by Tanya Levin
In its early days in the United States, Mercy Ministries also offered a gay conversion therapy program, although it’s not listed as an official service now. Founder Nancy Alcorn admonished women for wearing their hair short and lectured them on the importance of femininity.
Mercy Ministries in Australia was sponsored heavily by Gloria Jean’s Coffees, which had strong connections to Hillsong. On weekends during Hillsong services, the ‘Mercy girls’ were made to sit in a separate section of the congregation, and their good efforts were applauded. Attendance three times a week was a compulsory part of their ‘treatment’, and Sunday’s messages were reinforced in the homes.
The bad press led the church to abandon Mercy Ministries in Australia. Both homes were shut down, and Hillsong distanced itself completely. Worship leader Darlene Zschech and her husband, Mark, had partnered with Alcorn to bring Mercy Ministries to Australia in 2000, and Hillsong had happily supported the charity and advertised its fundraisers. Within a year of Mercy Ministries closing, Darlene’s relationship with Hillsong was also no more, after twenty-five years of service. The directors of Mercy Ministries between 1 Jan 2005 and 30 June 2008 eventually confessed to misleading and deceptive conduct, and breach of the Trade Practices Act, and the organisation was ordered by the ACCC to pay $1050 to each of 110 residents who were in the homes from 2005 to 2008. They were also ordered to do trade practices compliance training and issue a letter of apology to residents during the above period. Some ex-residents investigated the possibility of civil suits, but were either prevented by time restrictions or limited statutory periods for the abuse. Others did not wish to be seen to be making trouble over a program they believed had tried hard to help them.
Mercy Ministries continues to run in other parts of the world. Alcorn’s right-hand woman at Mercy Ministries in the United States was sent to work at A21, a charity founded by Australian woman Christine Caine and her husband, Nick (himself a former director of Mercy Ministries), to ‘rescue women from sex trafficking’. The Mercy Ministries formula, reproduced and repackaged, even with former staff, has been welcomed and awarded. In 2012, the then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, presented an award to A21’s European director, Phil Hyldgaard, as one of the year’s ten most influential people in ending human trafficking.
Caine has spent years working alongside mega-evangelist Joyce Meyer. The two have addressed countless women’s audiences, discussing their history of child sexual assault and rape. They preach the ever-hopeful message that forgiveness is urgent and possible, and that ‘moving on’ is too. Jesus helped them get over their abuses, and he can do the same for everyone else.
There are more and more programs infiltrating the welfare field as Hillsong members branch out on their own. While the glossy pamphlets they produce appear to replicate social services in the community, their primary goal is recruitment and fundraising. Especially concerning is that these programs are not accountable for their professional practices or their treatment of clients if they receive private funding only. If they receive government funding, they are answerable to those bodies, but due to the limited regulation of not-for-profit organisations, the criteria are often loose and hard to enforce.
A fieldworker for the United Nations recently told me, ‘When I work at the UN, I am accountable for every penny I spend and every interaction that takes place. These organisations have no accountability at all and they can do what they like with people.’
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It’s amazing how the visionaries can only see certain things. When Michael Guglielmucci, the son of South Australian Pentecostal pioneer Danny, announced he had cancer, there seemed to be no cure. For two years Mike battled his illness, and the pastors prayed. His song ‘Healer’ appeared on an album that went to number two on the Australian music charts, and the men of God supported him. Then, in 2008, Mike announced that an addiction to porn was his real tormentor; he’d faked the cancer to cover it up.4
This was a clear case of fraud: members had donated money for a cause that did not exist. Yet within twenty-four hours of the news breaking, the numbers of ‘Pray for Mike’ supporters on Facebook far outnumbered their opponents, having reduced the discussion to a familiar line: Mike is struggling. He is sorry. It is none of our business. It’s between him and God. Judge not lest you be judged.
So the story went away. South Australian police waited with open books and ready pens, but no formal complaints about Michael Guglielmucci were made—not even by the grandmothers whose grandsons had given their pocket money to help save his life.
What’s stunning is how the Pentecostal prophets can see the size of the buildings that need financing, but not one leader heard a peep out of God that Mike was faking his cancer.
There is, however, one skeleton that refuses to sit quietly in the ever-expanding closet of Hillsong. The church’s founder, Frank Houston, Brian’s father, was a sex offender who committed countless crimes against adult men and young boys.
In 2013 the Australian federal government opened a Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The inquiry included religious institutions as well as schools, sporting clubs and any other organisation that had children in its care. Because it’s impossible for the commissioners to hear every case of child abuse, they adopted a case-study approach.
And so in October 2014, as part of Case Study 18, thirteen years after his first announcement concerning his father’s crimes, Brian Houston and the other pastors who were the first to know appeared before the Royal Commission to give sworn evidence about Hillsong’s response. Their performances were startling.
It is likely that Brian has never submitted to a higher authority such as a court before. He began respectfully, answering the questions put to him. His patience was soon tried. Initially, he preached at counsel for the Royal Commission, using heartfelt statements and claims of integrity. He had some standard responses. According to Brian, the first time he found out about his father’s sexual offences was in late 1999, when the church’s general manager, George Aghajanian, informed him in his office that a complaint had come in.
While he was shocked, Brian said that he felt in his guts that it was true. His ongoing line was that, as president of the National Executive of the Assemblies of God at the time, he removed Frank from ministry immediately, and began the process of informing his own and other churches.
Counsel for the Royal Commission, Simeon Beckett, wanted to know if Brian had felt it a conflict of interest to investigate and fire his own father. Brian’s response was that, yes, he felt conflicted. He knew it was the right thing to do, but he was personally upset. Several times Mr Beckett asked Brian about the concept of conflict of interest, and each time Brian dodged, refusing to acknowledge that using someone independent would have been more appropriate.
The outstanding feature of the evidence Brian gave to the Royal Commission was that it contradicted the testimony of other pastors, as well as the evidence the Assemblies of God had tendered to the court.
On 22 December 1999 a meeting was held at the Qantas Club in Sydney to discuss the confessions Frank had made. The minutes from that meeting show that:
3. It was agreed that the president of the AOG (Brian Houston) has acted appropriately in suspending the credential of F. Houston, standing him down from ministry and calling this special meeting of the National Executive.
4. It was agreed that:
F. Houston’s credential be withdrawn forthwith
He be invited to enter the AOG restoration program
He be placed under the supervision of Ian Woods (State Superintendent NSW)
He refrain from Public ministry for 12 months
He not receive his credential until the NSW Superintendent recommends to the National Executive at the expiration of at least two years
He be offered counselling support if required.
5.
It was agreed, in the interest of the complainant, not to notify the movement of this disciplinary action. (This is in line with our restoration policy)
6. It was agreed that B. Houston notify F. Houston of the decisions of the Executive.
From these notes, it is clear there was no intention to remove Frank from ministry permanently. Rather, he was to enter into a private ‘restoration program’.
A year later, on 8 December 2000, the National Executive put out a ‘Statement Concerning Frank Houston’:
The National Executives of the Assemblies of God in Australia and New Zealand have had the very sad responsibility of investigating claims of a serious moral failure against Frank Houston. The incidents that have been investigated happened more than 30 years ago and Frank has admitted to the failure with great remorse. The Australian Executive has no alternative but to remove his credential.
Frank has accepted that he can no longer minister and we would request that you not invite him to engage in any public ministry. At the same time, we would encourage you to extend love and care to Frank, his wife and his family.
Please continue to pray for all concerned in this matter.
December 8th 2000
Note: This statement has been prepared as a response to individuals if they hear rumours and approach the Executive for clarification. It will only be used publicly if rumours become so extensive that the National Executive makes a decision to make a public statement or if Frank Houston fails to fulfil his commitment to abstain from all public ministry. Neither the Australian or New Zealand Executive will publish this statement without reference to the other.
The church’s main concern was to keep the matter quiet. What spurred Brian to announce his father’s sexual offences two years after Aghajanian first told him of them is unclear.
Many more victims came forward after the publicity around the Royal Commission. At time of writing, twelve individuals have made statements alleging sexual abuse by Frank Houston. Some are working with the Royal Commission. They have questions of their own. The loudest cry online asks: when did Brian know?
While some maintain he would have to have known through the 1990s, others go as far as to insist that he knew before the family left New Zealand in 1977, when Brian was twenty-three years old. One commenter states: ‘We all knew what Frank was like as kids and we avoided him like the plague. Brian knew as much as we did.’ Others speak of links Frank had with external paedophile rings in Sydney. If this were true, it would mean that the leaders of Hillsong allowed Frank unfettered access to children for over twenty-five years, an unconscionable act.
In any case, Frank was financially supported by Hillsong for the rest of his life and continued to preach at churches where congregations were told to treat him like royalty. Frank was on a faith journey, after all, like everyone else.
Despite the Assemblies of God’s policy on reporting child abuse to the police, Hillsong did the opposite. Because of this, and because of the conflicts of interest involved, counsel assisting the Royal Commission has advised it to refer the matter to the police for investigation.
But the show must go on, and it did. Within a week of his Royal Commission appearance, Brian was in New York City with Carl Lentz, saying things he didn’t understand about gay marriage.
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Now more than ever, it’s imperative to see Hillsong as a business, just like Scientology, not as a church. Its evolution means that the focus is on producing events, family-friendly entertainment that talks about God. And participating in anything more than the basic package that you can get from the Sunday shows costs money. Courses on self-improvement, like Scientology’s ‘auditing’, cost. Gender or age-specific conferences cost. But where the PR of Scientology has been an absolute disaster, the magic of Hillsong is in the marketing. The greatest appeal now is that the rewards are not merely spiritual, but tribal.
Steve West, who is now a teacher for advanced, selective courses in secondary education, explains that being a part of a warm, loving community that is accepting of you, or tribalism, is worth more than anything to many people. This is how the moral chasms and the changing rules can be overlooked or ignored for the sake of the tribe’s cohesion. This giant family also offers you a chance to believe that you can make a difference in the world. You too can be, should be, will be one of those giant grinning faces on the big-screen ads for next week.
The brilliant marketing has worked worldwide. From Copenhagen to Cape Town, Hillsong outlets are springing up like McDonald’s restaurants did in the 1980s. The most recent franchise in South Africa publishes glossy pictures of Africans dressed as middle-class Americans. In a country where rape, violence, AIDS and poverty are everyday life, the appeal of escapism is strong. It is also where the message of prosperity is most exploitative. These are the countries where people who are the most vulnerable and desperate have the least to lose.
Individual accounts from around the world tell me that not much has changed in Hillsong’s priorities. The pressure to give, give, give is constant, be it the gift of time, money or any other resource at your disposal. The beautiful people are still the ones who are most on display. And there is even less time or sympathy for anyone with questions.
The marketing of Hillsong has been a work of genius, as has the music—so much so that there is now a movie to market the music, Let Hope Rise. From the trailer, it looks like the movie is about crowds. For a minute and a half, as the band in the background creates an inviting, primal, communal sound, the camera moves from scene to scene of enraptured crowds, hands in the air, waving at God or the band or both. With the exponential rise of celebrity Christians like these, it gets harder to tell the difference.
Short statements cross the screen: ‘100,000 WEEKLY ATTENDEES … 10 MILLION FACEBOOK FANS … 16 MILLION ALBUMS SOLD … 30 MILLION PEOPLE SINGING THEIR SONGS EVERY SUNDAY’ Those are big, proud numbers. The sales figures refer to all of Hillsong’s output, culminating in their most successful musical export yet, Hillsong United. It began as a creative effort to combine the music of Powerhouse Youth, the older and more established youth group from back in my day, with Wildlife Youth, which catered to adolescents. For over ten years, nearly a thousand professional Christian musicians contributed to perfect the music of Hillsong United.
Joel Houston, Brian’s elder son, light-heartedly began playing the bass for the band. It’s now his baby. Having helped Carl Lentz establish the New York branch of the church, and with brother Ben heading the chapter in Los Angeles, Joel has been free to make music. Younger sister Laura is in charge of youth ministries in Australia, the most important demographic of all. Brian always taught us the message of Proverbs 22:6: ‘Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it.’ It worked for him. His children have all blessed his ministry into their thirties.
I love the trailer to Let Hope Rise. I can’t wait for the movie. My taste in music has never been sophisticated, and this stuff is great. After a minute and a half of woah-ohing, I want to be a part of all that too.
Researching Hillsong means consuming its products. The preaching may be intellectually bankrupt and morally woeful, but the music is great. It’s upbeat, catchy and finely tuned. The number of times the chorus is repeated in a song has been demonstrated to increase its chances of climbing the charts. All Hillsong songs and albums should, by this equation, remain at number one, and in Christian circles they often do.
So what if it’s just a jump away from the Wiggles? It works. So much so that, as the trailer continues, ‘THE SOUNDTRACK TO YOUR FAITH…’ That’s a big assumption for a lot of people, but Hillsong has always been about making big assumptions. And there’s no reason to think that anything is going to change. They and their music are everywhere.
Towards the end of the trailer, Brian and Bobbie can be seen under the glare of apparently uncomfortable spotlights. IT’S NOT ABOUT
THEM. IT’S ABOUT HIM. That’s stating the bleeding obvious. It’s always been about him. Who do you think is responsible for all this?
NOTES
TWO TRIBES
1. Hazel Houston, Being Frank: The Frank Houston Story, Marshall Pickering, London, 1989, p. 19.
2. ibid., p. 13.
WALK THIS WAY
1. http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/Parlment/HansArt.nsf/5f584b237987507aca256d09008051f3/e6cbb80ee0b7f185ca2570bc001fc 50f!OpenDocument.
WILL YOU MISS ME WHEN YOU’RE SOBER?
1. Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1989.
2. Dick Sutphen, ‘The battle for your mind’, 1984 talk, http://www.dicksutphen.com/html/battlemind.html.
3. Diana Doucet, Charisma Magazine, 2/96, pp. 20–21.
4. Julia Duin, ‘An evening with Rodney Howard-Browne’, Christian Research Institute, Rancho Santa Margarita CA, 1994.
5. Bobbie Houston, She Loves and Values Her Sexuality, CD, Maximised Leadership Incorporated, Castle Hill, NSW, 2004.
SAVING ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU
1. REALMEN e-newsletter, Christian City Church, May 2005.
2. Bobbie Houston, I’ll Have What She’s Having, Hillsong Australia, Castle Hill, NSW, 1998, p. 56.
KIDS
1. The Animated Kid’s Bible, episode 1 ‘Creation’, Pips Premiere, 2005.
2. Marilyn Manson, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Regan Books, New York, 1998, p. 22.
3. www.hillsong.com/emerge/default.asp?pid=786.
THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS
1. Warren Snowdon, Member’s Statement, ‘Misuse of Indigenous business grants’, http://www.warrensnowdon.com/speeches/060216.htm.
IF I WAS A RICH GIRL