We have managed to obtain a Hillsong Vision 2015 booklet. The theme this year is “A Dangerous Declaration”.

We couldn’t agree more. Can anyone else see why this Hillsong “declaration” is dangerous to Christianity?

Hillsong also published this on their website:

An Unusual Manifesto

2000 years ago, a young first century itinerant preaching from a backwater village in an insignificant corner of the roman empire, announces his own ‘unusual manifesto’, the ramifications of which continue to reverberate down the centuries. With a dangerous brevity, Jesus the ‘hinge of history’, supersedes the many thousands of words that come before and after when He boldly declared in the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…” Matt 5

Jesus’ manifesto was unusual. The Sermon on the Mount offers a radically different take on the world… a dangerous declaration that upends the status quo and human nature by challenging the idea of “business as usual”. It was dangerous because it was and is so unusual… re-founding the world on love and selflessness instead of hate and self-interest.

As a church, we have never been about doing it the world’s way and we aren’t about to start now. We are about doing things Jesus’ way because we long to see “His will on earth as it is in heaven”. The Church is a preview of the age to come and the Sermon on the Mount forms the constitution of the alternative Kingdom Jesus came to establish.

Our task as the people of God, is to offer an attractive alternative, a new society exampled by the church, built on the grace of Christ’s love. Love is the scandal and the dangerous declaration that can make many people angry, yet is the only thing that can set a sin bound world free.

The Kingdom cannot be enforced by coercion, it must be embodied by God’s people. The reign of God exists wherever we are subject to HIM… where love and the fruit of the spirit are evident there we find the borders of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is among you. – Luke 17:21

Jesus represents the possibility of an unusual kingdom, an unusual power, an unusual glory and an unusual peace. To declare Jesus as Lord/God and to live in the love and humility of the beatitudes is our dangerous declaration to a world desperately looking for an alternative. It is the announcement of a living, breathing kingdom of grace that unceasingly calls out to the ‘whosoever will come’.

Source: By Hillsong Team, An Unusual Manifesto, Hillsong, http://hillsong.com/blogs/collected/2015/february/an-unusual-manifesto#.VOBKnvmUeSo, Published 09/02/2015. (Accessed 15/02/2015.)

Jesus says,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27

The purpose of this article is to examine a sermon excerpt from Brian Houston. This sermon was entitled, “My Salvation – My Freedom from Shame.” Brian preached this sermon after presenting his case around his father’s pedophilia to the Royal Commission.

His sermon was about not living in shame. In the below segment, he used his sister as an example what happens when you live in shame. To expose the lies in the below sermon segment, we will contrast his account with his own mother’s testimony (from her book, ‘Being Frank’), in order to understand what really happened within the Houston family regarding Brian’s sister.

To begin, we will first look at what Brian actually said in his sermon. Then, we will lookat what really happened according to Brian Houston’s own mother, Hazel Houston.  We will then conclude our investigation by looking at the book excerpt written by Hazel Houston.  It will not be until our next article that we will expose why the “biblical” foundation of Hillsong is so dangerous as well as the negative impact that that has made on the church today.

HOUSTON’S LIES POST THE ROYAL COMMISSION

The Sunday after the Royal Commission, Brian Houston preached a sermon entitled “My Salvation – My Freedom from Shame.” This sermon has just been recently published on their website. As you watch it, please note that you are seeing an edited version. In spite of some technical difficulties, we were able to record the original. The part of the sermon that we would like people to pay careful attention to is transcribed below.

Brian Houston said,

“When I was 13, I remember one time my mum talking to me and my siblings in our lounge room and telling us that we are going to be looking after a baby for awhile. I mean I was surprised I was told it was someone’s baby and we were going to look after it, and so sure enough that’s what happened for I don’t know how long, maybe a year we looked after this baby in our house.

At the time my older sister was in Melbourne, what I didn’t know was that she had been secretly sent off to Melbourne, because she was pregnant. And then without anyone knowing she was brought back to New Zealand, and then across the Mountain range, close to where we lived was a little town and quietly, on her own, she had a baby there. And ahh in that era, in that landscape, there was so much shame attached to it. So much shame was put on her, that it affected her for many, many years.  And a lot of people, they allow things to become shame and then it rules you, it robs you. You see, one of my favorite verses is Proverbs 15:24, it says ‘the way of life winds upwards for the wise’.

Sadly instead of winding upwards, some people want a steep decline downwards, a spiral downwards. Because this is what happens, sin leads to guilt, then guilt leads to shame and ultimately, shame leads to condemnation and condemnation is death.

If a building is condemned, it means it’s unfit for use, it’s disqualified, it’s only good for being pulled down.”

Source: Brian Houston, My Salvation – My Freedom from Shame, Hillsong Church, 12/10/2014. (Accessed 12/10/2014.)

BRIAN HOUSTON’S VERSION OF THE STORY

When Brian told the story about his sister, he stated that his mother said to him one day that they were “going to be looking after a baby for awhile.” According to Brian they had the baby for an entire year, not knowing who the baby belonged to.

In his sermon, he deliberately avoided connecting the dots so that he could make whatever point he wanted to about shame. He said he “didn’t know” that his older sister “had been secretly sent off to Melbourne because she was pregnant.” Then he said that he somehow found out, (“without anyone knowing”), that his sister who, “was brought back to New Zealand,” was hiding “across the Mountain range.”

Brian’s conclusion, of course, was that his sister “had a baby” outside of wedlock and experienced ”so much shame” during that time. “So much shame was put on her, that it affected her for many, many years.” These comments, then, lead us to believe that his sister moved around a bit in order to deal with her sin, guilt and shame.  What is very interesting about this story, however, is that Brian’s very own mother has a different account.

Hazel and Frank Houston

HAZEL HOUSTON’S VERSION OF THE STORY

In 1989 Hazel Houston wrote a book about her husband, Frank Houston,  entitled “Being Frank: The Frank Houston Story”.

In her book Hazel writes,

“That God is more merciful than people was proved in the experience which almost shattered our world. We were sitting comfortably by the fire one night when our daughter and her boyfriend came in.

‘Do you want a cup of coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘Sit down Mum, I’ve got something to tell you.’ Her voice contained an unusual gravity. There was a long pause then she continued, ‘I’m pregnant.’

For a moment we had no reaction. Then deep unreasonable anger swept through me as I realized the implications. Fingers would be pointed at us and we would have to resign from ministry. Twenty years ago a pre-marital pregnancy in any circle was regarded as the ultimate disgrace.  There would be some ready to accuse the pastor of this inability to control his children.

  ‘You better leave,’ I told the boy.

  ‘Don’t be so hasty,’ Frank reprimanded me.

  ‘I’ll have the baby adopted,’ our daughter volunteered.

  ‘I’ll pay for her to go to Australia,’ her boyfriend offered.

  After they had left we discussed the situation. Should we tell the church and the other children or just Trevor Chandler. As our associate pastor he should know. We didn’t tell anyone but we should have done. Someone else eventually told the children.

  ‘We will have to resign from the church,’ Frank said.

  A day later when the heat of the moment had passed I began to ask myself had God removed the call to the ministry at this time or was this an attack of the devil designed to smash our ministry. We fell on our knees before God. I voiced my thoughts to Frank.

  ‘I don’t think we should resign. God hasn’t lifted the call.’ Frank agreed.

  Our daughter went to Australia but a noted trouble-maker in the church asked people at the next prayer meeting to pray for the Houston’s family situation.

  Did she suspect something and was spreading gossip in a spiritual guise? We never found out.

  Our hearts continued to ache and our daughter suffered extreme homesickness as she sheltered in a Salvation Army home from a hostile world. We decided she must come home.

  We arranged for her to go as companion to an elderly lady over the mountains from our valley. Within us there was a monumental struggle between the desire to keep the baby and face the consequences or proceed with the adoption.

  ‘Frank, I think we should keep the baby. It might be another statistic to the Government but it is our grandchild and I want it. I can look after it.

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing,’ he said. We hurried over the mountains to tell our daughter what we had decided.

  That day we saw a light in our daughter’s eyes which had been missing for a long time and God removed the ache in our hearts. But people are not so forgiving. Months after the baby was born, some by their attitude screamed condemnation at the young mother until an agonized cry fell from her lips.

  ‘Mum, when does God forgive?’

  ‘As soon as we confess our sins from a repentant heart.’

  ‘Then why don’t people also forgive us?’ Why indeed.

  ‘Unfortunately, people are not like God.’ Frank and I both would have carried her pain but she had to work through it herself.

  ‘Do you realize the times I longed to sit on your bed and talk after an evening out?’ she asked one day years after she was married. No I hadn’t realized.

Source: Hazel Houston, Being Frank: The Frank Houston Story, UK, London: Marshall Morgan and Scott Publications, Published 1989. pg. 165-167

Comparing Hazel’s account to Brian’s raises some questions.

1. Was Brian being honest?

2. Why did Brian put his sister’s journey back in public focus, using it as an example of his idea of shame? (He has mentioned his family feeling the pressure of recent public scrutiny.)

3. Brian’s account is very different to his mother’s and he leaves out significant information related to the point he is making. The practice of cover-up was plain in Hazel’s account. If this did not happen, would his sister’s journey have been different?

4. Is Brian ashamed to give an accurate/more complete account? What does he know? Did he ever discuss with his parents their decision to hide his sister’s pregnancy from the public, including their church and children, largely to avoid being stood down from ministry? What did Trevor Chandler do with this information? (You would assume Brian would have discussed it with Frank and Hazel at some stage as, either from a family point of view or from a ministerial responsibility perspective. After all, it is a significant family event.)

5. Brian made the point that his sister was “sent” to Melbourne. So who “sent” his sister?

6. The timing of him saying this was a few days after his public hearing at the Royal Commission (RC) into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. So why did he talk about this issue right after the RC?

Last year, the Royal Commission revealed a tendency for cover up within Brian Houston and Hillsong’s dealing with Frank Houston’s pedophilia and not being forth-coming with the “whole” truth. However, after Hazel Houston’s account, we are noticing that cover up appears to run in the Houston family. And the more we seem to uncover – the more we realise Hillsong is founded not on Christ the rock but on the sifting sands of man.

Chris Rosebrough has sounded the alarm for Christians to watch out for Andy Stanley latest dangerous teachings. It appears that these new teachings from Stanley will be steering the dangerous Seeker Sensitive “Church” movement into greater apostasy.

In reviewing Andy Stanley’s sermon (titled Brand: New), Chris exposed how he downplayed the sacred in Christianity but gave the impression that the bible supports the Seeker Sensitive church model. As Chris Rosebrough pointed out, nothing could have been further from the truth.

This sermon review is worth your while. Below the sermon review is a good article expressing and addressing the issues with Andy Stanley’s teaching.

From Fighting for the Faith,

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Don’t Miss The Sermon Review!

Click Here to Download this episode

Program segments:

**Do Not Miss the Sermon Review, It’s THAT Important**

• 2015 Prophetic Stragglers Matt Sorger & Jim Bakker
• Cindy Jacobs and the Highway of Holiness?
• T.D. Jakes on Supply & Demand
• Sermon Review: Brand New by Andy Stanley

Source: Chris Rosebrough, Don’t Miss The Sermon Review!, Fighting for the Faith, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2015/02/dont-miss-the-sermon-review.html, Published 12/02/2015. (Accessed 15/02/2015.)

Philip Lee writes,

What Andy Stanley is Teaching This Month and Why it Matters

I’ve listened to Andy Stanley’s most recent Sunday sermon three times now. I watched the 9:00 AM service live online. I listened to the download made available by North Point Community Church, which came from the second service and contains a few minor differences compared to the sermon I watched live. Finally, I listened to Chris Rosebrough’s review of the sermon in the February 16 edition of Fighting for the Faith.

Why? I think what’s happening at North Point this month is going to have long-lasting effects on American, and even global, Christianity.

Andy Stanley is easily one of the top five most influential pastors in America, and maybe top 2-3. It’s impossible to quantify such things of course, but it is easily seen if you pay attention to the broad landscape of American Evangelicalism. It’s no secret that pastors around the country duplicate Stanley’s sermons and series, and there have been documented cases of pastors plagiarizing Stanley word-for-word. Thousands and thousands of pastors around America and around the world look to Stanley as a leader and follow his teaching and methods.

Stanley is currently teaching a five week series titled Brand: New. Stanley’s assumption is that Christianity has been corrupted by “Temple Model” thinking since the days of Constantine. He defines the Temple Model as being controlled by sacred places, sacred texts, sacred men, and sincere followers.

His definition of the true Jesus religion comes from half a verse in Galatians. In the ESV, Galatians 5:6 in its entirety reads, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” In his sermon series, Stanley has repeatedly quoted the NIV’s translation of the second sentence of the verse which reads, “The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.”

Stanley is attempting to build a doctrine of Christianity on half of one verse. And his version of Christianity is one in which it doesn’t matter what a person believes or does, as long as they love their neighbors.

In other words, Stanley is embracing theological liberalism. Actually it might be better to say he’s no longer hiding his theological liberalism.

Three years ago Al Mohler asked, following an Andy Stanley sermon, if the megachurch is the new liberalism. In that sermon, Stanley told the story of two men in his church involved in a homosexual relationship. One man was divorced, the other still married. Stanley told the congregation that the men were forbidden from serving in the church, not because they were in a homosexual relationship, but because one was still married and therefore committing adultery. Many people questioned at the time if Stanley was signaling his approval of gay Christianity – the idea that a person can be actively involved in a homosexual relationship and a Christian.

When I first read about what Stanley was teaching in the Brand: New series I thought he was going to come out as gay affirming. After listening to the first and third sermons in the series I’m not convinced he’s going to make that explicit at this time, but I do believe he is laying the groundwork to do this in the future. Based on comments made this past Sunday, it does seem likely that Stanley is going to endorse female leadership in the church in week five of the series.

All of this is significant because of Stanley’s influence.

If Stanley openly embraces liberalism in the name of bringing more people to Jesus, thousands of others will follow. It should be noted that liberals have been making the same argument for more than two centuries, and that every church that has embraced liberalism is now dead or dying, but the arguments keep being made and people keep buying into them.

Liberalism has always denied essential doctrines of the Christian faith in order to make the faith more palatable to unbelievers. The problem is that if people don’t believe in the God who has revealed in Himself in Scripture, if they don’t believe in the Jesus revealed in Scripture, they are not in Christ, no matter what they call themselves.

The seeker-sensitive movement, in which Stanley is a major player, seeks to make Christianity as accessible as possible to the largest number of people possible. Up to now, most seeker-sensitive churches have remained theologically sound on paper while functioning as liberal churches. They’ve managed to keep their feet in both worlds.

I think that’s about to change.

Stanley has been always been zeroed in on what’s happening in the culture. Twenty years ago when he started North Point in the heart of the Bible Belt, he could not have survived by openly embracing liberalism. The Bible Belt culture simply would not have tolerated a pastor who openly endorsed homosexual Christianity, female pastors, a denial of the Biblical account of creation, or any of the other hot-button issues of our day.

Things have changed. Even among professing Christians today, very few still hold to those positions. Stanley now sees that it is more costly to deny that a homosexual can be involved in homosexual sin and be a Christian than it is to embrace gay Christianity. Even in the Bible Belt, it will be more costly to deny evolution than embrace it.

So, he will say that it doesn’t matter what a person believes as long as they love.

It was very telling, and honestly shocking, that it in this past Sunday’s sermon he indicated that it didn’t matter that Arius believed Jesus wasn’t eternal. For 1700 years virtually every branch of religion that calls itself Christian; Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestantism has agreed that Arius was a heretic who was outside the Christian faith. Stanley said Sunday that it was no big deal. It doesn’t matter what a person believes, as long as they love.

The problem is that Jesus and the Apostles repeatedly warned against those who would proclaim a different gospel or a different Jesus. A Jesus who is not eternally God, as Arius taught, is most certainly a different Jesus than the one revealed in Scripture. The blood of a different Jesus can not atone for our sins.

I do believe that God’s grace is such that those who are unknowingly caught up in a false system can be saved in spite of what they’re being taught if they recognize their sinfulness and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. But woe to those who preach a different gospel. It’s ironic that Stanley is using a verse from Galatians as the foundation for his series. In Galatians 1:6-9 Paul wrote:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

The immediate context of Paul’s letter to the Galatians was the Judaizers attempting to make circumcision a requirement for salvation. Stanley is clearly not doing that. But, in saying that the only thing that matters at the end of the day is how well we’ve loved our neighbors, he is coming dangerously close to preaching a different gospel and putting people back under the yoke of the Law, if he hasn’t crossed the line.

The summary of the Law and the Prophets, according to Jesus in Matthew 22:37-40, is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Loving your neighbor as you love yourself is Law, and the Law cannot save you unless you keep it perfectly from the day you’re born until the day you die. The problem? We’re all born dead in trespasses and sins and cannot keep the Law. We’re all guilty. So telling people it doesn’t matter what they believe as long as they love others is actually putting people back under the yoke of the Law.

Should we love God? Absolutely! Should we love our neighbors? Absolutely! But if we try to do so without being given new life by God’s grace through faith in the Jesus revealed to us in Scripture, we remain dead in our trespasses and sins and children of God’s wrath. There is no salvation without repentance and faith in the true Jesus.

I don’t yet know what Stanley is going to say in the final two sermons of this series. I think we all need to be paying attention though. Stanley’s influence is such that if he goes off the rails of orthodoxy and into apostasy, American Christianity as we know it will change forever. I don’t think I’m exaggerating.

Source: By Philip Lee, What Andy Stanley is Teaching This Month and Why it Matters, 24 Emmaus Rd, http://24emmausroad.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/what-andy-stanley-is-teaching-this.html, Published 17/02/2015. (Accessed 19/02/2015.)

EDIT 26/02/2015: Since Hillsong leadership have quickly responded to this publication from SundayWorld, we offer our readers what Hillsong leaders have said in relation to the story below.

CARL LENTZ

It appears that Carl Lentz has responded to the below article published by Sunday World through Saiko Woods.

“Saiko Woods contacted Carl earlier today and he said it wasn’t true at all.”

Source: FaceBook, https://www.facebook.com/piratechristian/posts/10205689062133080?comment_id=10205689123254608&offset=0&total_comments=34, Published 25/02/2015, 17:08. (Accessed 25/02/2015.)

Saiko Woods also stated,

“Carl Lentz said the report isn’t true. Justin isn’t performing at his church at all.”

Source: Saiko Woods, FaceBook, https://www.facebook.com/saiko.woods/posts/10203322676500098?comment_id=10203322693980535&offset=0&total_comments=24, Published 25/02/2015, 08:16. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

“Supposedly!”

Source: Saiko Woods, FaceBook, https://www.facebook.com/saiko.woods/posts/10203322676500098?comment_id=10203322694540549&offset=0&total_comments=24, Published 25/02/2015, 08:16. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

BRIAN HOUSTON

Chris Rosebrough reported Lyall Mercer offered a statement made by Brian Houston,

Lyall Mercer who is a PR agent for Hillsong says that Brian Houston has issued a statement saying “Not true that Justin Bieber has qualified to be lay preacher or plans by Hillsong to rush him onto our platform.”

Source: Chris Rosebrough, FaceBook, https://www.facebook.com/piratechristian/posts/10205689062133080, Published 25/02/2015, 16:42. (Accessed 25/02/2015.)

LYALL MERCER (Hillsong’s PR)

Chris Rosebrough published the original article on Beiber from SundayWorld on twitter. Lyall Mercer replied,

@piratechristian No truth to this. Dangerous to believe Hollywood gossip stories.

Source: Lyall Mercer, Twitter, https://twitter.com/LyallMercer/status/570454929812299778, 9:27 PM – 24 Feb 2015. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

Chris responded,

@LyallMercer Are you speaking as an official representative of Hillsong?

Source: Lyall Mercer, Twitter, https://twitter.com/LyallMercer/status/570454929812299778, 9:31 PM – 24 Feb 2015. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

What was Mercer’s response?

@piratechristian on behalf of the church, yes.

Source: Lyall Mercer, Twitter, https://twitter.com/LyallMercer/status/570469488476475392, 10:24 PM – 24 Feb 2015. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

On Twitter, Lyall Mercer writes,

Reports in @sundayworld abt Justin Bieber “performing” at Hillsong LA not correct. Also not true that he is lay preacher. Totally fabricated

Source: Lyall Mercer, Twitter, https://twitter.com/LyallMercer/status/570453837896511488, 9:27 PM – 24 Feb 2015. (Accessed 26/02/2015.)

What are your thoughts? Who is right? Does anyone have additional information on this story?

The SundayWorld reports,

Justin ‘Believer’ Bieber to perform… from the pulpit

Justin Bieber is planning a series of new performances… delivering sermons from the pulpit of his favourite church.

The pop brat claims to have turned over a new leaf after qualifying as a lay preacher following an intensive, three-month bible study course.

And he even wants to bring TV cameras into L.A.’s trendy Hillsong Church so he can preach to the masses and spread the good word as a part-time televangelist.

Bieber, who turns 21 next Sunday, has helped Hillsong become the first church in history to be signed by top Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor.

The agency, whose megastar clients include Robert De Niro, Ben Affleck, John Travolta, Taylor Swift and Kanye West, is already reportedly negotiating a prime time small screen slot on Sundays with two networks.
And, to help boost ratings, The Bieb has offered to help staff clergy by reading sermons and even appealing for donations on camera.

Hillsong is a Pentecostal church that was founded in Australia in 1983 by married pastors Brian and Bobby Houston and quickly achieved popularity through its pop-style worship music, selling more than 12 million Christian records worldwide.

It now draws 100,000 attendees to services in 11 countries every week, including at the Belasco Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, where keen devotee Bieber has brought several fellow celebrities.

These include his former girlfriend, 22-year-old singer Selena Gomez, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (26) and Glee star Lea Michelle (28), who has raved about Hillsong’s “amazing vibe”.

Bieber claims the church has “transformed” his life after two years of bad boy behaviour around the world that landed him in several legal scrapes and even punch-ups with rival stars like Orlando Bloom.

He said: “I’ve done a few things that might not have been the greatest. But I’m ready to own up to them.”

Source: By Mike Parker, Justin ‘Believer’ Bieber to perform… from the pulpit, http://www.sundayworld.com/news/justin-believer-bieber-to-perform-from-the-pulpit-hillsong, Accessed 25/02/2015.

Once again, we ask the question.

Has Hillsong made any attempt to get Sunday World to retract their story?

The Monthly reports,

SCOTT MORRISON: SO WHO THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?

In a country that has always exhibited a fickle streak towards foreigners heading for its shores, Scott Morrison is especially well credentialed to speak on the subject of his shadow portfolio, immigration. The Liberal politician who has spent much of the past 18 months regurgitating the phrase ‘stop the boats’ was also the managing director of Tourism Australia, who asked the rest of the world: ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ The member for Cook, who counts Desmond Tutu and the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce among his heroes, reportedly argued in shadow cabinet that the Liberals should exploit community concerns about Muslim immigrants.

The man who attests that his faith has imbued him with “the values of loving kindness, justice and righteousness” also tried to make political hay when relatives of asylum seekers killed in the boat tragedy off Christmas Island in December 2010 were flown at taxpayers’ expense to attend their loved ones’ funerals in Sydney. The Scott Morrison who claims that deterring boat people from ever embarking on the hazardous journey across the Indian Ocean offers the most humane and Christian approach is also the Scott Morrison whose incessant politicisation of the issue has made compromise so difficult. “There is nothing to negotiate,” he said after a vessel carrying 250 asylum seekers sank off the coast of Java in December, adding glibly that Labor had “super-sized” the problem by releasing boat people into the community.

During his maiden speech to parliament in February 2008, Morrison quoted Bono as he made an impassioned appeal for more aid to Africa – hardly a hot-button issue for his constituents in Cronulla. His first words in the chamber acknowledged the Gweagal people of the Dharawal nation, the traditional owners of the land now occupied by his parliamentary seat. Admirers describe him as compassionate, personable, moral and extremely able. Critics take a wholly different view, calling him arrogant, over-ambitious and bullying. “It is impossible to talk about Scott Morrison,” says one, “without dropping the C-bomb.” So with the 43 year old spoken of as a possible future Liberal leader, Australians could be forgiven for asking: ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

*

Scott Morrison was born in Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, now one of the richest enclaves of the country’s richest parliamentary constituency. His family background, however, could hardly be described as part of the elite. Rather, it was strongly Christian and communitarian. His father, John, was a police commander who founded the local Boys Brigade in Bondi Junction, played rugby for Randwick and was an active member of the local RSL. John Morrison was also politically active, serving 16 years on the local council as an Independent and becoming the mayor of Waverley in the mid 1980s. His son’s first political act came at the age of nine, when he handed out how-to-vote cards on behalf of his father.

Scott was an active member of the Uniting Church in Bondi Junction, where his father says he became “a dedicated Christian”. Like his parents, he threw himself into a range of activities – rugby, music, rowing and drama. “He was well liked, a very personable chap,” recalls Reverend Ray Green, who knew him as a child. “He was definitely a leader. People used to follow him around. He was also liked by the girls. There were quite a few in the Girls Brigade who thought he was the ant’s pants.” He met his future wife, Jenny, at church, aged just 12. She had grown up in the St George area of south Sydney, solid battler territory, and used to tease Scott about coming from the posh side of town.

From early on, Scott and his elder brother Alan were instilled with a strong sense of community service (Alan Morrison is now a superintendent in the NSW ambulance service). Scott is a muscular Christian in his father’s mould, and in his zero-tolerance approach towards border protection, perhaps there is something of the police commander as well. Neither did it come as a complete surprise to learn that his bloodline reaches back to Northern Ireland. Whenever I have encountered Scott Morrison, he has reminded me of the Orangemen I used to run into in Belfast, who marched in their tangerine V-shaped collarettes to the thumping beat of the Lambeg drum. Typically they were genial men, of ’50s-era sensibilities, who were prone to defensiveness and flashes of anger on the thorny subject of the border.

Morrison is now a Pentecostal and thus part of the most rapidly growing denomination in the land. He worships at an American-style mega-church called Shirelive in his constituency, where the gospel of prosperity is preached in an auditorium that can accommodate over 1000 evangelicals. With its water baptisms and designer-shirt pastors, Shirelive has close ties with the better-known Hillsong community. The founder of Hillsong, Harley Davidson–riding pastor Brian Houston, is one of Morrison’s mentors. In Who’s Who Morrison lists the church as his number one hobby, and his maiden speech reads in part like a personal testimony delivered on the last night of a church retreat. It included passages from Jeremiah and also the Book of Joel: “Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

A test of his faith came during the period when he and his wife were trying to start a family. It involved repeated courses of IVF treatment and “14 years of bitter disappointments”, but Scott and Jenny were buoyed by their sense of the providential. “God remembered her faithfulness,” recalled Morrison during his maiden speech, as he paid tribute to his wife, “and blessed us with our miracle child, Abbey Rose.” The couple now have two daughters.

While his faith animates his politics, he is on the record as saying “the Bible is not a policy handbook, and I get very worried when people try to treat it like one”. Critics would say that is self-evident from his heartless response to asylum seekers. “I wonder how you can claim to be a serious Christian and take these positions,” said one former colleague. Supporters, however, claim he has pursued a faith-based policy. “He’s a very ethical and moral man,” says a fellow Liberal. “Stopping the boats is ethical and moral.” In his response to December’s boat people tragedy off Java, he advocated a ‘tough love’ policy, which he claimed had the safety of boat people at its heart. After all, for Morrison the Pacific Solution was not only efficient but righteous since it crushed the evil of people smuggling. Church friends might even have seen shades of Wilberforce in his efforts to eradicate such a nefarious trade. To his critics, however, his attacks on the government, which resumed 48 hours after the overloaded boat capsized, offered yet more proof of his harrying opportunism: this was more about political point-scoring than finding a workable solution.

School for Scott Morrison was Sydney Boys High, one of the best in the public sector, while his student years were spent at the University of New South Wales studying economics and geography. That led to jobs in a number of industry groups, including the Property Council of Australia and what was then known as the Tourism Task Force (now the Tourism and Transport Forum). He served as the number two at the TTF before jumping ship to its main rival, Tourism Council Australia. Afterwards, the TTF changed its employment contracts to prevent others from “doing a Morrison”.

When the New Zealand government wanted to set up an Office of Tourism and Sport, it turned to Morrison. Across the ditch, he was associated with the highly acclaimed ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ campaign, but also drew fire from Labor MPs for being the political placeman of the country’s then tourism minister and now foreign affairs minister, Murray McCully. The New Zealand Herald dubbed him McCully’s “hard man”. When McCully resigned his portfolio in 1999, over a scandal involving “golden handshakes” to tourism board members who had resisted his heavy-handed interference, Morrison lost his chief political sponsor. So with a year still left on his contract, he returned to Sydney in March 2000, where he took up a position as the state director of the NSW Liberal Party.

Party chieftains deemed Morrison’s four-year tenure an outstanding success. Though he could never dislodge the state Labor government from power, he revitalised the party machine, and helped the Coalition gain three federal seats from Labor in New South Wales at the 2001 federal election. John Howard said he had never seen the state party better organised.

His reward came after the 2004 federal election, when the Coalition needed a chief executive to head its newly created tourism body, Tourism Australia. In a move that reeked of political cronyism, Joe Hockey, the then tourism minister, gave Morrison the $350,000-a-year post. His reign at Tourism Australia lives in the memory for the troubled ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ campaign that ran afoul of the British advertising regulator. Fran Bailey, Hockey’s successor as tourism minister, even had to make an emergency trip to London to cajole the British into overturning their ban amid grumbles from her ministry that a closer reading of UK regulations would have alerted Tourism Australia to the problem. Eventually, the campaign worked well in the US, UK and German markets, partly because the controversy surrounding the use of the word ‘bloody’ delivered a bonanza of free publicity. It flopped, however, in Asia, and especially the all-important Japanese market, where the slogan was unfathomable.

Something of a bureaucratic black belt from his days in New Zealand, Morrison also fought running battles with Tourism Australia’s nine-strong board. Its members complained that he did not heed advice, withheld important research data about the controversial campaign, was aggressive and intimidating, and ran the government agency as if it were a one-man show. But Morrison thought he had the upper hand. Confident that John Howard would ultimately back him, Morrison reportedly boasted that if Fran Bailey got in his way, he would bring her down. When board members called for him to go, however, Bailey agreed, and soon it was Morrison who was on his way. “Fran despised him,” says an industry insider. “Her one big win was ousting Scott. His ego went too far.” Another senior industry figure claims that it was Morrison’s arrogance, combined with his misreading of John Howard and the power dynamics of Canberra, that proved his undoing: “He was naive to think he could take on the politicians. Howard was always going to back his ministers.” The “agreed separation” was said to have pocketed him at least a $300,000 payout.

Afterwards, Morrison was given a stopgap role as the “minder” for the then NSW Liberal leader Peter Debnam in the run-up to the 2007 state election. During the campaign, Debnam sported his budgie smugglers at Bondi with such pride that his early morning appearances could easily have been mistaken for a tourism advertisement. Yet even Morrison’s famed organisational skills could not stop Labor from winning in a canter.

Soon Morrison turned his attention to getting himself a seat in federal parliament, and eyed up the safe seat of Cook, which encompasses the Sutherland Shire or ‘God’s Country’, as locals prefer to call it. His friend Bruce Baird, who had been seen as too much of a ‘wet’ by John Howard to be entrusted with a ministry, had decided to step down rather than face what looked like being a nasty challenge from the right of his party. Sure enough, it turned out to be one of the most vituperative preselection campaigns in NSW history, with the right and left factions waging an internecine war. Morrison was not backed by either side – Bruce Baird remained neutral – and he finished a long way back on the first ballot, receiving just eight votes.

Michael Towke, a Lebanese Christian from the right faction, won. Four days later, amid allegations of branch stacking, Towke became the victim of a smear campaign, with a series of damaging personal stories leaked to the Daily Telegraph (after mounting a legal fight, News Limited offered him an out-of-court settlement). There were dark mutterings, as well, that a Lebanese Australian could never win a seat that had recently witnessed the Cronulla riot. The upshot of the smear campaign was that the NSW state executive refused to endorse Towke’s nomination, and demanded a second ballot. The beneficiary was Scott Morrison, a cleanskin in the factional fight, who was parachuted in as a unity candidate. So it is a mistake to presume Morrison is simply an ideal Sutherland Shire man. Local party members initially rejected him, partly because he was considered insufficiently right wing.

Preselection at the second time of asking brought with it the prospect of a safe Liberal seat. In the 2007 election, Scott Morrison was duly elected as the member for Cook, the point of arrival for the first boat people in the history of modern Australia: the crew of the HMS Endeavour.

*

Scott Morrison presented himself as a Liberal moderate in his first speech to parliament. Not only did he acknowledge the traditional owners, honour Desmond Tutu and William Wilberforce, quote Bono and pay tribute to Bruce Baird, he made reference to Kevin Rudd’s national apology to Indigenous Australians that had brought the chamber to its feet the previous day. “There is no doubt that our Indigenous population has been devastated by the inevitable clash of cultures that came with the arrival of the modern world in 1770 at Kurnell in my electorate,” he noted, and proclaimed himself “proud” of the national apology. Much of the speech could easily have been penned by Malcolm Fraser. His father, John, reckons it reveals the true Scott Morrison: “That speech says what he is and the way he thinks.”

So obviously an up-and-comer, Morrison did not remain on the Opposition backbench for long. Malcolm Turnbull, recognising a fellow traveller from the moderate wing of the party, elevated him to the shadow ministry as the spokesman for housing and local government in 2008. But it was the immigration portfolio handed to him by Tony Abbott in 2009 that provided the vehicle for his rise to prominence.

As the party lurched to the right under the leadership of Abbott, so too did Morrison, and the tourism marketeer proved himself an adept political sloganeer. Gone now was the antipodean Wilberforce of his freshman speech. Instead, he cast himself as a central figure in the Liberal fight-back, much to the annoyance of longbeards in the party who grumbled that he was a first-termer in too much of a hurry. “Supreme opportunism,” scoffed one senior Liberal when I asked about the one-time moderate’s confrontational approach on asylum seekers.

The more publicity that came Scott Morrison’s way, the more hardline he became. So much so that last February, on the morning when victims of the Christmas Island boat people tragedy were due to be buried in Sydney, he launched an ill-tempered attack on the government for paying for family members to make the long journey from Christmas Island. Among them was Madian El Ibrahimy, a detainee at the Indian Ocean detention centre, whose wife, Zman, four-year-old son, Nzar, and eight-month-old daughter, Zahra, had all died at sea. “Do you think you run the risk of being seen as heartless on the day of these funerals to be saying — to be bickering over this money?” asked ABC reporter Barbara Miller, whose report that morning was broadcast on AM. Morrison replied: “When it comes to the question of do I think this is a reasonable cost then my honest answer is, ‘No, I don’t think it is reasonable.’” Seasoned commentators struggled to recall a nastier instance of gutter politics from a senior politician since the heyday of Pauline Hanson. Labor accused him of “stealing soundbites from One Nation”.

Seemingly blindsided, Tony Abbott gave the remarks a lukewarm endorsement when he appeared on Andrew Bolt’s MTR radio program later that morning. “It does seem a bit unusual that the government is flying people to funerals,” said Abbott, though he cushioned his response with genuine sympathy for the survivors. Instead, it was left to Joe Hockey to condemn the remarks: “I would never seek to deny a parent or a child from saying goodbye to their relative.” Then came an acid shower of criticism from party elders. John Hewson called his comments “inhumane”. Malcolm Fraser was scornful: “I hope Scott Morrison is just a fringe element in the party.” More woundingly, Bruce Baird also slapped down his one-time protégé: “I’m very disappointed that Scott would make those comments. It is lacking in compassion at the very time when these people have been through such a traumatic event.”

Morrison also enraged certain members of the shadow cabinet, some of whom seemingly thought he was trying to grandstand his way towards seniority, and then the leadership. At least one exacted revenge by providing damaging leaks from a shadow cabinet meeting the previous December. Chairing the meeting in Tony Abbott’s absence, Julie Bishop had opened up a discussion on which issues should be prioritised in the new year. “What are we going to do about multiculturalism?” Morrison was reported as saying. “What are we going to do about concerns about the number of Muslims?” Morrison later noted: “The gossip reported does not reflect my views,” which fell short of an outright denial.

Morrison declined an invitation to contribute to this profile, but during a lengthy interview on ABC’s Sunday Profile with the journalist Julia Baird, daughter of Bruce, he spoke more about the Christmas Island tragedy. He explained how he regretted the timing of his comments – it was “a very insensitive time for me to have made those remarks” – but not their content. Revealingly, he also recalled how the weekend before, during one of his regular consultations in Cronulla Mall, two pensioners had complained about government waste, and how they themselves no longer felt valued: “And every time they saw money particularly being spent in this area or in the blow-out in costs in [dealing with] asylum seekers and others it really, really offended them.” Here was populism in one of its most unfiltered forms, for Morrison seemed to be suggesting that he was merely a mouthpiece for these elderly constituents. It was not so much a case of dog-whistle politics as megaphone politics.

His comments also provide another vital clue for his lurch to the right: what might be called ‘the Shire factor’. Morrison no doubt recalls how he was rejected in the first round of preselection, and also that the right-wing candidate who beat him, Michael Towke, still controls many of the local branches. What better way for a first-termer to shore up support in Cronulla than to champion the issue of border protection?

Perhaps Scott Morrison entered parliament imagining a very different career, where the nobler instincts of his maiden speech would define his politics. However, the gusto with which he has assailed the government over asylum seekers suggests that his decision to adopt such a hardline stance was morally uncomplicated. He, no doubt, would claim it is simply moral. The boat people issue, where his ambitions and survival instincts intersect, has both advanced his career in Canberra and consolidated his position in Cook. He has become a creature of the capital’s hyper-adversarialism and also of his Cronulla constituents’ parochialism. So while this eastern-suburbs native may not be a product of the Sutherland Shire, he may have become its captive. For Scott Morrison, it is not only a question of how he will be judged by God, but also by ‘God’s country’.

Source: By Nick Bryant, SCOTT MORRISON: SO WHO THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?, The Monthly, http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2012/february/1328593883/nick-bryant/so-who-bloody-hell-are-you, ??/02/2012. (Accessed 28/02/2015.)

Watch Brian Houston and co. talking with Bear Grylls from the Hillsong stage (and it’s painful to hear Brian Houston “name-drop” people).

You might be asking, after watching the above pointless clip, “Where’s Jesus?” in the above discussion. Good question. Below is an article from the Huffington Post.

Please note Hillsong is not Pentecostal and does not represent the Pentecostal Churches of Australia in spite of its wide range of claims. As the article rightly points out, Hillsong peddles the heretical prosperity theology. Many Pentecostal and even Charismatic leaders protest against this heretical movement and beliefs and will often state that Hillsong is a Word of Faith cult.

While Hillsong may offer a copy/paste belief statement to mislead people into believing they follow the beliefs of Christianity, the movement itself presents a false Jesus, a false gospel and a false faith which are more akin to the New Age and the early 19th metaphysical cults. Hillsong also deliberately cloaks itself behind  Christian music. However, the philosophy behind the movement is heavily anti-Christian and anti-intellectual. To question the theology is to question God Himself.

And since some of us from CW formerly attended the Hillsong movement – we are aware that Hillsong actively promotes their congregations and their college students to buy their CD’s to help promote their success. In other words, Hillsong knows how to promote their movement to give the appearance of being genuine. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The Huffington Post writes,

Australian Idolatry: Evangelical Christians Resurrecting the Music Industry

Prime Minister Julia Gillard may be an avowed atheist, but if the Australian music-buying public is anything to go by, she’s a tad out of step with her electorate. You might say she’s not singing from the same hymn sheet. God Is Able, an album of contemporary Christian music released by the stratospherically successful Hillsong mega-church in Sydney, recently debuted at number three in the Australian chart ahead of Beyonce and Lady Gaga, becoming the tenth album of Christian pop to reach the top ten there since 2002. And Hillsong has broken America without so much as breaking a sweat. Last year its youth ministry house band, Hillsong United, went in at number two on the US iTunes album chart, just behind Eminem. If it’s true that the music industry is in its death throes, then nobody told Hillsong.

Hillsong Music is the ‘resource arm’ of Hillsong Church, a Pentecostal ministry in Sydney which began in 1983 with a congregation of forty-five, and which now boasts a membership of 21,000, an annual conference attracting 28,000 faithful attendees, and a growing international footprint with churches in London, Paris, Cape Town, Stockholm and Kiev. In 2009 Hillsong London celebrated ten years of worship in the capital with a service at the O2 London Arena. More than 14,000 people attended.

Needless to say, any church funded by a ‘dynamic music label’, as its promotional materials describe it, is foursquare in the realms of ‘non-traditional’ financing models. But Hillsong is no traditional church. It is ministry with marketing strategies and corporate visions, communion by focus group, where clergy are CEOs and pastors head up ‘creative teams’. Services take place in ‘state-of-the-art worship centres’, in which chancel is jettisoned for multimedia ministry and preaching by PowerPoint. Hillsong London’s website, whose front page features a group of smiling twenty-somethings in chic winter wear, bears closer resemblance to a Gap advert than a call for cash and congregation. And possibly taking a leaf out of Scientology’s book, Hillsong now looks to the power of celebrity to spread the gospel; it recently hosted an ‘Evening with’-style event in which tele-survivalist Bear Grylls talked of Everest expeditions, alligator wrestling and the ‘quiet strength’ of his Christian faith. Jumble sales and church roof appeals it is not.

Masterminded by founders and senior pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston (no self-respecting mega-church is seen dead these days without an alliterating husband-and-wife team at the helm), Hillsong’s brand of ‘prosperity theology’ found a hungry market in Sydney’s affluent, conservative Baulkham Hills district during the 1990s. ‘Health and wealth gospel’, popularised in sixties America by the repellent Oral Roberts, proved to be an elixir for middle-class Christians in prosperous, suburban Australia, as the success of Brian Houston’s book You Need More Money: Discovering God’s Amazing Financial Plan For Your Life attests. Spiritual health and material wealth go hand in hand, says Houston; humility and sacrifice are not unimportant, but nor should the faithful be ashamed of material success.

And Brian should know. In the last year for which figures are available, Hillsong’s annual earnings were in the region of $60m, roughly half of which came from its congregation. You see, record sales aren’t the church’s only source of revenue. Tithing – such an archaic-sounding word among all that corporate speak – is still a vital part of Hillsong’s income. Houston admits to a personal package of $300,000 a year plus company car (Bobbie’s salary is undisclosed), but his company Leadership Ministries Inc. – ‘the entity through which Bobbie and I conduct our broader ministry’ – bought two waterfront properties from the couple shortly after the company was set up in 2001.

And it’s very much a family business. Joel Houston, Brian and Bobbie’s son (and incidentally a spit for Westlife’s Brian McFadden), leads the creative team behind Hillsong Music, the multi-million dollar hit machine that powers the operation. He is also the singer in Hillsong United, a ‘next generation praise and worship’ outfit which has released a new album every year since 1999, making Prince look positively idle. Churning out mostly live albums recorded at services and conferences, the Hillsong Music stable is so prolific that just as one release reaches the end of its chart life, another is waiting in the wings to take its place. Evidently the received wisdom in the music industry – that live albums don’t sell – doesn’t apply to Hillsong either.

They’ve done their homework, too. If it felt like Snow Patrol were following you around for three years from 2006, it’s because radio stations and music television channels the world over were banking on audience research which decisively crownedChasing Cars as the stickiest song of the noughties by a country mile. Hillsong, if you can imagine this without wincing, sounds like Snow Patrol singing from a prayer book. And in case you’re tempted to seek out this music for yourself, be warned. For the purposes of journalistic thoroughness I’ve listened to more than my fair share of it the past few days; it’s marginally less excruciating than chewing tinfoil.

Contemporary Christian music – CCM to its friends – is changing the market in other ways. For All You’ve Done, the first live worship album to debut at number one in Australia, drew widespread whingeing from disgruntled record labels, upset that almost all its sales rang through the cash registers at Hillsong’s annual conference. It’s hard to know which is more telling – the pointless display of sour grapes from the mainstream music industry, or the fact that sales at a religious conference can outstrip the buying power of an entire nation.

But it does raise the question of why Hillsong music is routing the secular competition so convincingly. Possibly these conference sales are more ‘got the t-shirt’ souvenir purchases than high-rotation repeat-players. Or perhaps it’s just that piracy is less rampant in Christian circles than in the wider market. Downloading music illegally isn’t proscribed by any specific commandment as far as I’m aware, but it does seem a very un-Christian thing to do. In 2007 Hillsong hit the headlines again, amid accusations of ‘vote stacking’ in the Australian Idol talent quest. Idol issued a formal, on-air statement refuting the allegations, although four of the eight finalists did in fact turn out to be from the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church, of which Hillsong is an affiliate. Idolatry – 1, Idol - nil.

On Christmas morning last year, finding myself with a few hours to kill before barbecued turkey and trimmings with my Sydney hosts, I went to see Hillsong for myself. I should state for the sake of transparency that I’m an atheist humanist, justifying my godless sneering on grounds of journalism (I was researching a book). But as I made my way there on the Hillsong courtesy shuttle, I felt like a freeloading interloper, a joyless gatecrasher en route to a children’s party with the sole intention of stealing party bags and calling the birthday boy names. To ease my conscience I resolved I would be the perfect houseguest, making every effort to participate, in as far as I could do so without compromising my principles or seeming to take the piss. If there was singing, I would sing. If there was hugging, I would hug. I drew the line only at praying.

Arriving at the church – sorry, worship centre – I was welcomed into a cavernous modern atrium by a model-pretty hostess bearing glad tidings and armfuls of Christmas candy. Dean Martin’s Winter Wonderland crooned from the speaker system. Free lattes and valet parking to all comers. Being slightly behind schedule I pressed on past the crèche and headed straight for the main room. (If ‘main room’ sounds a tad super-club, it’s not so far off the mark.) Five enormous TV screens flanked a wide stage, upon which Hillsong stalwart Robert Fergusson was already in mid-flow, hammering home the prosperity gospel as the gifting envelopes went round. In the audio clip below he urges us to be as ‘extravagant’ with our money as God is with his love:

Then two very happy but slightly stoned-sounding men appeared and invited all the kids onto the stage to show and tell what they got for Christmas.
“What did Santa bring you, little fella?” beamed Happy Man number 1.
Little boy: “An iPod Touch.”
“Whoooo!” clapped the audience.
“And what about you?” said Happy Man 2, turning to another little boy.
“A remote-controlled car.”
More whooping.
Happy Man 1: “Well, we’ve got some great prezzies to give away today, for the big kids as well as well as the little kids. But first we’re crossing live to our Hills campus, where our senior pastor Brian Houston is going to say a few words.”

I will say this for Christmas at Hillsong: it’s an ambitious and tightly choreographed technical feat they’re pulling off. All this ‘crossing live’ felt like Live Aid – it was terrifically exciting. On the TV screens behind, another show-and-tell session was finishing up at the Hills service across town. A third happy man was talking about prezzies for big kids and little kids, and then Houston himself was striding back and forth across the stage in front of foot-high chapter and verse, a bible in his hand and a flesh-coloured Madonna-mike clamped to his cheek. Swap the bible for an iPad and he could have passed for Steve Jobs unveiling his vision for the exciting next phase of the company.

He launched into some impassioned stuff about Emmanuel, punctuated with fists in the air about his GRACE and DIVINITY, which I confess was where I started to tune out. It’s not that I wasn’t listening, just that a sort of glazing over took place. The same thing happens when I listen to evangelical preachers on the radio, which I do often in America, where late-night preaching is among the most compelling speech radio on the dial. It’s a little like the shipping forecast on BBC Radio 4 – fantastically hypnotic, but utterly incomprehensible unless you’re in on the lingo. Very often the welcome end result is blissful slumber.

So what did this godless impostor make of Christmas at Hillsong? Was it the riot of divinely sanctioned conspicuous consumption I had feared? Not quite, but it wasn’t far off. Did it feel like congregation? Emphatically not – it was spectacle from start to finish. And that’s what bothered me, if I was bothered by anything at all. This was a show, with high production values and a competitively priced soundtrack available in the foyer on your way out. If I was going to ‘get’ any kind of worship, as a music lover it should have been this. But Hillsong was more awards ceremony than gig, more exclusive media event than inclusive musical or spiritual experience. The live link ups were impressive and fabulously next generation, but in the end the action was always happening somewhere else. I needn’t have worried about crashing the party, because in more senses than one I wasn’t invited.

It struck me that, right now, the lavishness of Hillsong could only work in Australia, seemingly the only economy in the world these days untroubled by debt, deficit or danger of default. Anywhere else – including America, where the mega-church model seems to be crumbling – the extravagant giving, all the showing and the telling, would seem a tad inappropriate. Shuffling out of the auditorium, I made my way by courtesy shuttle to my Christmas lunch engagement, gifting a Transformer toy to my hosts’ going-on-three year-old as I arrived. He was thrilled of course, but somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling that, to truly enter into the Christmas spirit, I should have rocked up with an iPod Touch.

Source: By Chris Price, Australian Idolatry: Evangelical Christians Resurrecting the Music Industry, Huffington Post, 14/09/2011 23:46 BST Updated: 14/11/2011 10:12 GMT. (Accessed 28/02/2015.)

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? James 2:1-7

INTRODUCTION

We are posting all these articles to highlight the fact that Hillsong is not afraid to “leech” on people who make it big in society. And “leech” is the right word. (It is emotive because we have personally seen how the inside operations work with these mega-church phenomena.)

As you can see with our recent articles, Hillsong likes to invite/associate with influential people, which then allows them to leverage off their “influential” status. If it’s at the expense of the celebrity they have befriended or talking to – they don’t care. The philosophy is for “The Cause” of Brian Houston’s movement. At the end of the day, it’s about Hillsong using these people to give Hillsong more credibility. The influential simply become an asset like everybody else.

OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE BELOW ARTICLE

The role of the church is to represent God and His Word – not political parties. Hillsong thinks likewise.

In the article below, you will notice that Brian Houston allowed Australian treasurer of the Liberal Party, Peter Costello, to speak and pray at his annual Hillsong Conference. You will also notice Brian Houston’s apparent swipe at the Labour party leader Mark Latham although he invited him to speak at the Hillsong Conference:

“I gave Mr Latham an invitation to come this year and speak for a few minutes about his vision for the country but maybe they’re not quite seeing this demographic as important as some in the Liberal Party have seen it.”

Why is it so important for Houston to invite political leaders to speak from the Hillsong Conference stage? Notice how Houston and Rick Warren are both using their pastoral positions to get in the media spotlight over their celebrity/political stunts (Rick Warren: “Both of them are my friends” 2:35) to get a name for their churches. We stress again – if you’re famous, just like everybody else, you are simply an asset to these movements.

The 7:30 Report published this transcript on Hillsong,

God and politics mix at Hillsong

MAXINE MCKEW: This week, a rocking religious worship album became the biggest selling CD in the country – that’s the biggest selling CD – leaping over big-label pop releases on the mainstream chart, surely something of a first.

It’s the latest outing from the Sydney-based evangelical church Hillsong, which also ships millions of CDs overseas.

The church is fast becoming an emerging religious powerhouse in Australia, with thousands of recruits and some influential figures taking more than a passing interest.

It’s no great political secret that governments these days are largely won or lost in the handful of marginal seats on the outer edges of our capital cities.

Winning the hearts and minds of these so-called aspirational voters is the door to government.

And it seems politicians are starting to realise that God may hold some of the keys.

Political editor Michael Brissenden reports from Sydney’s north-west, the rocking heartland of Australia’s booming evangelical Christian movement.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: No, it’s not a rock concert, well, not like they used to be.

There’s no wayward behaviour, no bad-boy stage antics, no backstage atrocities, no drugs.

No, these people are high on God.

SONG:# One way, Jesus, you’re the only one that I could live for.

# MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Well, God and politics.

BRIAN HOUSTON, HILLSONG CHURCH: We’ve asked Mr Costello to come tonight and to greet Hillsong 2004, so why don’t you give him a big warm welcome as he comes to greet us tonight.

PETER COSTELLO, TREASURER: To Brian, to Bobby, to the wonderful people of Hillsong.

I’ve addressed a few audiences in my time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with the enthusiasm and the commitment of tonight’s gathering.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In just 20 years, the Hillsong Church in Sydney has gone from a small service in a school hall in the north-western suburbs to this.

SONG:# You live and you die.

And you rose again on high.

# BRIAN HOUSTON, HILLSONG CHURCH: These days, every weekend over 17,500 people pass through the doors from Friday night through to Sunday night and it’s been quite a miraculous story.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: This is now the fastest growing religious experience in the country.

The new Pentecostal preachers know it, the mainstream churches know it and, increasingly, the nation’s politicians know it, too.

DR DAVID MILLIKAN, UNITING CHURCH MINISTER: What was we see at Hillsong is the beginnings of a whole new shift in Australian Christianity.

Churches like Hillsong have a lot of money and they have a lot of political power.

PETER COSTELLO: We need a return to faith and the values which have made our country strong.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Peter Costello’s remarkably passionate opening address to the Hillsong conference in Sydney last week was public affirmation of the growing political influence of this new spiritualism.

PETER COSTELLO: The editorial writers may not understand it, but I want to say to you – more lives have been transformed by faith in Christ than have been transformed by the editorial writers.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Peter Costello, the son of a Baptist lay preacher, had been promising for some time to show a more compassionate political face and it seems it’s faith that’s emerging as the vehicle to help broaden his political image.

Not that that surprises many.

From all corners of the church, the Treasurer’s religious convictions are well known.

BRIAN HOUSTON: I think that he is a man of faith and he is a man of values and I took great encouragement from the fact he was courageous enough to be so bold about those issues.

DR DAVID MILLIKAN: I think Peter Costello has deep religious feelings within him.

I actually think that he feels that he has been destined by God to be the prime minister.

I’m sure he feels that in his very being.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: What does surprise many, though, is his enthusiastic embrace of Hillsong.

It’s a long leap of faith from Baptist austerity to rock’n’roll religion, but then, these days that could just as easily be interpreted as simply smart and pragmatic politics.

This is the key to why the Hillsong Church and churches like it have become so successful and why the politicians in turn are becoming more interested.

The message is a thoroughly modern one and one that sits neatly with the aspirations of people who live in suburbs like this.

A powerful part of that message is the gospel of prosperity.

If you believe in Jesus, the Church says, he’ll reward you here on earth as well as in heaven.

Brian Houston, the head preacher at Hillsong, is also the author of a book called You Need More Money.

It’s a Christian gospel that sits easily alongside today’s dominant political paradigm.

BRIAN HOUSTON: The church isn’t about money, but I do believe it is about equipping people to live lives that are bigger themselves.

And if we have nothing, there’s nothing we can do.

If we have a little, we can help a little.

And if we’ve got a lot, there’s a whole lot we can do.

DR DAVID MILLIKAN: Hillsong says that if you come to Jesus, then Jesus offers you, in fact promises you, that you will have a prosperous life, you’ll be healthy, you’ll be wealthy, your marriage will flourish, you’ll have a good sex life, your business will flourish and you will be a prosperous winner in this society.

Now, that is the religious version of exactly what the Howard Government is saying to us, and what they are holding out as the idea for Australian society.

So in that sense, Hillsong is the Howard Government at prayer.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Well, Mark Latham might have something to say about that.

The fact is the aspirational suburbs, of course, are often the ones sitting on the closest margins and both the preachers and the politicians want to win them over.

Louise Markus is the Liberal candidate for the western Sydney seat of Greenway.

She’s campaigning hard and could be a real chance to win in what used to be safe Labor territory.

But the demographics here are changing fast and, while she doesn’t want to make much of it, at least to us, the fact that she’s an active member of the Hillsong Church won’t actually do her any harm.

LOUISE MARKUS, LIBERAL CANDIDATE FOR GREENWAY: Well, I’m not here to talk about Hillsong Church specifically.

What’s important to me is the people across the whole of this electorate and what’s important to them.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Do you think being a member of the church, though, gives you some advantages here?

LOUISE MARKUS: I think people make their decision about who they’re going to vote for and who they want to represent them for a number of different reasons.

I think the values that people represent is significant.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Ms Markus says her values are the values of the Liberal Party, with family and individual responsibility at their heart.

Religious activists like David Millikan say the two are a comfortable and convenient mix?

DAVID MILLIKAN: The mainline churches are more problematic.

The mainline churches ask questions about refugee policy, about welfare policy and, see, the Howard Government has a very troubled relationship with people who question or argue about the justice or equity of what’s happening in Australia.

They’ll never get that discussion from Hillsong.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The Hillsong Church, though, says it hasn’t deliberately set out on a partisan political path, but Brian Houston says his flock is naturally interested in the direction the country’s taking.

BRIAN HOUSTON, HILLSONG CHURCH: I gave Mr Latham an invitation to come this year and speak for a few minutes about his vision for the country but maybe they’re not quite seeing this demographic as important as some in the Liberal Party have seen it.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Maybe Mr Latham should re-think.

Peter Costello’s obviously onto something here.

This week, the Hillsong worship album has become the biggest selling CD in the country.

BRIAN HOUSTON: The worship of Jesus Christ, this week at least, is the number one most popular music in the nation.

So, that’s what I stand for.

That’s what we live for.

It’s certainly a great moment.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It’s certainly great marketing, but then maybe that’s what both the preachers and the politicians have always been looking for.

BRIAN HOUSTON: Father, we thank you for Mr Costello, we thank you for your PM, John Howard, we thank you, Father, for the Leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham.

Source: By Michael Brissenden, God and politics mix at Hillsong, ABC (7:30 Report), http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1154131.htm, Broadcast 14/07/2004. (Accessed transcript 01/03/2015.)

If you are a woman you could attend the neuron-free Hillsong women’s conferences put on by Bobbie Houston, (the next round of Colour Conferences starting in 7 days). Or you could actually tune into NoCompromise Radio and listen to Erin Benziger on the Equipping Eve segment, discussing the issues surrounding Hillsong’s deceptive theology for women.

Benziger states,

“So Hillsong church wants to look like the world and wants to welcome women into all kinds of roles into leadership and this and that. Well that’s fine. Hillsong can look like the world all they want. But they need to stop calling themselves a church.

And they may seek to not sideline the girls but they are doing so in direct disobedience to the Word of God. There is a place for women to serve, whether your young or old or married or single or widowed. And Jesus’ own ministry demonstrated that he had a heart for women. And that’s something I would like for us to look at another time: the importance of women in Jesus’ ministry.

But for now, we have to realise that when we seek to usurp the role that God has ordained to be exercised by men, we are turning his will upside down and replacing it with a will that reflects the sin of the world in which we live.” [28:38]

Here is the segment you can read up on and download:

On Women, Roles and Hillsong

Xaiquiri Matthews from XM Blogo did a very good refutation on Andy Stanley’s sermon series ‘Brand: New’. We would encourage you to visit Matthews site and read his good material.

Matthews writes,

Not So, Brand: New

A response to Andy Stanley’s sermon series 

In Andy Stanley’s latest sermon series, “Brand: New,” he argues that the Old Covenant’s “temple model” has been completely replaced with the new Christian ethic: love. And he argues that if we are going to embrace Christianity, the “Jesus model,” then we must completely abandon every aspect of “temple thinking.”

There are several good things that can come out of what Stanley has said. For example, a question that everyone ought to regularly ask himself is, “What does love require of me?” He encourages people to love those who can do nothing for us. He also urges Christians, and especially Christian leaders, to become humble servants who aren’t too good for the poor and the dirty. He reminds us that our theology is no good if we are not loving. He reminds Christians to remember that they are not under the law. These are just some of the awesome takeaways from this sermon series that everyone would be wise to hear.

However, there’s an incredible flaw in what Stanley has been teaching for the last five weeks, and it is the foundation for everything he says in the series. He describes the “temple model” as a system of religion that involves sacred places with sacred men interpreting sacred texts to control superstitious people. I wish I didn’t have to explain this, but what he is teaching is a gross mischaracterization of the Old Covenant. And in mischaracterizing the Old Covenant, he comes to very wrong conclusions about the New Covenant and misses the primary purpose of Christ’s coming. To make this point even stronger, in making accusations against the Old Covenant, he essentially is making an indictment on the God who inaugurated that covenant. He says that the “temple model” is about how you as an individual can get right with God and that the “Jesus model” is about loving our neighbor. But the Law was never intended to make us right before God, and Jesus’ primary purpose for coming to earth was in fact to make us right before God. From the third chapter of Genesis to the third to last chapter of Revelation, the thrust of Scripture is primarily focused on what God is doing to restore man’s relationship with him.

So what is the Old Covenant?

There are hints at the Old Covenant in God’s interactions with Adam, but the Old Covenant explicitly begins with a promise to Abraham in Genesis 15. There was a promise of land, which we know from Hebrews 11 to ultimately be the hope of the new heaven and the new earth. And there was a promise that Abraham’s descendants, which we know from Galatians 3 and Romans 9 to be those with the faith of Abraham, would become a great nation. Throughout the New Testament, we learn that the truest fulfillment of those promises was found in Jesus. By faith we are adopted as children of God and are given an inheritance. However, all the while, there has been a problem; man is sinful, and God is holy. This is a problem because sin separated mankind from the presence of God. We learn in Genesis 17 that the sign of the covenant with Abraham was circumcision; circumcision was an external sign of an internal reality, namely the circumcision of the heart. When Moses received the Law four hundred and thirty years later, it was not given to help people become righteous through obedience. Instead, the Law of Moses was given to expose people’s sin and lead them to faith in the promise of God. God’s covenant with Moses was filled with promises for the nation of Israel that were dependent upon their obedience, but God’s covenant with Abraham was an unconditional promise. As the nation of Israel developed, the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle were introduced. Since God could not be directly in the presence of Israel because of their sin, these were the specific places where the presence of God would reside. Priests would offer sacrifices for the people of God and for themselves in order to come before God and make petitions on behalf of the people of God. Eventually, under Solomon, the tabernacle was replaced by the temple, and God’s presence would dwell in a place called the Holy of Holies inside the temple. The Old Covenant was never about “sacred places with sacred men interpreting sacred texts to control superstitious people.” The Old Covenant was about God’s promise to redeem his people, and the temple was about God’s desire to dwell among his people. Jesus critiqued Pharisees, religious leaders, in the New Testament, but that was because they missed the point of the Old Covenant, not because the Old Covenant was Pharisaical. Instead, Jesus and all of the writers of the New Testament upheld the goodness of all of the Old Testament scriptures.

And what exactly changed in the New Covenant?

The New Covenant does indeed replace the Old, not because the Old was flawed, but because the Old was fulfilled in Christ. In the New Covenant, no more sacrifices are needed because Christ was the sacrifice for sin once and for all. Baptism would replace circumcision as the sign of the covenant, and like circumcision, baptism would be an external sign of an internal reality, namely the baptism of the Spirit. In the New Covenant, God’s presence would not dwell in the temple; God’s presence would dwell within the hearts of believers through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The old temple was destroyed both symbolically and physically because believers are the new temple.

Why am I writing this?

Andy Stanley actually notes this aspect of the New Covenant, that Christians are temples. However, the conclusion he makes is that being a temple is what makes us valuable and is what undergirds the New Testament ethic of love. He says that the Old Covenant was about making sure our relationship with God was right and that the New Covenant is about pursuing right relationships with others. He even says several times during the sermon series something to the effect of, “Don’t worry about how you treat God. God is fine. All you need to worry about is how you treat other people.” This is blasphemy. Andy Stanley is right to criticize the Pharisaical qualities of the modern church like legalism, power-seeking, and theological divisiveness. But at worst, he is criticizing very purpose for Christ’s coming, to save sinners.

Andy Stanley misses the point of both Covenants, and he completely inverts the Great Commandment. He might as well be saying, “Love your neighbor with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your God as yourself.” He does, rightly so, say that our love for God is displayed in our love for others. However, his explanation of what is central to New Covenant thinking reveals that there is actually no love for God involved. In Andy Stanley’s explanation of the New Covenant, love for neighbor is central and the cross is simply something Jesus did that helps us not have to worry about our relationship with God anymore.

On the contrary, when Jesus gives us the two greatest commands in the New Testament, he’s not only quoting the Old Testament, but he’s showing us the central ethic of Scripture across the board. Loving God and loving neighbor are not replacing the Old Testament; they are the two commandments on which all of the Law and Prophets are founded. Loving God and loving neighbor are the driving force behind every other command. Our love for God is and always has been important, and our love for others is and always has been important. However, Stanley seems to think that the first half of this is irrelevant and that the second half of this is something brand: new. Not so.

When Andy Stanley attacks the sacred places of the “temple model,” he attacks the dwelling place of God among His people. When he attacks the sacred men of the “temple model,” he attacks God-appointed, and yet flawed, men who sought the good of God’s people, and he implicitly attacks his own calling as a pastor to lead the church today. When he attacks thesacred texts of the “temple model,” he attacks the Scriptures that Jesus and all of the New Testament writers quote and affirm, and he calls into question the validity of the very text from which he is reading.

When he criticizes the church throughout history for becoming creedal and theologically-minded, he neglects the consistent New Testament warnings about false teachers and its urgings to guard our doctrine. When he tells you not to worry about your relationship with God, he mocks the practices of Jesus himself when he would retreat into times of prayer, meditation, fasting, and seeking the will of the Father. He undermines the purpose of baptism and communion which remind us of our right standing with God. He contradicts the consistent call of the New Testament for believers to work out their salvation by living obedient, holy lives. He says that the reasons people give for rejecting the church are things that Jesus called the church to reject as well, but Jesus said in John 15 that the church will be hated precisely because of their affiliation with him. There is clearly a huge disparity between how Jesus described the church and the picture Andy Stanley is painting of the church.

I don’t believe it would be wise to write Andy Stanley into the New Testament category of heretics and false teachers. However, I want to say publicly that Andy Stanley has shown, especially over the last five weeks, that he is, at the very least, an untrustworthy expositor of Scripture, and I would encourage those who have followed him to stop following him. Stanley has a tremendous platform and says a lot of good and helpful things, but when you are seeking pastoral leadership, you ought to seek it from those who prove themselves to be, more than just good communicators, faithful teachers of the Bible.

Andy Stanley wants you to stop worrying about your relationship with God and start worrying about your relationship with others. This is an incredibly unloving thing to tell you. We do indeed, as he says, show our love for God by loving others. However, if we truly love God, then our love for others will be driven by the desire for them to love God as well because we understand that a right relationship with God is what is best for them. The primary mission of the Church is to make disciples by preaching the gospel and teaching those disciples to obey the teachings of Christ. This is the mission that separates the Church from every humanitarian organization and non-Christian religion in the world. And it is love that fuels this mission. We want people to turn from their sin and trust in Christ because we care about people’s souls.

One of the things that Andy Stanley is right about is the fact that the church has largely been guilty of being unloving, and all of our pursuits of theological knowledge are ultimately in vain if they do not make us more loving. The church has been guilty of being more concerned with theological pride than with loving our neighbor. The church has been guilty of being more concerned with appearing wise than with operating with wisdom. The church has been guilty of accusatory judgment rather than graciousness and patience with sinners. The church has been guilty of selfishness rather than selflessness. The church ought not give up on solid theology, but the church ought to recognize that its theology is intended to propel its love.

The greatest command is not to love our neighbor. The greatest command is, always has been, and always will be to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The ultimate way we love God is by glorifying him in everything that we do. And the ultimate way we glorify him in everything that we do is by displaying his character in our lives. This is why loving our neighbor is so significant. We are not in the business of love because love is the new law. We are in the business of love because we love God. We love others because, in love, the glory of the God we love and the character of the God we love and the kingdom of the God we love are on display. The church is called to love one another because we know love to be a central element of righteousness and godliness. The church is called to meet needs because we recognize that the kingdom of God is a place void of earthly neediness. When we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and show hospitality to strangers, we are displaying the character of God. There are no hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, and poor strangers in heaven, and the church is called to love people in a way that reveals the kingdom of God on earth. More significantly, there are no unrighteous people in heaven. We can die without food. We can die without clothes. We can die as a martyr. We can die alone. But we cannot afford to die without God. Every earthly need pales in comparison to the eternal need for righteousness before God, and the most loving thing we can do for our neighbor is to bring them to the cross of Jesus Christ where that need was met. This is the ethic of the New Covenant.

The Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of believers to conform them to the image of Christ. As this happens, the love of Christ inevitably emanates. If we are truly his disciples, then love for others will be the fountain of our hearts. If it isn’t, then I pray that we would recognize that, repent from it, and turn to Christ for forgiveness and renewed life. A living faith works itself out in love, so may all of us pursue this kind of faith and consistently ask God to strengthen our faith to this end.

I love Andy Stanley. I really do. But my love for him leads me to pray for him that the faithful Christian leaders that I know are in his life would come beside him in correction, that the Lord would grant him ears to hear, and that the Lord would use his gifts to become a tremendous platform for the gospel. Will you join me in this prayer?

Source: By Xaiquiri Matthews, Not So, Brand: New, XM Blogio, http://xaqmatthews.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/not-so-brand-new.html, Published 02/03/2015. (Accessed 06/03/2015.)

Bobbie Houston’s “Colour Your World Conference” will be on between the 12th and 14th of March and then later between the 19th and 21st of March.

Hillsong’s “Colour Your World Conference” has been rightly coined the “Neuron-free zone” by some Christian feminists we know. The increasingly shallow teaching of the host and guest women speakers (Lisa Bevere, Beth Moore, etc) continues to prove this to be true. It makes you wonder how a self-proclaimed “feminist” can attend such an anti-intellectual event and not be insulted by the patronising teachings of Bobbie Houston. Most Christian feminists we know are insulted that a women’s conference like ‘Colour Your World’ even exists.

Chris Rosebrough recently covered Bobby Houston’s sermon from an earlier Colour Conference on “Fighting For The Faith”, and even he had difficulty reviewing the illogical flounderings of Bobbie Houston.

After listening to the review, why do the women attending these conferences, show such an appalling lack of discernment “embracing” as gospel Bobbie Houston’s profoundly poor eisegesis? One has to ask why Christian husbands would condone their wives listening to this type of nonsense – are their husbands even aware? And how can anyone, having paid to attend this conference, not feel insulted by the lack of respect for God’s Word these teachers demonstrate – and force-feed to the faithful? Or we are seeing a fulfillment of scripture when we read:

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” 2 Timothy 4:3-5

Where there is a demand for something, the “suppliers” are not far away.

Here is the link to the sermon review:

MARCH 05, 2015
Living Large?

Click Here to Download this episode

Program segments:

• Who Does William Tapley Believe The Anointed One Is?
• Sex Box Pastrix Appearance on CBN
• Terri Savelle Foy On Audacity
• Joel Osteen and Living Large
• Sermon Review: Bobbie Houston at the Colour Conference

Source: Chris Rosebrough, Living Large, Fighting for the Faith, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2015/03/living-large.html, Published 05/03/2015. (Accessed 09/03/2015.)

 In closing, rather than follow the example of the apostles:

2 Corinthians 4:2 “We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God”

Hillsong’s quest “to manage the comfort level of its audience” has taken priority over preaching the Word. Their fear of offending people’s sensibilities has superseded their fear of offending God. What is truly most discouraging is when Bobbie Houston essentially admits “I do not care what the Bible says…”

Have you ever considered that a false church is in someway a blessing to Christianity?

False Churches Are A Blessing

When you have popular leaders of movements who appear to HATE God’s Word by rejecting what God says the qualifications are for leaders/elders, you have unrepentant men in positions of power. Both Brian Houston and Mark Driscoll (among others speaking this year) are serious threats to the global Christian Church unless people start voting with their feet on issues of Christian integrity.

You could not get more of a dangerous combination on stage this year at Hillsong Conference 2015.

Christian Today reports,

Hillsong’s Brian Houston will interview Mark Driscoll at summer conference

Mark Driscoll, the former pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, will return to one of the highest-profile events of the evangelical world this summer – but not as a platform speaker.

Driscoll, who resigned from Mars Hill following a string of revelations about his leadership style and a scandal about the manipulation of book sales figures, was scheduled to speak at the Hillsong Conferences in London and Sydney.

However, blogger Warren Throckmorton was told by Hillsong founder Brian Houston in an email that Driscoll and his wife Grace would be interviewed on stage rather than preaching. Houston said in the email: “I am looking forward to having this opportunity to speak openly with the Driscolls about life and ministry, as well as recent events and lessons they’ve learned through personal and ministry trials during the past year.

“My aim is to have an in-depth conversation that gives insight into their hearts. Mark has been candid about mistakes he has made, and if we can, through our conference, help others through his life experiences, we think that will prove valuable.”

It is not yet clear whether Driscoll will appear at both scheduled venues. The fallout from the implosion of Driscoll’s ministry at Mars Hill led to the church’s closure, with its satellite campuses closing, merging with other churches or becoming stand-alone congregations. It is also still facing the possibility of legal action over the use of funds raised for missions which it is alleged were diverted to general church use.

Driscoll was accused of promoting a culture of bullying and coercion, and of creating a “toxic”culture at Mars Hill, formerly one of the largest in the US. Driscoll himself, a charismatic preacher and communicator, was named by Preaching magazine as one of the most influential pastors of the last 25 years.

He now runs a ministry website which does not mention the controversies in which he was involved, but does not currently pastor a church. Invitations to him to preach at evangelical gatherings were withdrawn after the Mars Hill debacle, though he spoke briefly last October at the Gateway Conference in Dallas, Texas, about the struggles his family have been going through since leaving Mars Hill.

“I’ve cried a lot lately. It’s been a rough season for my family,” he said then.

He added that his family has received death threats and “rocks about the size of baseballs” were thrown at his children.

The pastor of Gateway Church, Robert Morris, praised Driscoll for his apparent humility in coming to the conference despite being removed from the speaker line up.

“We did not cancel him, he and I decided together that he was going to step outside of ministry for a season and get some healing. He asked me ‘Could I come to the conference and just attend?’ And I thought that was very big of him to just come and be ministered to,” Morris told those gathered.

“Most of what you read [about Driscoll] isn’t true, some of it is. He did make some mistakes,” he continued.

The Hillsong Conference will provide his first major platform since then.

Source: By Mark Woods, Hillsong’s Brian Houston will interview Mark Driscoll at summer conference, Christian Today, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hillsongs.brian.houston.will.interview.mark.driscoll.at.summer.conference/49886.htm, Published 13/03/2015. (Accessed 15/03/2015.)

Patheos writes,

Hillsong Founder Brian Houston Issues Statement On Mark Driscoll at the Hillsong 2015 Conference

Source: Warren Throckmorten, Hillsong Founder Brian Houston Issues Statement On Mark Driscoll at the Hillsong 2015 Conference, Patheos, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/03/12/hillsong-founder-brian-houston-issues-statement-about-mark-driscoll-at-the-hillsong-2015-conference/, Published 12/03/2015. (Accessed 15/03/2014.)

BRIAN HOUSTON MISLEADS AMERICAN MEDIA

Hillsong’s orchestrated press release event before Hillsong Conference in the U.S.

You can read the below issues in the Royal Commission Transcripts on days 88 and 89. What we want readers to notice in this Huffington Post article is this section:

“Houston said the commission has raised questions about a possible conflict of interest for him to handle the response to his father.

“I never even thought about it like it was a conflict of interest,” Houston said. “I thought I was the one to brave up and do something about it.””

But in the Royal Commission, Houston stated,

“My brother was handling my father’s business and dealings by then, because of my, you know, obvious conflict, if you like, being a pastor at Hillsong Church and so on.” [Transcript-(Day-88): pg. 9371)]

So was there a confilct of interest or not? When so much money in the American marketplace is at stake, it can be no surprise that Brian Houston speaks in a less clear way. The latest media spat between Elton John and Dolce&Gabbana shows how powerful the media can be in trashing a brand. Given the law in Australia and the admission of failure to report a crime and the recommendation of the Royal Commission, it would be unsurprising if Brian Houston found himself in the dock facing 5 years in prison. It would become the biggest crisis facing Hillsong at that point.

The Huffington Post reported,

Hillsong Church Founder Brian Houston Defends Handling Of Father’s Sex Abuse Case

NEW YORK (RNS) The founder of Hillsong, one of the most influential religious brands across the globe, on Thursday (Oct. 16) denied allegations that he had tried to cover up his father’s sexual abuse, saying the victim asked him not to go to the police.

Fifteen years ago, Brian Houston found out that his father, who was a minister in New Zealand, admitted he sexually abused a boy in Sydney.

“It was the darkest day of my life because he was my hero, and suddenly he was a pedophile,” Houston said at a news conference.

Houston, who was president of the Assemblies of God in Australia in 1999, fired his father, took control of the church and merged it with Hillsong, now a sprawling megachurch on the outskirts of Sydney.

His father, Frank Houston, was never prosecuted, received a retirement package (which Houston said was more for his mother who also worked for the church) before he died in 2004.

Houston said that the victim who came forward to him asked him not to tell the police. He said he has since learned that Australian law requires someone to report a crime that could be punishable by five years in jail. “I would’ve gone to the police,” he said, if he had known about the reporting requirements.

The victim, who was 7 years old at the time of the abuse, has claimed that the younger Houston accused him of “tempting” his father.

Houston flatly denied the charge.

“To me it’s the most insidious thing in the world that a 7-year-old would be blamed for tempting a pedophile,” Houston said. “That was what was put out there and was very explosive, and to be frank, it has no foundation or truth. The conversation we had was a civil conversation, a good conversation and it was nothing like that.”

Hillsong is part of a larger Australian government investigation, called a royal commission, that is probing how institutions handle abuse claims. The high-level probe is expected to last another four years.

Houston said the commission has raised questions about a possible conflict of interest for him to handle the response to his father.

“I never even thought about it like it was a conflict of interest,” Houston said. “I thought I was the one to brave up and do something about it.”

Houston’s wife and co-pastor, Bobbie Houston, said: “We welcome the commission. Hopefully it’ll be a great benchmark for going into the future.”

Houston is in New York for the church’s second annual conference, which kicked off Thursday night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden and is expected to draw some 5,000 people.

Addressing reporters on Thursday, Houston largely sidestepped a question on Hillsong’s position on same-sex marriage, instead saying that it was “an ongoing conversation” among church leaders and they were “on the journey with it.”

“The real issues in people’s lives are too important for us to just reduce it down to a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer in a media outlet,” he said.

“There’s the world we live in, there’s the weight we live with, and there’s the word we live by,” he added.

On Friday, a spokesman clarified that Houston holds a specific personal position.

“Brian was specifically referring to the church’s public position that doesn’t alienate people who are struggling with issues, and that ensures everyone is included in the message of God’s love,” said Lyall Mercer, media coordinator for Hillsong Church.

“His personal position on the issue of homosexuality is: ‘I think the writings of Paul are clear on this subject and my personal views would line up with most traditionally held Christian views.’”

Source: By Sarah Pulliam Bailey & Jonathan Merritt, Hillsong Church Founder Brian Houston Defends Handling Of Father’s Sex Abuse Case, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/18/brian-houston-father-sex-abuse_n_6005400.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion, Posted: 18/10/2014 7:51 am EDT | Updated: 18/10/2014 7:59 am EDT. (Accessed 17/03/2015.)

SPEAKING DISHONESTLY THE SUNDAY AFTER THE ROYAL COMMISSION

Below you will be hearing part of a sermon that was given by Brian Houston after the Royal Commission in 2014. Towards the end of his sermon that talked about tackling the issue of shame, Brian Houston dropped this deceitful testimony.

What is shameful on Houston’s behalf is the fact he is teaching on shame but is himself ashamed to even name the person he is referring to. Essentially – by withholding the persons name, Brian Houston is lying by omission – and being a hypocrite. The person he is talking about in this video appears to be Pat Mesiti, the former Pastor of Hillsong’s Youth Alive.

“Many years ago, over the years I’ve had many people in my office over failings and things that now frame their lives.

Never forget many years ago a friend of mine, sitting in my office having confessed immorality, I’m talking about sexual immorality; he was just so filled with shame. I will never forget it he literally could not sit up straight, physically could not sit up straight, he was just dumpling over. It was that feeling of remorse and shame, thinking about the consequences of his sin, the devastation he had caused people around him and it cost him everything.

Literally, it didn’t only cost him his ministry, it cost him his marriage, it cost him his home, he lost his home, it cost him everything. The only thing he had was loyal friends and perhaps that’s the greatest thing we can have anyway, is loyal friends.

And there were people who stuck with him, people who I know here in our congregation who stuck with him. I was talking with him yesterday on the phone, actually text messages, same thing these days, and ahhh he was telling me that after years of rebuilding his life, just constantly rebuilding his life that the house he lost that his sin, his shame had cost him, he is on the edge of perhaps buying back.

Now think about that instead of your shame and dishonour you will enjoy a double share of honour you will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, everlasting joy will be yours.

I’m thinking what restoration is that! Literally restoring what the devil had taken, what his own sin and shame had taken and his family loved that house his adult girls they’ve got great memories of that home and ahhh his little daughter loves that home and so, I don’t think they’ve done it yet, it’s not over the line but it looks like, you’re talking about restoration the home that his sin and his shame cost him is coming back into his life and other things that were robbed from him are being added back into his life.

After many, many years something like twelve years and I think what an amazing story. And that is the grace of God and we are a grace church and we will always believe that your accuses, one by one they need to leave, whether they are external or internal, so it’s you and Jesus alone because untimely the only victory you have over shame and guilt and condemnation is in Jesus Christ and if you get rid of all the noise, all the other voices, all the finger pointing and just spend time with you and Jesus, that’s where my friend your victory will be won.

Instead of shame and dishonour you will enjoy a double share of honour, you will ohhh I love it [claps hands] possess a double portion of prosperity in your land and everlasting joy will be yours. How great, how wonderful.”

Source: Brian Houston, Hillsong Church – 12 October 2014, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq7M0JWw9dche, Hillsong, Published by Hillsong Church 16/03/2015. (Accessed 16/03/2015.)

Pat Mesiti’s “restoration” is an “amazing story”? Really Brian? If you are not sure who Pat Mesiti is, read these articles:

What Happened To Pat Mesiti of Hillsong?

Guess Which “get-rich-quick” scheming Pastor This Journalist Is Warning Us Against?

Money-Making Mesiti ‘Ministering’ At Hillsong London In 2010…

It Takes Houston & Pringle To Restore One Who “Reveals The Best Tips On Public Speaking”

So why is Houston using the “restoration” testimony of Pat Mesiti and calling it an “amazing story”? Mesiti’s fall was a tragedy. However, when you read the articles above, Mesiti’s restoration was a spectacular failure. He now has the appalling reputation in Australia and New Zealand as a spruiker and con artist. Is this why Brian Houston was ashamed to leave out Mesiti’s name in the testimony?

Last year the Financial Review wrote about Pat Mesiti.

Property spruikers signal overheating market

Pat Mesiti , whose mission in life is to create 10,000 millionaires before he dies, wants you.

The Sydney-based organiser of property seminars boasts he can show Australians the secrets of how he and his friends “built fortunes in real estate, starting from scratch with no special skills and not a lot of spare cash”.

All you need do is attend his “property millionaires” tour – in Melbourne this weekend – where you can learn how to develop, renovate and churn property.

“Many of you want to flip properties,” Mr Mesiti declares in a YouTube clip on his website.

“We want to teach you how you do that safely, securely, and make money.”

It’s the kind of pitch that worries analysts watching for signs the property market is overheating.

There are plenty of reasons to worry. Reserve Bank of Australia figures showed this week that investors now account for about 45 per cent of home loan approvals in NSW – a record and well above the previous peak in 2002-03.

RP-Data on Friday said Sydney house prices rose 1.5 per cent last month and are almost 15 per cent higher than a year earlier, a sign price growth may be accelerating.

Experts say an apparent explosion in property investment seminars is a warning parts of the property market are overheating.

“A pick-up in the property spruiking business is a signal things may be getting a little too exuberant,” said Paul Bloxham , HSBC Australia’s chief economist.

The former Reserve Bank official co-wrote a 2010 central bank study into the causes of the 2003 Sydney housing boom and bust.

Housing seminars are a common sight around hotel conference rooms, where they pitch to retirees or younger investors. Direct telephone marketing is also on the up.

Mr Bloxham’s original report noted that one of the alarm bells about Sydney’s overheating market a decade ago was a crackdown on property investment seminars and increased scrutiny by the tax office of rental deductions.

“Some of the tell-tale signs are there,” he said on Friday.

HIGHER THAN EXUBERANT TIMES OF 2003

“The investor share of loans is at a record high, and higher than the very exuberant times of 2003, which ended with house prices falling and parts of Western Sydney doing it tough.”

He says the city appears to be following a familiar pattern, fuelled by record-low official and commercial lending rates that start with price rises based on fundamental drivers, such as a shortage of new homes and rising incomes.

“People then get overly excited about it and start buying assets because the price of those assets is rising.

“The solution is not to leave interest rates too low for too long. It’s one of the reasons the Reserve Bank won’t be cutting rates further and we have in mind they’ll be lifting early next year.”

Chris Curtis , a Sydney property buyers’ agent, said there was no doubt pushers were once again proliferating, but are more sophisticated.

They still use well-worn arguments to drum up business, such as negative comparisons to shares and a shortage of housing supply, while updating the pitch to emphasise affordability of property investments for self-managed super funds and the “globalisation” of Sydney as a haven for global capital.

“They’re quite appalling, and what’s happening now is that everyone is doing this property thing – it’s not just the Gold Coast white-shoe brigade: it’s now happening with credible brands,” Mr Curtis said.

The concern was echoed by last month’s David Murray financial system inquiry interim report, which said borrowing by self-managed funds would create problems if left unchecked.

Regulators, who say co-ordinating enforcement is tricky, fear much of the demand for off-the-plan apartments is being driven by double-digit commissions.

Cash payments of $40,000 are routinely made to advisers who recommend apartments, typically to self-managed super fund investors.

In turn, investors are promised double-digit returns, guaranteed tenancies, regular rental income and perks, such as ‘‘free’’ furniture, in a bid to invest in off-the-plan developments.

Tim Mackay , a financial adviser at Quantum Wealth, said high-pressure sales seminars promising easy wealth had become common.

“Aspirational investors should view it as a canary in the coalmine and tread cautiously.If in doubt seek independent advice,” he said.

Mr Mesiti, one of the spruikers, said that while there were pockets of over-heating other parts were not.

“Property, like life, goes through different cycles at different times,” he told AFR Weekend.

“Everyone is entitled to their view. It think it is a great time to leverage and take control of your own destiny, of your wealth.”

Source: By Jacob Greber & Duncan Hughes, Property spruikers signal overheating market, The Financial Review, http://www.afr.com/real-estate/residential/property-spruikers-signal-overheating-market-20140801-j6yt3, Published Aug 2 2014 at 2:44 AM | Updated Aug 2 2014 at 5:24 AM. (Accessed 17/03/2015.)

This person contacted us the same Tuesday night they attended this Hillsong event (Tuesday, 10 Feb, 2015). The email has been slightly edited to help assist readability, to make shorter and to ensure anonymity.

Tonight I attended the Hillsong Vision event because some friends wanted to go. I’m not particularly a great fan of Hillsong but I was not prepared for what I was about to witness that night. I had to go home and jot down what I heard straight away. My observations are in no particular order.

I listened to Brian Houston talk about his new book entitled, “Live, Love, Lead”. Of course he was encouraging people to buy it, but he also wanted us to pray over it.  (As if THIS will make the book Holy).  Anyway, in an effort to get people to read this book, Brian said that he talks about his father, Frank Houston, his pedophile “pastor” inside his book.  (Only he didn’t mention the pedophile part.)  What was really interesting is when he said that this new book is the only book he’s ever written. He kept emphatically stating this, which was very weird. My question, of course, was, “Then who wrote all of the other books that claim Brian Houston as their author?”

Another time, Brian randomly talked about Garden City Church, claiming that Hillsong merged with them to create a Hillsong church, I was obviously upset. They didn’t merge – it was a deceitful and hostile take-over! He lied to us!

Houston also made an offensive joke about his kids. In an “off the cuff” remark he talked about the fact that since he sent Joel (or Ben?) off to the United States to plant a church he should do the same with his daughter.  The difference is that he would send her to Iraq. I was disgusted when the crowd laughed as though this was meant to be good joke.

Two Hillsong pastors also talked about two churches being planted in South America. They said that because UNITED was so well received, (apparently people attended the musical event in the rain), they knew it was time to plant churches there.  The talk was all about building and growing churches. It was NEVER about saving people from their sins. The focus was on getting people into these churches to further the “cause.”  How creepy!

I think it was one of these leaders that mentioned that he was planting a church in an influential city because Hillsong wanted to plant churches in influential places.

Need I say more?

Brian also talked about how the biggest mistake he ever made was publishing the book, “You Need More Money.”  What about “You Can Change the Future?”  Doesn’t he think THAT book was an even bigger mistake? That book was published eight months after his father confessed his crimes! I remember reading that book! It only taught how wonderful Frank Houston was and how we would should live like him to impact future generations.

From ‘You Can Change The Future’*:

“The day my father committed his life to Jesus, he didn’t understand what was actually happening in terms of impacting other people’s lives. Because of his decision, our family has been changed forever, and thousands of people have been trained up and are preaching the Gospel worldwide.

There have been some great men of God in days gone by – Wigglesworth, Finney, Spurgeon, Booth – but they are now in eternity. They made an impact during their generation but in all His wisdom, God chose to put you and me in this generation. You may imagine living in the time of horse-drawn carriages, but it isn’t coincidence or chance you are here today. You are here for a time such as this to be part of God’s eternal purpose. […]

The decision you make and the actions you take have a huge impact, not only on yourself but on the generations to come.

You will pass on a baton to the next generation. What will that baton look like?

In 1999, my father Frank Houston decided to step back from day-to-day running of his church, Sydney Christian Life Centre and passed the baton of leadership on to me. What an honour for Bobbie and me to continue building on the foundations laid by my parents. It was also a tremendous responsibility as we were already pastoring Hills Christian Life Centre in Sydney’s north west. Today Hillsong Church continues what was started in 1977, with our two major worship centres, a city-wide network of cells, and contributing services and ministries all adding to the expansion of future generations.” – pg. 122

Brian Houston, You Can Change The Future, Published July, 2000.

Brian Houston also talked about the time that Hillsong bought a property for $28 million only to have it lose half its value when the GFC* hit. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He was acting like he wasn’t telling the whole truth about this. This is something I plan to look into.

The music tonight was garbage. It was such a manufactured scene to watch. You could feel people going through the motions while leaders tried to manipulate people to get into the mood. It didn’t look right and it definitely didn’t feel right. One song was called “Wings of Everlasting” and was so self-centered and creepy. It was about touching the sky when our knees hit the ground. I don’t really know what gnosticism is but it made me think of it. I could easily envision the devil himself singing the lyrics.

At one point I asked the people who were sitting next to me if they knew what the Gospel was.  Even though they’d been going to Hillsong for a few years they had no clue what it was. If I wasn’t already convinced that Hillsong isn’t a real church, that exchange would have done it.  How tragic that so many people who think they are Christians aren’t.  The consequences are eternal.  God help these people!

People thought they were going to get preaching. They didn’t. Instead everyone heard how fantastic Hillsong was.

Oh yeah! And Hillsong was updating us about their movie and promoting it.

Promoting what? A self-centered corporation that could draw a crowd but not lead people to Jesus? A movement that tried to cover up the crimes of a serial pedophile by writing about how wonderful the pedophile was? A movement that lies and covers up it’s sins? A movement that’s takes over Christian churches?

I’m devastated. How can this perverted corporation even be considered to represent the standards of the Christian faith?

Source: Email sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 01:13:16 +1100 || Edited and approved by sender: 24/03/2015.

* Snippet from original book inserted later into email.
* GFC – Global Financial Crisis

Consider again the implications of your church singing Hillsong music. Have a look at how Hillsong see their music:

Our new @HillsongWorship album #NoOtherName is releasing soon! Each song is God-breathed & labored in love. Pre-Order is avail today! Source: Hillsong LA, Twitter, https://twitter.com/hillsongla/status/482244528896614400, 12:30 PM – 26 Jun 2014. (Accessed 28/03/2015.)

Christian Today also had this disturbing story about Hillsong’s worship team:

Hillsong singer David Ware says their song ‘O Praise The Name’ brought a new revelation of Easter

Hillsong singer David Ware said that their song “O Praise The Name” brought a new revelation of Easter and helps people reflect on the resurrection of Jesus Christ in a different way.

When they were recording the song in the studio, songwriter Marty Sampson challenged Ware to concentrate on a particular line in the song, “I cast my mind to Calvary,” and sing as if he was actually there.

“As I began to envision the hill of Calvary, I imagined what it would have been like to actually be there on that day, looking up at my Saviour hanging on that tree, the Messiah, full of love for me, as He breathed His last,” said Ware, and for him, that vision changed everything.

He and the rest of the band recorded the song with their gaze transfixed on Jesus’ face, and Ware hopes that listeners will be inspired with the way they told the ancient story.

He said that Easter is the only time of the year when Christians and non-Christians alike from all over the world place their focus on Jesus and what they believe about Him. People reflect on “who He was or wasn’t, what He did or didn’t do, the life He lived, His death, His resurrection and all that happened after,” said Ware.

And he loves the fact that their song sheds new light into His timeless story, and it helps Christians remember the greatest love story of all time in a different way. Ware considers it amazing that Jesus’ story is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. And not only is it His story, but it’s everybody’s as well, because Jesus died on the cross to save mankind, the singer said.

He quoted the Bible verse Romans 5:8, which says: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“

Source: Czarina Ong, Hillsong singer David Ware says their song ‘O Praise The Name’ brought a new revelation of Easter, Christian Today, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hillsong.singer.david.ware.says.their.song.o.praise.the.name.brought.a.new.revelation.of.easter/50866.htm, Published 27/03/2015. (Accessed 28/03/2015.)

“HE [BRIAN HOUSTON] LIED TO US!”

The above claim was made by our previous Hillsong insider. They reported, “Brian randomly talked about Garden City Church, claiming that Hillsong merged with them to create a Hillsong church”.

Recently an insider who was previously a pastor of Garden City Church, wrote their account on Garden City on the 2nd of April 2015 in response to our previous Hillsong insider article.

This testimony only proves that Brian Houston deliberately mislead his congregation on Tuesday, the 10th of February 2015.

Hi “Hillsong Church Watch”,

Thanks for this testimonial article from a hillsong insider.

It made sense to me as I had the displeasure and disgust to work there as a full-time pastor. The Garden City Christian Church “merge” was surely and truly a “plotted corporate takeover” – I witnessed first hand what happened behind the scenes with all the backstabbing, string-pulling and puppeteering from Sydney.

Also, here is what I saw and experienced during my short but intense ministry spell at Hillsong:

1) Prosperity Gospel – The false teaching that by becoming a christian and entering the church community, people would enjoy a prosperous and “rosy” life style;

2) Personality Cult – That life style is to be inspired by their cool and trendy leadership, music and media superstars, platform preaching performers; triggering therefore, a fanatic and frentic following on social media, resource purchases, conference attendance;

3) Performance Mentality – We were “taught” to “hype up” our testimonies, push for baptisms, inflate the numbers of services/decisions, so we might look good before our supervisors and proof a blessed increase in our ministry to the people;

4) Profit Business – They are tax exempt ( as a religious non-for-profit organisation), but everything there is strategically and thoughtfully “taxed” in order to yield good $ returns (at the end of the day it’s all about the number$$$); (Tithes & Offerings is “Prime”);

5) Pavlova Message – Preaching and teaching at Hillsong is always sweet (no offence and lots of “fence-sitting”), looks good and colourful, it’s pleasing to the palate, easy to swallow but very low in real and solid biblical nutrients (People who truly value the Word of God and discipleship do not remain for long at Hillsong);

6) Production Base- Strong belief at Hillsong in the “power of the atmosphere” where we produce and manufacture the environment with external elements (lighting, sound, dark walls, media effect, etc) and internal fake worship (stereotypical hillsong worshipper) and God comes up with the results (they even dare to call it “Revival”);

7) Proud Atitude – One of the things that really grabbed my attention there, was the pride and arrogance of the leadership, particularly when referring to other smaller churches and ministries;

Hope it helps to shed more light into this darkness…

Happy Easter and Keep up the good work!

Source: Comment – Thurs, 2 Apr 2015.

BLENDERBENDER & DARKOGESIS?

Last year Brian Houston preached a sermon at Hillsong Conference 2014 titled ‘No Other Name’. You would think with a sermon title like that, Houston would preach the gospel. However, once again we are being bombarded with Christless sermons that seem to be more focused on preaching anything except the gospel.

The question Hillsong members need to be asked is this: Does Brian Houston even know the gospel?

Recently, Chris Rosebrough reviewed the sermon and leveled a fair accusation against Brian Houston for using the skillful heresy two-step technique to trick people. Rosebrough also highlights some new techniques that Brian Houston employs to trick people. He says they are the,

Blenderbender: a deceptive preaching technique where the teacher blends different words and ideas together to bend the scripture to mean something completely different.

(Brian Houston used this by blending key words (like “big”, “large” and “roomy”) from different scriptures and bending the scriptures to say something completely different.)

And the thesis/antithesis which is also known as the darkothesis or antithesis backflip. Brian Houston used his “opposite world translation” (OWT) on the benediction in Numbers 67. Adds eisegetes the OWT to reinterpret what the benediction actually says. In this case, he used this as a strawman to make ‘bloggers’, online ‘Christians’, look like idiots and evil and to bolster his prosperity gospel heresy.

GOD WANTS TO LEAD YOU DOWN THE WIDE ROAD?

So what did Brian Houston end up teaching?

He ended up peddling ecumenism and encouraging Christians to walk down the wide road and not the narrow road. (See quotes below the radio segment.)

Larry Huch’s Passover Payday

Click Here to Download this episode

Program segments:

• William Tapley’s Prophetic Angle on German Wings Crash
• Sandy Shoeber on Giving God Pleasure
• Larry Huch’s Passover Payday
• Sermon Review: No Other Name by Brian Houston of Hillsong

Source: Chris Rosebrough, Larry Huch’s Passover Payday, Fighting for the Faith, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2015/04/larry-huchs-passover-payday.html, Published 02/04/2015. (Accessed 07/04/2015.)

Here are some quotes from the sermon:

“It’s kinda how I see it working with the church [the way Peter “lifted up” the cripple]. We carry his name and we use that name to lift people up toward the promise and the purpose of God.”

“There is no other name! Sounds kind of exclusive? Makes it sound like a very exclusive message. Sounds kinda like a narrow way to get to God if there is only one way.”

“Don’t ever allow religion, people’s poor mentality, legalism, negative defeated Christians have you believe in somehow that you’ve got to live this narrow path. It’s a big life through a narrow gate.”

“narrow is the gate – there is no other name. And difficult is the way which leads to life…. Here’s the sad thing. A lot of people, they don’t just see it as a narrow gate- in other words, there is only one way.”

“Don’t ever think that serving God is a “narrow path”. People make it so narrow! So negative! So legalistic! And they make it into a narrow path! And I think that’s one of the devil’s great strategies. Here at Hillsong  church, let’s decide to live a big life!”

“You enlarge the path under me. It’s not the path that’s narrow. I believe God wants to challenge you to have bigger dreams. Have a wider belief. Build a bigger church. Amen! Be a bigger spirited person. Have bigger thinking! Because it’s a big and a wide path.“

Why does Hillsong advertising and their stage productions/layouts appear to have continual New Age/occult themes? While this may not be apparent to many people today, it’s glaringly obvious to those who have come out of the occult/New Age movement. Is this just a coincidence in their attempt to be popular and relevant to “outreach” to the world? Is this why we are seeing a “resurrection” of a once popular, now denounced as New Age, book “The Shack”? This article will be looking at Julie A’bell of Hillsong and examining her controversial endorsement of this incredibly dangerous book. At the end of this article, we will link/post to reviews refuting the errors of the book. WHO ARE JOEL AND JULIA A’BELL? Julia A’bell is the wife of Joel A’bell. Joel A’Bell is the lead pastor of Hillsong Church. Recently, Jules A’bell endorsed and promoted the New Age mystic/occult book “The Shack” on her instagram account. Once again, Hillsong proves that its leadership are incapable of fulfilling pastoral duties in rightly discerning Christianity from paganism. What makes this promotion from Jules A’bell worse is another Hillsong pastor’s endorsement of it. Take note of Christine Caine’s “approval” in the comments section. And even more troubling there are at least 726 “likes” by Julia A’Bell’s Instagram followers. By endorsing this book Hillsong, Christine Caine and Julia A’Bell need to be warned that Christian leaders are subjected to a “stricter judgment,” (James 3:1) with James making it clear that those who teach the Word of God are under the magnifying glass of God’s Word. Pastors are judged even more severely, than those in the general congregation because with greater responsibility comes greater accountability.

 Source: https://instagram.com/p/zTzoQniVI2/?modal=true, Accesssed 27/02/2015.

Dr. James DeYoung, Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Western Seminary, does a review of TS entitled Revisiting The Shack and Universal Reconciliation. That longer version doesn’t seem to be available online but it is cited in Dr. James DeYoung Revisiting The Shack & Universal Reconciliation. DeYoung gives us this personal testimony:

Seldom does one have the opportunity to review a work of fiction written by a friend that has risen to the top of best seller lists… Who is the author?  For more than a dozen years I have known William P. Young.”

We have discussed much theology in a “think tank.”  Over four years ago Paul embraced universal reconciliation and defended it on several occasions.  He claimed that universalism changed his life and his theology.

The core belief of universal reconciliation asserts that love is the supreme attribute of God that trumps all others.  His love reaches beyond the grave to save all those who refuse Christ before they die.

Source: Dr. James DeYoung, Guest Contributor: Dr. James DeYoung Revisiting The Shack & Universal Reconciliation, https://gospeldriven.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/guest-contributor-dr-james-deyoung-revisiting-the-shack-universal-reconciliation/, 15/01/2009. (Accessed 12/04/2015.)

In Dr. Gary Gilley Shuts Up “The Shack” we read Gilley’s dead-on-target review of Young’s musings:

nowhere in The Shack is the reader given a clear understanding of the gospel. When Mack asks God what Jesus accomplished by dying Mack is told, “Through his death and resurrection, I am now fully reconciled to the world.” When pressed to explain, God says that He is reconciled to “the whole world,” not just the believer (p. 192). Does this mean that all will be saved?

Young never goes that far, however he certainly gives that impression when Mack’s father (who was an awful man and showed no signs of being saved) is found in heaven (pp. 214-215), when God says repeatedly He is particularly fond of all people, when God claims that He has forgiven all sins against Him (e.g. 118-119), that He does not “do humiliation, or guilt, or condemnation” (p. 223) and, contrary to large hunks of Scripture, God is not a God of judgment.

“I don’t need to punish people for sin, sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my job to cure it” (p. 120). While Young’s comment has some validity it does not faithfully reflect the teaching of Scripture which portray God as actively involved in the punishment of sin.

Source: DR. GARY GILLEY SHUTS UP “THE SHACK”, Apprising Ministries, http://apprising.org/2009/03/22/dr-gary-gilley-shuts-up-the-shack/, Published 22/03/2009. (Accessed 13/04/2015.)

Ken Silva’s also observes that the New Age writer Eugene Peterson also endorses ‘The Shack’,

There’s no secret that many in and around the sinfully ecumenical cult of the Emergent Church aka theEmerging Church ^{[1 ]} love The Shack (TS); e.g. a couple of years ago I showed you what contemplative andEC fav author Eugene Peterson had to say about TS at Amazon.com. He gushes:

When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of “The Shack.” This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” did for his. It’s that good! –Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C. (Online source)

As I said before, at least I agree with Peterson this is fertilizer alright. However, for him to even try and equate this man-centered rubbish of Paul Young to the work of John Bunyan gives us even more reason to find Peterson’s spirituality suspect. So right now let’s look quickly at a real Christian review of TS.

Source: Ken Silva, OPENING UP THE SHACK, Apprising Ministries, http://apprising.org/2011/08/03/opening-up-the-shack/, Published 03/08/2015. (Accessed 13/04/2015.)

Tim Challies reviewed the book and stated,

“Because of the sheer volume of error and because of the importance of the doctrines reinvented by the author, I would encourage Christians, and especially young Christians, to decline this invitation to meet with God in The Shack. It is not worth reading for the story and certainly not worth reading for the theology.”

Source: Tim Challies,”The Shack” by William P. Young, Challies.com, http://www.challies.com/book-reviews/the-shack-by-william-p-young, Published 15/01/2008. (Accessed 13/04/2015.)

Qualified men have already proven that the Jesus presented by William Young is not the Jesus of the Scriptures. Therefore we need to be asking the question – why does Hillsong leadership endorse such a dangerous New Age book?  

If you want to sign the below petition – click here.

Natalia Collins from the UK writes,

Remove Mark Driscoll from the Hillsong Europe Conference

After approaching Hillsong privately (in accordance with Matthew 18:15-17) to ask them to reconsider and change their their decision to have Mark Driscoll as a key note speaker at their Europe conference 22-24 July 2015), “Speak, We’re Listening” they have chosen to still have Mark Driscoll appear at the conference, in an interview format with his wife Grace.

This is both disappointing and of great concern to many across the UK and internationally.  Mark Driscoll resigned from leadership after many leaders and other within his church raised issues about unethical and abusive behaviour including:

• Ex-leaders of Mars Hill Church repenting of their collusion with Mark Driscoll
• Ex-members of Mars Hill reporting they have experienced spiritual abuse from Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll, including controlling and manipulative behaviour
• Evidence of plagiarism in at least one book he has written
• Misuse of tithes by Mars Hill Church
• Unethical actions taken to ensure Grace and Mark Driscoll’s book was featured on a bestselling book list
• Mark Driscoll’s public statements against women in leadership over the last two decades which have greatly undermined the Gospel message of women as leaders, evangelists and full members of the Body of Christ

Alongside these are revelations of Mark Driscoll’s communications from 2000 written under a pseudonym, which state that we are living in a “pussified nation” with “men being raised by bitter penis envying burned feministed single mothers”.  The language used within these communications can be accurately described as hate speech and needs to be treated as such.  Although the statements are 14 years old, his more recent messages about “feminised men” and women’s roles being solely within the home suggest his views have not changed, although his language may have.  Mark Driscoll has apologised for his communications in 2000, but his apology does not extend to the views he expressed or his ongoing negative attitudes towards women, gender non-conforming men and gay people.

We fully believe that people can be restored and redeemed and that forgiveness is a fundamental part of Jesus’ teaching.  Mark Driscoll has never fully acknowledged or repented of the pain he has caused many ex-leaders and members of Mars Hill alongside the women and men he has hurt with his comments about leadership, gender and sexuality.  It has been only six months since Mark Driscoll resigned and to give him such a platform as the O2 arena does not represent the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness, but that of cheap grace.

By inviting Mark Driscoll to speak on the Hillsong platform, Hillsong are both endorsing and legitimising Mark’s messages about women and ignoring the concerns being repeated by many across the US and UK about his abusive behaviour, which has been corroborated by ex-members and ex-leaders of Mars Hill Church.

We ask that Hillsong remove Mark Driscoll from their line up of speakers at the Hillsong Conference 2015.

Further details of the issues can be found here:

Overview of the issues: http://crosscut.com/2014/07/16/religion/121033/inside-mars-hills-big-meltdown/?page=single

Summary: http://dangeroushope.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/its-all-about-mark-driscoll-the-tragedy-of-mars-hill-church/

Official charges: http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/files/2014/08/FormalCharges-Driscoll-814.pdf

Mars Hill Refuge: http://marshillrefuge.blogspot.co.uk

We Love Mars Hill: http://welovemarshill.com

Source: By Natalie Collins, Remove Mark Driscoll from the Hillsong Europe Conference, change.org, https://www.change.org/p/hillsong-remove-mark-driscoll-from-hillsong-europe-conference. (Accessed 16/04/2014.)