This is the second review out of two statements.

The link below will take you to Brian Houston’s latest media statement explaining why Brian Houston dropped Mark Driscoll from speaking at Hillsong Conference 2015 (Published 07/06/2015).

Houston bends knee to critics and media (Part 3): Driscollified to speak at Hillsong

To understand the context of the things we say in this statement, please read our previous article on Houston’s previous statement over Driscoll:

Reviewing Houston’s first statement on Driscoll: Did Driscoll mislead Brian Houston?

 In Brian Houston’s response as to why he cancelled Mark Driscoll speaking at the Hillsong Conference, he revealed some vague, unsettling things both by what he said and by what he left unsaid. In this review we:

1. Ask the question if Mark Driscoll is coming to speak at Hillsong Church (not Hillsong Conference) considering, Mark “will be able to speak in person in the coming weeks to discuss some of the issues that have been raised”.
2. Expose Brian Houston publicly lying about the information on the petition and those who signed it.
3. Expose Brian Houston lying in his attempt to “claim ignorance”.
4. Expose Brian Houston contradicting himself in his previous statement over his motives for inviting Driscoll to speak.
5. Expose Houston’s ability to paint Driscoll and himself as if they are beyond reproach while depicting Christians as hyper-sensitive, Pharisaical, unforgiving idiots.
6. Expose Houston trying to look as though he is not bending the knee to critics, when in fact he is.
7. Exposing Houston for not being pastoral, even to Mark Driscoll:

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” 2 Timothy 4:1-2

REVIEW OF HOUSTON’S SECOND STATEMENT RE: MARK DRISCOLL

After personal interaction with Mark Driscoll today, we have agreed that he will no longer be coming to Australia or the UK to attend Hillsong Conference.

Did Mark Driscoll confess his wrongdoings to you? Is that why you cancelled him speaking at the Hillsong Conference Brian? Are you going to call him to repent of his sins because that’s what pastors are Biblically called to do?

It is my hope that Mark and I will be able to speak in person in the coming weeks to discuss some of the issues that have been raised, […]

It’s interesting to note that Brian Houston deliberately wrote that he STILL wants to speak with Mark Driscoll “IN PERSON in the coming weeks to discuss some of the issues that have been raised.” How long is “in the coming weeks?” Does this mean Mark Driscoll is STILL going to fly over to Australia? Is this meeting with Brian going to be private or public, and will Mark STILL be speaking, but just not at the Hillsong Conference?

Seeing how some churches are responding to Mark Driscoll, and knowing how Houston operates, it would not surprise us at all if Brian Houston does invite Driscoll to speak at Hillsong Church prior to the Hillsong Conference. After all, Driscoll is still meeting with Houston and “will be able to speak in person in the coming weeks to discuss some of the issues that have been raised”.

[…] what – if anything – he has learned, […]

Did Mark Driscoll learn to repent of his sins? Did Mark Driscoll learn that because of the type of sins he’s committed that he’s no longer Biblically qualified to be a Pastor? You’re referring to those right Brian? …Right?

[…] and for me to understand better how he is progressing in both his personal and professional life.

Hold it! Didn’t you already say you had a personal interaction with him on the phone in the very first sentence?

Didn’t you already ask him these questions? Isn’t that the reason why you told Mark he isn’t speaking at the Hillsong Conference? Because he hasn’t actually progressed in his personal and professional life?

If Mark didn’t give a satisfactory answer then all you needed to do, is type in the name “Mark Driscoll” in a google search engine to read the variety of  charges people have made against him, such as stealing church money to buy his way onto the New York Times best seller’s list, or how fourteen pages of his book contained plagiarized material, etc. There is PLENTY of evidence for the illegal activity he’s engaged in… Just google it, seriously.

The teachings of Christ are based on love and forgiveness […]

Yes this is true.

But unfortunately Brian Houston is notorious for preaching (and believing) a love that excluees integrity, responsibility, accountability, repentance and honesty. Not only that, Houston’s false Jesus preaches an anti-biblical, worldly love that is separated of what God’s Law and Gospel defines as love.

He is also notorious for clearly rejecting the biblical criteria of what the qualifications are for a pastor and how a pastor should function and behave. The reason why he teaches falsely on love, forgiveness and what it means to be a pastor is because if he taught biblically, people would see that he is biblically disqualified to lead and operates illegally in the Assemblies of God.

Just like Driscoll, Houston’s idea of forgiveness completely ignores repentance and dismisses any form of being accountable for one’s sins. The reason for this is because Houston (just like his father) does not know what Christianity is nor it’s central message. (See CWC & HillsongCW Archives.)

[…] and I will not write off Mark as a person […]

That’s funny, you and Mark have both written off Jesus as God by ignoring what He says.

His word is clear that you and Mark Driscoll are not fit to pastor anyone. Especially you Brian. Your track record is a blight on Christianity and the fact you persist in your own false presumptions is causing others to stumble.

Christ offers forgiveness as we repent and turn from sins. All that is required is we turn from wickedness, take responsibility for sinful behavior and right wrongs – and forgiveness is freely given.

“But when [John the Baptist] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance…” Matthew 3:7-8

NOTE: the truth is this. No one wants to write off Mark Driscoll [or Brian Houston]. As Christians we are to call leaders out who do sin publicly and bring them under church discipline when they refuse to repent of their sins.

[…] simply because of the things that people have said about him […]

The things people have said on Mark Driscoll are TRUE. Here again, Brian Houston is attempting to discredit credible sources.

You know something is wrong with Driscoll when he is invited to speak at Hillsong Conference…

[…] a small minority of people signing a petition […]

NOTE: Brian Houston’s standard for a long time has been ‘might is right’.

Here we see Brian Houston implying that the “majority” knows better. But as with many issues before, Brian Houston “lies” by omission and keeps the majority in ignorance.

The only reason why he is dropping Mark Driscoll from speaking at Hillsong is because the minority started to greatly influence the majority (see further down). So what is Brian Houston doing?

Since he likes to lead the majority based on popularity, to retain power he must undermine the credibility of the minority and encourage people to throw disdain at them by appealing to the majority. We have seen him do this before regarding his Allah comments.

“Pull the Allah one, Brian” (Part 2)

NOTE: Notice that these are mainly CHRISTIANS he is encouraging people to hate. 

BRIAN HOUSTON’S LIES

Lying by omission is when someone leaves out key information so they come across as “honest”, leaving you with a false impression or idea on the subject at hand. This overall statement released by Brian Houston seems to be in this category. This is because he has bought up the petition in his statement. Click the link below to read the petition:

Christian’s petitioning for Hillsong to remove the disgraced Mark Driscoll from their Conferences

As you can see, the petition towards the beginning listed a number of offences made by Mark Driscoll. One thing that did not make that list was Mark Driscoll’s crass language, but this was talked about in a paragraph after the list. The key phrase in this petition we want to draw your attention to is this:

“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.”

It becomes apparent that Houston did not consider Mark’s other offenses to be as bad as this more minor offense. Houston summarised the petition like this:

“The teachings of Christ are based on love and forgiveness, and I will not write off Mark as a person simply because of the things that people have said about him, a small minority of people signing a petition or statements he has made many years ago for which he has since repeatedly apologised.” [Emphasis ours]

See what’s wrong here?

1. Brian Houston is capitalizing on the information and lying to them about what the actual petition was trying to address.
2. He is completely out of line for taking half a sentence out of the petition and then distorting the writer’s overall concerns
3. Which in turn he then portrays her, and the people who signed, as unforgiving, unloving, hyper-skeptics.
4. He ignores the six points in his statement and only focuses on Driscoll’s language. (Lying by omission.)
5. He attempts to portray himself as being the forgiving one while smearing the “minority” as being unforgiving in spite of the petition saying, “We fully believe that people can be restored and redeemed and that forgiveness is a fundamental part of Jesus’ teaching” and goes on to explaining how Driscoll can receive forgiveness.

His statement completely fabricates the overall petition when one actually reads what it says and lists the other more numerous charges.

Don’t you think Brian Houston should be publicly exposed for these false statements and be subject to biblical discipline as well? (But then again, the way Brian Houston reads the petition and spoke about it is the same way he treats the Christian scriptures. So why should this behaviour surprise us?)

We would like to point out to readers that this is not the first time Brian Houston has been caught lying and behaving immoral in his statements:

“Tabloid trash” exposing Hillsong of lying?
“Pull the Allah one, Brian” (Part 1)
“Pull the Allah one, Brian” (Part 2)

[…] or statements he has made many years ago […]

We will be writing more about this statement in another article – but notice what Brian Houston is doing. He is distancing the issue as though Mark Driscoll’s behavior was not recent, thus not relevant anymore and that “haters [are] gonna hate” for the sake of hating. And this is just defamatory and deceitful.

Furthermore, the real issue was not “simply” statements made many years ago, but rather, Driscoll’s issues of systemic abuse, bullying, misuse of funds, inappropriate language, plagiarizing, unethical behavior and refusing to submit to elders’ discipline. This is a very public and recent case. Brian Houston is deliberately playing down Driscoll’s pulpit “crimes”.

[…] for which he has since repeatedly apologized.

More word games. Christians are calling Mark Driscoll to repent. Some churches, their leaders, and Brian Houston, keep switching the words of Mark’s critics, insisting he has “apologized”. But these are two different things.

We are told that Driscoll has apologized and “repeatedly apologized”. But the Christian teaching on repentance doesn’t just stop at an apology. To think everything is solved at an apology is not what Christians are asking for. Christians are calling for repentance. These men keep diverting the issue by painting other Christians as unforgiving and hateful and portraying Mark Driscoll as the victim, giving the false impression that Mark Driscoll has dealt with his issues.

There are PLENTY of issues Mark Driscoll has YET to repent of, such as saying he will run over people who don’t follow his vision with the Mars Hill bus. Mark Driscoll has NOT repented for misusing church funds nor for buying his way onto the New York Times Best Seller’s List using tithe money. Not to mention that Mark Driscoll has NOT repented for plagiarizing material in “his books” (which he hired ghost writers to do for him anyway.) There are countless victims who have been hurt, lied to, and manipulated by Mark Driscoll, and he has YET to apologize to these individuals. For Brian Houston to overlook these facts and endorse an unrepentant man is totally unloving and a complete affront to Jesus and his teachings of repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

It’s a good thing that finally more and more Christians are seeing through this particular lie that false teachers are peddling.

However, I do not want unnecessary distractions during our conference, […]

Brian Houston has many false teachers regularly speaking at Hillsong Conferences. Mark Driscoll was just a “blip on the screen” compared to the numerous false teachers invited to speak at this yearly event that supposedly exists to glorify Jesus.

[…] particularly as this 30 minute interview was only a small part of this five day event […]

Now Brian Houston is trying to reduce the issue – so it looks as though people are making a mountain out of a molehill because it’s only a “30 minute interview”. But Brian can’t have it both ways.

In his previous statement Brian Houston acknowledged that he was exalting the issue Mark Driscoll a serious “platform” at Hillsong Conference:

“So why am I using our platform to interview Mark? […] I genuinely want to know! Did he really say those things?” [Source]

[…] It was clear to me that Mark’s attendance had the potential to divert attention from the real purpose of Hillsong Conference, […]

This is ludicrous. According to Houston’s last statement, Houston WANTED to “divert attention from the real purpose of Hillsong Conference” because Houston genuinely wanted to know if Mark Driscoll did “really say those things.” Was Houston planning to get a list of all of Driscoll’s potty-mouthed words and phrases and ask him if he said those things? It sounded as though in his previous statement the answer was going to be “yes,” he was going to do something along those lines. 

[…] which is to see people leave encouraged in their own spiritual journey [the cause].

… Because Christianity is ALL about people’s “own spiritual journey.”

…

No Brian. That’s called paganism. New Age.

People are to be encouraged and fed God’s Word and leave inspired by the finished work of Jesus Christ. We know that Brian Houston is usually very “politically correct”. So why is Brian Houston paving the way for spiritual correctness?

Clearly Mark has held some views and made some statements that cannot be defended.

So Brian is aware of what statements exactly? He is deliberately holding back what he knows so that he keeps people in the dark. And still, Houston seems to convey that he doesn’t believe the statements in the media and internet.

NOTE: Brian is still reducing issues to statements.

One or two of the more outrageous things he is purported to have said, […]

(Which can be seen on video readily.)

[…] I have heard for the first time through the media exposure over the past week. 

But you don’t listen to the media, do you Brian? You teach your own members not to listen to the media. That’s the devil isn’t it? Bad press against your idea of Christianity is of Satan but good press against your idea of Christianity is of God.

Once again, Brian Houston’s double standard over the media is pitiful.

NOTE: Brian Houston confesses he has not done his homework on Driscoll before inviting Mark Driscoll to speak at Hillsong. We will be exploring this issue in another article.