Hillsong

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Hillsong is an Australian Pentecostal megachurch that began its life as Hills Christian Life Centre, located in the suburb of Baulkham Hills, part of the Hills district of Greater Western Sydney, New South Wales. The Hillsong name evolved as a result of the enormous volume of insipid yet popular Christian Rock albums being pumped out by this money-hungry church on a regular basis.

The Church was started in 1983 by husband and wife hucksters Brian (1954–) and Bobbie Houston (1957–), and has rapidly expanded into a global enterprise with large operations in 23 countries and a Hillsong TV Channel which takes their shameless message of financial prosperity in the name of Jesus to even more people around the globe.

Like many wealthy tax-exempt fundamentalist megachurches, Hillsong's leadership group have proven to be complete degenerates behind closed doors. Their behavior directly resulted in multiple lawsuits, multiple scandals, multiple accusations of swindling church funds in order to provide for a lavish lifestyle for the founders and head pastors, and multiple documentaries detailing the shenanigans behind their hip facade. By March 2023, such took its toll on the church; Hillsong's revenue was down 20% in the past two years, ten of the sixteen US locations had shut down, and attendance at other locations was considerably reduced.

Scott Morrison, the former Prime Minister is friends with Brian Houston and has described him as a mentor and friend.

Child sexual abuse

Frank Houston (1922–2004) (father of Brian) confessed, at age 77, to sexually abusing hundreds of little boys throughout his entire career as a church pastor in Australia and New Zealand. The actual number of victims is still unknown. Brian Houston and other Hillsong church leaders were made aware of this in 1999, and instead of obeying the law and reporting the abuse, they kept quiet about Frank Houston's depravity. Brian Houston even told one victim that it was his own fault: he was abused, because he "tempted" his pedophile father. After his eventual confessions, Frank quit preaching, but he never saw the inside of a prison cell. He died in 2004 at the age of 82. Several conservative politicians attended his funeral.

It all came out during the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse requested by the Australian government in 2013. Following these revelations, the New South Wales Police confirmed that they were launching a criminal investigation into Brian Houston for failing to report a serious crime. After a long delay from the conclusion of this investigation in 2015, in August 2021, Houston was formally charged with illegally concealing alleged child abuse by Frank; Brian denied the allegations. Nonetheless, Brian stepped down from his role on Hillsong's boards that oversaw their governance (while maintaining his role as Global Senior Pastor). He was in the United States when he was charged. In January 2022, Brian Houston resigned from all ministry positions to defend himself against charges that he concealed child sexual abuse by his late father. Houston was acquitted of hiding Frank Houston's sexual abuse on August 17 2023.

In March 2022, Houston completely resigned from Hillsong after an internal investigation concluded that Houston had engaged in conduct of a "serious concern". The conduct concerned two incidents of inappropriate behavior with two women, one which reportedly occurred when "Pastor Brian was under the influence of sleeping tablets, upon which he had developed a dependence", and the other where Brian consumed "anti-anxiety medication beyond the prescribed dose, mixed with alcohol".

Other scandals

In November 2020, the lead pastor of Hillsong's New York City branch, Carl Lentz, was fired after admitting to an extra-marital affair. A source who spoke with Page 6 (the gossip section of the New York Post) claimed that the infidelity was not a surprise, as Lentz's lifestyle more closely resembled the pop star lifestyle of celebrities like former Hillsong NYC member Justin Bieber ("popping bottles on private planes") versus what one would expect of a humble man of the cloth. Later, on May 31, Lentz's nanny, Leona Kimes, accused him of years of sexual and emotional abuse during her employment, including inappropriate remarks and contact.

On January 3 2021, the lead pastors of the Dallas branch of the Hillsong church, Reed and Jess Bogard, abruptly resigned via a prerecorded message that aired during the service that day. It was later revealed that the Bogards were under investigation for allegedly using church funds and tithes to fund their lavish lifestyle while part of the New York City division. This eventually led to Hillsong shutting down the Dallas operation in April. In 2022, additional details came out about this firing: reportedly Hillsong had learned that Bogard allegedly raped a junior female staffer in October 2013, and had drunk alcohol heavily, smoked marijuana, and bullied staff during his tenure at Hillsong NYC.

In 2021, reports emerged that a Hillsong staff administrator named Jason Mays (who was the son of the church's head of human resources), while extremely intoxicated, sexually assaulted a Philadelphia pastor's daughter at their headquarters in 2018. In January 2020, Mays pleaded guilty to indecent assault and received two years' probation and mandatory counseling.

In 2021, the BBC released a documentary in their Storyville series entitled Hillsong Church: God Goes Viral. The documentary expanded on some of the problems within the church, including questionable luxury lifestyle expenses and some of the above abuse allegations. Hillsong was not amused.

In February 2022, Brian Houston was charged with driving under the influence in Orange County, California. In April 24 2023, after initially pleading not guilty, Houston plead guilty and received three years probation and other penalties.

In March 2022, Discovery Channel premiered a documentary about Hillsong's multiple scandals on their streaming service Discovery+ called "Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed".

In March 2023, independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie accused Hillsong of money laundering and tax evasion, claiming that leaked documents from the mega-church showed that Hillsong earned $80 million more than what it had publicly declared (a charge that Hillsong denied). According to Wilkie, these leaked documents showed that members of the Houston family spent $150,000 of church money on a luxury retreat in Cancun Mexico; used "private jets like Ubers", with nearly $180,000 in trips racked up in a three month period; and spent lavishly on luxury watches, designer clothes, and other luxury goods, of the "kind of shopping that would embarrass a Kardashian" These leaked documents reportedly came as part of a court-ordered mediation in a federal case brought by an ex-Hillsong employee who claimed that she was suspended from her job for providing information about Hillsong's finances to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, Australia's federal regulator for non-profits, charities, and churches.

In April 2023, the Australian news channel Seven News released their own investigative documentary on Hillsong. The documentary revealed more evidence of sex abuse cover-up at Hillsong and new details of pedophilia by Frank Houston and others at the church. For instance, a young woman interviewed in the documentary alleged that a male Hillsong youth leader asked her for nude pictures of her when she was 13.

In May 2023, the streaming service Hulu debuted a four-part documentary called The Secrets of Hillsong. The documentary revealed that Carl Lentz had engaged in more than one extramarital affair, and was addicted to Adderall while working at Hillsong. In addition to the additional details regarding the Lentz scandal (as well as the multiple scandals of the Houston family), the documentary also addressed a long list of allegations of misconduct against the church, including congregants that faced alleged racial and LGBTQ+ discrimination. One Black woman reported that when she raised the issue of diversity to the church of Hillsong Kansas City, she was forcibly removed from the church by local police. A choir director at Hillsong NYC, Josh Canfield, who was homosexual, reported that he was allegedly fired from Hillsong after he appeared on an episode of Survivor: San Juan del Sur with his partner and announced on the show that he was a "gay Christian". The documentary also alleged that Hillsong mismanaged church funds to purchase superfluous luxury items like private jets and luxury watches.

Prosperity theology

“”"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

—Matthew 19:24

Like all prosperity gospel churches, the leaders of Hillsong live incredibly lavish lifestyles and see this as a sign of God's blessing. The core lie of their ministry is this idea that if you give your money to the church, then God will reward this act of faith, by giving a bigger amount right back to you. If this doesn't happen and no money is magically returned to you, then it's your fault for not having enough faith. Fleecing vulnerable people like this has made the Hillsong corporation extremely wealthy, to the tune of around $80 million in Australia and around $100 million internationally in 2015. Of course, once these desperate parishioners have nothing financial left to give, they are labelled the spawn of Satan and kicked out of the church.

Hillsong has long been accused of being more interested in wealth, materialism, and celebrity than traditional Christian theology normally allows for. Congregants at Lentz's congregation, for instance, described there being a distinct caste system at that church that directly corresponded to appearance, wealth, and fame. Lentz's congregation even had a special seating section up front for V.I.P.s, reserved for high-profile entertainers or sports stars.

Although Brian Houston denies being a prosperity theology preacher, it's kind of hard to to take his denial seriously when he has penned a book titled You Need More Money: Discovering God’s Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life.

Volunteer abuse

In several reports, former Hillsong volunteers described a grueling volunteer culture, where working 12 or more hours a day was commonplace. Reportedly church leaders treated volunteers more like low-status workers who were there less to serve the community and more to serve the preachers' lavish lifestyles (the funding of which was being obtained by church member tithes, of course). When Lentz was fired from Hillsong NYC, some of the accusations that emerged went even further, with claims that Hillsong's practices were bad enough to warrant a charge of "industrial slave labor" as defined by the Parliament of Australia. One person even called Hillsong a "cult". Some allegations also emerged that Hillsong NYC staff engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior.

An example of this "volunteer" system was "nannying". In this system, young female volunteers were live-in or on-call nannies for pastors' families. Nannies obtained miserable compensation (at most $200 per week according to one claim, far below minimum wage), and conditions for workers were miserable, with nannies frequently working 14-hour days.

Former church member turned atheist, Tanya Levin, details the toxic culture at Hillsong in her critically acclaimed 2007 book People in Glass Houses.

Hillsong music

“”Our God is an awesome god, he reigns in Heaven above, with wisdom power and love (x 10).

—Awesome God, an example of Hillsong's incredibly creative and most definitely not brainwashing music

One of the biggest aspects of Hillsong (in the megachurch world, at least) is Hillsong's music division. By recruiting experienced personnel from the rock and roll industry, hiring excellent up-and-coming talent, setting up lavish stadium-oriented pop-style concert settings, and keeping up with the latest pop trends, Hillsong Music bucked the general lousy reputation of Christian rock and made slick (if very formulaic) worship pop. The result has been a massive success. As of February 2020, Hillsong had sold over 55 million albums since 1992 (including 15 Billboard #1 Christian Albums) and had 1.1 billion on demand streams in a year according to Nielsen.

Naturally, given Hillsong's prosperity gospel roots, their management makes sure to shaft everyone involved who is not at the top. Hillsong's massive revenues from their music are, of course, not taxed due to their church status. More controversially, Hillsong has also often listed the church as the performers of the work, not the actual performers themselves, thereby siphoning any performance royalties to the church's coffers. This is a unique arrangement even in the world of Christian music.

Some preachers are concerned that endorsing Hillsong's music will also implicitly endorse Hillsong's prosperity-gospel beliefs, prosperity gospel being an ideology that is very controversial even among evangelicals.

Underscoring the problematic connection of Hillsong to money and celebrity, in October 2021, Hillsong announced that their February 2022 "Hillsong United and Chris Tomlin tour" would have "VIP experiences" with celebrity meet-and-greets and an on-stage catwalk photo shoot. After a public outcry over this blatant commercialism and glitz that seemed jarringly out of place for a Christian event, Hillsong quickly eliminated the VIP option a few days later.

Bigotry and pseudoscience

Hillsong is, at its core, anti-abortion and generally homophobic. Organizations and individuals connected with Hillsong in the past have supported the discredited practice of gay conversion therapy and performing exorcisms on gay and lesbian people (though the church has distanced itself from some of this recently).

Regarding creationism, in a 2005 interview, Brian Houston professed a "belief in creation". However! he left enough wiggle room on the fine details in his statement to cause Ken Ham to declare in a 2010 Answers in Genesis blog post that "church leaders" like Houston, with his not-quite-100%-literal viewpoint, "are succumbing to the pagan religion of the age!". Hillsong songwriter Joel Houston in 2018 also caused some controversy (for evangelicals, that is) by seemingly endorsing theistic evolution in one of his songs and some of his tweets.

Unlike some megachurches, Hillsong tends to downplay the culture war elements in its historical Pentecostal roots (often tending to be coy on speaking about political issues such as abortion and homosexuality). Instead, glitz and celebrity is emphasized above all. And to Lentz's credit, he strongly endorsed Black Lives Matter in a late September 2016 Facebook post.

See also

• Pentecostalism
• Megachurch

External links

• Hillsong website