CD is a complete CD, The production is awesome an is a sweat-flowing album that keeps you on your feet dancing and your head thrashing from start to finish. Anberlin reminds me of rock groups such as Jimmy Eat World with thier awesome melodys and awesome quitars. These guys though step it up a notch with hard hitting drums and cruching guitar. They then top it up with the vocals. The vocals I will have to say are not as good some groups. The album has been impressing critics in america and recieving astounding reviews for a relatively uknown band. For Example Rip It Up (4 1/2 Stars), Real Groove (4 1/2 Stars), and the allmusic.com website (4 Stars).

This album is a highlight from start to finish. The songs are all great numbers.
Never take freindship personal is the first song on the album. It is a song about hurt and pain. It is a wonderfully powerful rock song. Starting off with strong heavy guitars and continuing in that flow of mind. It carrys the emotion of hurt and the loss of trust from start to finish. It is a great opening track.
The Album then flows into Paperthin Hymn again typical anberlin on this album hardhitting guitar chords accomplishing good rock. I don't exactly know what the songs about so I will say it is just another great song.
Stationary Stationary is about a relationship that going no where. This is a bloody good pop rock song. It is one of the stand out songs for me on this album and if the record company had the same taste in music as I do it would be a single. This song gets me bouncing up and down from start to finish.
(The symphony of) Blase, Is a Beautiful slow track (Slow for Anberlin.) It is very emotional and brings a tear to my eye. It is a great track
A Day Late is the first single off the album. This song is how I discovered the band that has changed my listening habits. Again typical Anberlin.
The Runaways is another great typical anberlin track. It is very heavy but is a song that you can still bounce along to. It shows the vocal variety of the lead singer for the band.
Time and Confusion is a song about following after you dreams. It is a great song I love it. It is just a really fun and great song. It is hopefulled and dream-making music
The Feel Good Drag is about lust, sex and temptation and society. It is dark at times in its music and lyrics.
Dance Dance Christa Paffgen is the final track on the album. It is a beautiful track about love and chemistery. This is a wierd love song but it is my favourite track on the album. Too long to be a single but it captivates you for the whole seven minutes of the song.
You need to listen to this album. These guys impress me a whole lot and i'm excited to see them coming down to Parachute 06. They will not disappoint you. I promise

If NZ Idol was decided by MMP

This is for all you who enjoy the form of popular democracy called Reality TV Shows.
This came from Maxim Institutes online weekly magazine 'Real Issues'.
1.Those you voted off last week would be back on the list.
2.Contestants would start every sentence with "When I'm NZ Idol, I'll...".
The bottom five candidates would be kicked off in the first week for failing to reach the threshold.
3.Jackie and Frank would announce they had worked out a three-way deal to support one of the contestants on confidence and supply, but this did not mean they were in any way supporting one of the contestants, but planned to work constructively with all of them, for the sake of the competition.
4.It will emerge later in Investigate magazine that Nik and Sir Howard Morrison were in a secret conspiracy to thwart Rosita with an infamous "Rosita is fat" smear campaign.
5.Petra will demand that Jean be given a space in the bottom three, and if this does not happen, she will threaten to quit the competition.
he losing contestant in the final two will say it's fine, because the country has called him to other things.
6.Contestants would attack their competitors throughout the competition, using phrases such as "No talent hack" and "unstable lunatic", but "come together" in the last week to declare that they are the best of friends, and looking forward to working together.

Emery - "The Question?

This is Emery's sophomore release on Tooth and Nail Records. Emery is a Hard Core rock band who are classed in the Screamo category. This means they have girl sounding guy vocals mixed with screams in their songs. The Album is produced by Aaron Sprinkle, know for his work on albums such as Anberlins Never Take Freindship Personal. This album is full of what I call Chaotic Rock. From Start to finish this album does not flow or carry. The Album is introduced well with a hard hitting screamo track "So Cold I Could Hold my Breath", which talks about lust and sex and the struggles that people hide. The album then meanders through the next couple of tracks where Emery can't decide what rhythm to stick to or what style to stick to. The Fourth Track, the single, Studying Politics, is a classic emery track full of great harmony with hardhitting rock and scremo. This track is one of the highlights of the album, talking about relationship breakups and the hurt behind it. The album then picks up again from here but tracks still seem to meander because of Emerys lack of ability to keep a style or a rhythm in their tracks. "Listening to Freddy Mercury" is a great track and brings another set of hard hitting lyrics about sin and life, and the fact that we all sin This song starts strong and concludes. "The Terrible Secret" is then another classic emery track. Starting of with a strong introduction then flowing into a chorus and actually not flowing into chaos. This track shows what emery can do when they don't try to become complicated and arty, and just stick to the basics of style and rhythm. The Last two songs, a "Win Win Stituation", and a "Lose Lose Situation", show what earlier songs lacks, that is a constant rhythm and style. A Win Win Situation is a classic emo track, containing nice chords and piano pieces, again showing that the band has the ability to write good tracks and make good albums It is a beautiful song that finishes a chaotic album off with class and makes you forget about the earlier shockers of the Album. The weightlessness of the Album for me are "So Cold I Could See My Breath", "Studying Politics", Listening to Freddy" Mercury" and "The Terrible Secret." The Lowlights for me is this albums lack of flow and that the potential of this band wasn't lived up to on their second album

TnT last night

These are just some random pictures I took from last nights Tnt. The top was taken at occ. The Next 2 were taken at Paikakariki beach at 10.30 at night.

Parachute 06 - The Case of the Missing Bands

If you are like me you will be dissapointed to see that there are only three big bands coming to parachute this year. Sources have told me that the reason why this has occured is that the Sonfest music festival has gone under. This means that fewer big christian bands are willing to come and play parachute becuase of the long and expensive trip from thier home countries. There is also the increased global threat of terrorism that can make bands make long trips to the southern hemisphere.

So was last year the peak of Parachute Festival, with many major bands and recording companies there for the concert. We will see. Parachute will drop in numbers this year and probrably platua for a few years but if australia gets another big festival it will all be on again. Parachute will still be a huge place for youth groups and the whole of hamiltons youth to hang out(becuase there is nothing else to do in hamilton ;-]) It is an awesome time away with freinds and always a good time.

Blogs taking on the Man

Democracy has improved from the rise of the internet and blogs from the amature demcracy. This can be seen in the salient vs victoria university case. Victoria university has tried to stop the student magazine from publishing information regarding fee rises next year. Salient went to court yesterday, stopping the magazine from being released on onday morning. The article has gone through the great network of ASPA and has reached the reading public of all the other major student magazines in the country.

The article is obviously important for victoria university students and it should be released to the victoria university students. Bloggers and internet websites have released the information and the magazine critic have released it online. Unfortunately critic has had to take its site down becuase it seems they have been embargoed aswell. The University's attempts to try and stop the information from being released has meant that the information has spread like wildfire across the blogosphere and many people will know the real details behind the plan.

This is the strenght of the blogosphere. The state and corperate information cannot censor information that is deemed sensitive becuase of its effects. Clinton was impeached as a result of one article on a early blog. Information these days is free flowing. Borders and big buisiness and the state can no longer stop information after its released to the public. If the try to embargo the information it spreads like wildfire.

THe fact of the matter is, the university is going to hurt its reputation through this. As Keith Ng the writer of the article has said, they have shot themselves in the foot and overreacted. They are going to be made out by the media, who will have there own vested interests in this case, to be heavy handed and against the freedom of speech. It is also going to cost them a whole lot more money, while the article has already been released to the public and those who want to know whats in it already know.

Bishop Brain Tamaki - A Maori Prophet?

I was talking to an insightful freind a couple of weeks ago about Pai Marire and Maori Prophetic Movements. These movements took parts of christianity and married it with Maori tradition as an expression of Maori Autonomy. On the east coast the North Island, members of the Pai Marire fought against the settler government as the settler government attempted to destroy Maori movement of autonomy so that they could move towards racial amalgamation of the Maori people.

The Pai Marire movement was seen as a perversion of christianity, becuase it picked and chose the traditions of christianity it would accept, while keeping traditions that christians either saw as sinful or accessive. Thier religion was seen as excessive and at times immoral. Pai Marire was misunderstood by the missionary William Williams who saw it as a Denunciation of traditional anglican tradition and as anti-christian.

I don't believe this is so. Many of these leaders were sincere christians. Te Whiti took on christian teachings of pacifism in his movement, while fighting for looking after for both the material and spiritual needs of the people of Pariaka. Before the settlement at Parihaka was destroyed it was the largest and most prosperous Maori township in the Country. But becuase it resembled a threat to Pakeha Culture and the Settler Government, it was destroyed.

So is our friend Pope Brian Tamaki a Maori Prophet. That is an question to be answered. He fulfills some of the criteria. He is a political and spiritual leader, who is aiming to service both the spiritual and economic and social needs of the Maori people for his movement. The Destiny Church and Party are supportive of the Treaty of Waitangi. The excessiveness of the leader of the church has been seen as immoral and his personal involvment in politics has been criticised. I also beleive he is a sincere christian with sincere convictions, who wants to see the best for this.Are we again seeing a Maori Prophet who is missunderstood by the Pakeha people conservative and liberal christians. 'Pious' christianity has tried to seperate christianity from the state, is this really right? Should we stop seeing religion through our cultural paradigm, and see what people are trying to acheive for the good of New Zealand and the good of their people.