First, Pastor Phil Dooley, thank you for acknowledging our work last night as you set out your vision for Hillsong without Brian Houston. It’s heartwarming to know that Crikey has played a special role in what the church likes to call “this intense season”, aka the implosion of Hillsong.
Pastor Phil, who has taken over from Hillsong founder and ex-global pastorissimo Brian Houston, paid (ironic) tribute to “all the different, you know, media encouragement we’ve been receiving from all the different news agencies around the world who seem to love us”. Pause. “Crikey.”
So kind of him to mention little Crikey alone among the titans of local and international media, but yes, we have developed a special relationship over the past 12 months or so. Just wondering though if that might extend now to Hillsong answering our questions in the future, because it sure hasn’t happened in the past.
Pastor Phil wasn’t the only church official to adopt a jaundiced position towards the media last night. Even the church’s finance director talked about the “horrible environment around media” that Hillsong has endured “in this season”.
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Old habits die hard. Houston never missed a chance to demonise the media. I guess we now know why, given the amount of scandal that has become public via, err, the media. (Houston appears to be spending time in Europe, recovering from the humiliation of being kicked out of his own church and spending his time posting angry “just you wait” social media missives to those who are dismantling his 30-year legacy.)
But let’s not be churlish.
Pastor Phil used his online pulpit-turned-performance space to push one big post-Houston message: there would be “no more secrets”.
This may be a reference to the 10-year secret of Houston’s flirty text messages with a female Hillsong employee that occurred in 2012. Or it might be the three-year secret of his 40 minutes, drunk, in a hotel room with a woman who attended Hillsong’s conference in 2019. Or there is the seven-year secret of a Hillsong pastor’s assistant in New York who has alleged she was raped. Or maybe it’s the payouts that were kept secret. Or perhaps the non-disclosure agreements that Hillsong’s global board has enforced on US pastors. Or perhaps it’s the darkest secrets of all: the past of Houston’s father, Frank, as a serial paedophile.
Where to end? Whatever the case, it’s all over. No more secrets. Hallelujah.
Meanwhile, as it emerged last night, there is the small issue of a global megachurch to save. A number of US churches have pulled out of the Hillsong family since the troubles with Brian Houston emerged. In the past week, a Norwegian church pulled out. Hillsong TV is no more.
Hillsong’s chief financial officer Peter Ridley revealed that donations via tithes and offerings have dropped by 18% compared with this time last year, and donations to the Hillsong Foundation were down by 22%. Church attendances were also down, although COVID was the explanation for that.
Pastor Phil told followers he considered God was on board with not just keeping the church going but in making it stronger. And in case the Holy Spirit needed a hand, Hillsong has appointed corporate consultants to overhaul the church’s governance. To give Pastor Phil his due, in Hillsong terms this is revolutionary.
Hillsong has appointed management consultants and governance experts Insync to advise on the composition of its board, which has to date been a collection of older men with ties stretching back decades to the Houstons.
Pastor Phil spoke of introducing “codes of conduct”, “compliance mechanisms”, “accountability” and — gasp — “diversity”.
Is Hillsong ready for all that sunlight? Let’s see. It’s a mighty collision with the 21st century and with secular ways. But while we have Pastor Phil’s attention and apparent respect, we’d like to let him know that there are more secrets to emerge and more reckonings to come.
Crikey has a suggestion: why don’t you set up a truth commission to deal with the sins of the past and provide proper compensation to those who have been damaged? That could cost the church money — much more than the cheap, secret deals that Hillsong has struck in the past with people who have no power to argue. But it would signal a serious change. After all, Pastor Phil, your finance director did say that Hillsong was debt free and had cash in the bank.
If you have any information please contact David Hardaker at dhardaker@protonmail.com
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All these mega churches are just a sham for making lots of money for their leaders!
Nothing will change and Crikey will be writing the same stories about them in a couple of years.
Indeed. What sort of church needs to appoint “management consultants and governance experts . . . to advise on the composition of its board”?
Yes, surely any guidance should come from On High…?
When the Romanchurch found that child sexual abuse could no longer be hidden it put out a booklet of what not to do for priests.
Some people wondered why the previous instruction manual, aka the bible, had been insufficient.
One that wants to find its way onto a new vein of money.
sceptical37@gmail.com
Congratulations Crikey for exposing these ‘farcicals’. A watchful media is essential in a democracy and you guys always have at least one eye open. Keep up the good work.
They should all be shut down but should also be made to pay back taxes – and I do mean
all the way back to the start. And Morrispin’s handouts returned, they make enough
money without getting gifts from the public purse.
Agree! They are a business and should be incorporated as such and pay taxes accordingly.
Where would we be without platforms like Crikey to expose the evil people in society? Without a free press, there is no chance the likes of these evil people would be exposed. And as they complain they out themselves. The greatest pleasure I have enjoyed in the last two years was to be part of an obvious expose of the former leader of this country and his acknowledgment of this when he voiced his displeasure at our telling of the truth. LONG LIVE THE FREE PRESS
Cultural change doesn’t come easy and as much as the members of that cult might want to ignore it the culture of Hillsong gave us brian houston, scumo and how many other upholders of the tenets of christianity.
You forgot brother Stuie, and Sussan and Leigh plus quite a number of Morrispin’s cabinet.
Leigh?? Who??
Interested to read an article last week on Hillsong heiress. How can this be with a charitable religious organisation. organisation
It mystifies me why Hillsong is characterised as a Church (mega or ordinary) or a religion. It is, and has always been, a business living off the scam invented long ago by the Catholic Church – the tithe.
And is it not interesting that the demon here is ‘the media’, not the perpetrators of what the media has reported? How ‘Christian’ to simply rationalise your sins as innocent mistakes whist accusing the accusers as the bigger sinners. Surely the adherents of delusional organisations such as Hillsong have some appreciation of what hypocrisy looks like.
Hopefully ex-Pastor Brian’s “time to talk WILL come” – as a defendant in an Australian courtroom.