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ACC, AOG, Assemblies of God, Australian Christian Churches, Brian Houston, cover up, Frank Houston, Royal Commission, scandal
Source
The Sydney Morning Herald reports,
Royal Commission sex abuse inquiry censures Hillsong head Brian Houston
Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston failed to tell police his father was a self-confessed child abuser and had a clear conflict of interest in dealing with the sex claims himself, an inquiry has found.
The high profile pastor gave evidence to the Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in October last year.
Brian Houston . . . did not refer the allegations of child sexual abuse against Mr Frank Houston to the police.
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
In a report released on Monday, the commissioners found that Mr Houston and the church’s executive team failed the victim, known as AHA, who was molested by Frank Houston for a number of years from the age of seven.
When the allegations surfaced almost 30 years later in 1999, Mr Houston confronted his father, who admitted abusing AHA.
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The commissioners found that Brian Houston, then national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia, did not inform authorities.
“We are satisfied that, in 1999 and 2000, Pastor Brian Houston and the National Executive of the Assemblies of God in Australia did not refer the allegations of child sexual abuse against Mr Frank Houston to the police,” the commissioners wrote in their report.
The commission heard that Mr Houston suspended his father from the church but it was decided at a meeting of senior Assemblies of God members the allegation would be kept confidential and Frank Houston would be allowed to quietly retire without the reason being made public.
“We consider that a conflict of interest first arose when Pastor Brian Houston decided to respond to the allegations by confronting his father while simultaneously maintaining his roles as National President (of the Assemblies of God in Australia) and Senior Pastor,” the commissioners found.
The report concluded that senior staff at the Assemblies of God failed to follow their own protocol regarding sexual abuse claims and did not support the victim.
“The commissioners express the view that the NSW executive failed to appoint a contact person for the complainant, interview the complainant, have the state or national executive interview the alleged perpetrator, or record any of the steps it took,” the commissioners wrote.
In his evidence, AHA said Frank Houston would come into his room “nearly every night of the week” and sexually molest him while staying with his family in 1970.
AHA told the commission the abuse had “destroyed his childhood”, leaving him “full of shame, fear and embarrassment”.
The commission heard AHA was offered $10,000 in exchange for his signature on a dirty napkin at a meeting with Frank Houston and Hillsong Church elder Nabi Saleh at Thornleigh McDonalds in 2000.
Hillsong Church released a statement saying Mr Houston acted appropriately.
“We are confident that the actions of Pastor Brian, from the moment he discovered the news about his father, were done with the best intentions towards the victim,” the statement.
In their report, the commissioners also made findings against the Northside Christian College in Victoria and the Sunshine Coast Church in Queensland.
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Source: Rachel Browne, Royal Commission sex abuse inquiry censures Hillsong head Brian Houston, Sydney Morning, Published 23/11/2015 – 2:54PM. (Accessed 23/11/2015.)
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i only found out about this on saturday, i dont know if you have already written a article about this.
The Christian Telegraph reports…
“Evgeniy and Vera Kasevich, the former senior pastors of the “Hillsong” church in Kiev and Moscow, decided to start [a] new church in Miami (Florida, USA). They reported this in a letter to the editor of NCW, reports Christian Telegraph invictory.com in reference to the NCW.
“First of all, we want to express our love to all the churches, pastors and believers in all Russian-speaking countries. Those who stand firmly on the foundation of the Word of God, and for those, who in this difficult time for our people (we do not separate the Russians from Ukrainian people), and in the power of the Spirit preach about peace, love, patience and unity. For us, it was a difficult time as well, but it was a very blessed time. We deliberately took a break to spend more time with God to get a direction for our future ministry for Him. We are extremely thankful for our radical conversion, for all the years which He has entrusted to us the honor and privilege to build His Kingdom in “Hillsong” church in Kiev and Moscow,” noted Evgeniy Kasevich.
“God knows, we have tried to do the best we could and what we were capable of as humans, and often we did more, even beyond our ability… And God has made it clear that because we were faithful to Him in the place, where He has called us to build for almost 22 years, now He will bless the new place and the ministry there, which we will select. We tried to be open to the need of building the Kingdom of God and with the confirmation of the prophecies and councils, we decided to become pioneers and open His church in a place, where there is a very acute need for it, and that’s Miami (Florida, USA),” said the ministers.
“As ironic as it would seem, the fact is that for about one hundred thousand people from the Russian-speaking population in the city, there are none living, modern Russian churches. We know that it is a difficult demographic group of people and that in America there should be English-speaking churches. Therefore, we will build a multi-ethnic church… We are grateful for the prayers and any kind of support, because we believe that it is God’s work to save people, and it will succeed with the support of many people,” told Kasevich.
Recall, that Evgeniy and Vera left the pastoral ministry of Kiev “Hillsong” Church in February, after 16 years of service and some disagreements with the central community in Australia.”
From http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue23851.html
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i forgot to copy this headline for the article above.
Hill$ong pastors leave after ‘disagreements’
The media statement appears to be carefully crafted to put the best possible “spin” on this sad scenario. How they supposedly acted in the best interests of the one identified victim is beyond me as a Christian. Also the real possibility that it is only the tip of the myriad icebergs completely appears to be an issue of being “conveniently swept under the carpet by HILLSONG. The buck stops squarely with Brian Houston and I believe ‘He has been found wanting.
Royal Commission should investigate the Courts. We had a Judge in Victoria who was an old Xaverian and told a girl who murdered her new born baby and dumped it under a tree she was a good Catholic girl and would not go to gaol. He even let her leave the court as he read out the cruelty she did to the baby. We had another female Police Officer not charge a girl in Sydney who drowned her new born baby and the female Coroner was all sympathy for her. No one said anything about the baby. We had a good academic student at Shorncliffe Catholic College Qld who was bullied be cause his dad committed suicide. He cracked and killed the bully. The school supported the bully and made him a hero. These people need to be investigated. Mum murdered 8 babies still not in gaol. We do need to stand up for decent families and not let Rose Batty run men down all the time. We need inquiries as to why teachers who supported the bully or those that supported mums killing their children or chaining an autistic child to a bed are not before the Royal Commission for abuse including The Sallies and Catholic Church and Anglican who go to court to get them out of the charges and say what wonderful people they are. HIllsong had the dirt done on them at Rosebery and no one had the courage to investigate the incident fully the politican behind it. There are heaps of Units now at Mascot and money must have been involved to stop this wonderful Church.
Maybe we need an online petition to ask BH for a minimum of a global public apology or for him to resign.
I can’t see how he can carry on as a Global pastor with all these findings unless he trully repents. Not just says I got it wrong
What do others think?
It amazes me that a post on money and tithing above has over 200 replies. But a subject of sexual abuse has so little. Am I being naive here?
In this article over a year ago it talks about BH being referred to the police. Did this happen?
This is the article.
http://www.mamamia.com.au/hillsong-child-sexual-abuse/