Sex lawsuits haunt preacher star of Destiny gathering
Bishop accused of turning a blind eye, report Simon Maude and Tony Wall.
A controversial American preacher who has faced allegations he sexually abused a young man during a previous trip to New Zealand urged Destiny Church followers to ‘‘repent, repent, repent’’ at their annual conference.
American evangelist Eddie Long was the guest of honour at Destiny’s annual get-together at the ‘‘City of God’’ in Manukau, south Auckland, which attracted about 1000 followers who paid $120 for a weekend pass. ‘‘To ease the burden in the head . . repent, repent, repent, repent . .,’’ Long said yesterday morning. Standing just metres away in the church’s hangar-sized ‘‘Sanctuary’’, ankle-deep in tithed banknotes, stood self-appointed Destiny Bishop Brian Tamaki, who had invited Long as a special guest to the church’s weekend Australasian ‘‘Invasion’’ conference.
Both men refused to answer questions over Long’s suitability to preach given past sexual-abuse allegations.
In 2010, several young men of Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the US state of Georgia sued staunchly anti-gay Long for alleged grooming and sexual abuse, some of it allegedly occurring in New Zealand.
According to US media, four lawsuits resulting from those allegations were dismissed the following year.
The four were former members of a youth group Long ran. They accused him of repeatedly coercing them into homosexual acts, and of abusing his moral authority over them while plying them with cash, new cars, lodging and overseas travel including, for one of the four, a trip to New Zealand.
Maurice Robinson’s lawsuit states he turned 18 during that visit. He alleged Long, who had given him a Chevy Malibu, began a sexual relationship with him in New Zealand.
Ken Clearwater, manager of Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse, said the unresolved historic allegations against Long were worrying and Tamaki was turning a blind eye.
In 2010, Tamaki, who considers Long his ‘‘spiritual father’’, said he was shocked by the allegations but had reserved judgment on Long.
Yesterday Tamaki’s spokespeople refused media access to the ‘‘Invasion’’ event which borrows its theme from Long’s approach to mentoring young men.
In an effort to get a response from Tamaki and Long the Sunday Star-Times attended the occasion but was once again refused an interview with the men.
‘‘Let’s face it, all churches are good at covering this stuff up, so I suppose they don’t see it as anything wrong,’’ Clearwater, a sexual abuse survivor himself, said.
Because Long had never been convicted it was difficult to stop him appearing in public. ‘‘You can only go on hearsay.’’ Tamaki had ‘‘definitely turned a blind eye’’.
‘‘It’s no different to how the Catholic Church has turned a blind eye to child abuse . . . they don’t want to know that stuff. If this guy is a mentor of his he’s definitely not going to say anything bad against him.’’
The sight of celebrities accused of sex abuse continuing to appear in public was ‘‘massively’’ tough for the victims. ‘‘It re-traumatises them. They get angry and think, ‘what’s the point of coming forward’?’’
Meanwhile, Destiny continues to seek new revenue streams, offering ‘his and her’ mobile phone covers for sale at the conference this week.
One with Hannah Tamaki’s signature had the words: ‘‘I don’t just blend into the crowd,’’ while another read: ‘‘I’m not born to live and do nothing.’’