We produced an article that labeled Hillsong’s statement of belief’s as a “sheepskin”, exposing the fact that this criminal* organisation can say whatever they want to convince Christianity they are Christian while recklessly doing things that oppose the Christian faith.
“I also live by my own convictions, and hold to traditional Christian thought,”
Or claims to believe,
“The writings of the apostle Paul in scripture,”
he really means – “I can’t believe you still give me the benefit of the doubt as the fraud that I am.”
You may think we’re being harsh, but when you compare Brian Houston’s beliefs and teachings to the Scriptures you’ll realize he’s not a Christian.
If Brian Houston wants us to believe that his Hillsong organisation believes “the Bible is God’s Word. It is accurate, authoritative and applicable to our everyday lives,” then that should mean he believes scriptures when it says women cannot be pastors, right?
“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” 1 Timothy 2:11-15
“As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”1 Corinthians 14:33-35
“In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.”Titus 2:4-5
The reason why women are called to submit like this within the church gathering is that men also must submit to their wives and be willing to give up their lives for them, the way Christ gave His life up for the church (Ephesians 5). This doctrine of submission between man and woman, husband and wife is known as complementarianism – a doctrine the church has held to for nearly two thousand years. The complementarian position is seen to uphold what has been the most traditional teachingon gender roles in the church. You can even read on some of the church father’s views on this topic here.
However, when it comes to ‘Pastors’ Brian and Bobbie Houston, and Jesus – Jesus is kicked out of Hillsong. ‘Pastors’ Brian and Bobbie Houston knows what’s better for their ‘church’ than Jesus does.
Here we see Brian Houston being quoted on Australian television in Australian Story talking about the situation with women in leadership at his church:
“In a sense I’ve got a conservative, biblical idea that a man should take a role of leadership in his life. But I certainly don’t adhere to the mentality that a woman must submit or that she should be pushed down. I absolutely believe that there’s a sense of walking together in life.”
As the Scriptures we quoted earlier in this article explain, women cannot be pastors in a church gathering and the doctrine of complementarianism is in play. Brian Houston portrays those Scriptures in a negative and out of context light by making them sound like they’re taught so only women have to submit and be pushed down. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only is Brian Houston elevating his own beliefs as superior to that of God’s Word, he is also portraying Jesus Christ and his apostles as misogynists. [If you’re a Christian throw up now.]
Brain Houston also has this gripe over one of his elders,
“We’ve got a lot of women involved in very active ministry in our church, including Bobbie my wife, and of course our worship pastor, and it is true that at this point, none of the church Elders are women. I think it’s something that we need to keep addressing, but I do have one particular key person who has a real strong biblical stance on that, and I think mostly it’s out of respect to them at this point, that I haven’t considered bringing a woman onto the eldership. However, our style of leadership is very much husbands and wives, really the team, male or female, working together.”
Source: Brian Houston, Interview with Brian Houston, Australian Story, http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2005/s1427560.htm, Program trasncript – 01/08/2005. (Accessed 08/09/2015.)
By Brian Houston’s own admission, he hasn’t called women to be Church Elders not because he believes what the Scriptures have to say about women not having a position of leadership or authority in a Church gathering, but rather, because there’s “one particular key person who has a real strong biblical stance” that Brian doesn’t feel like he can go against. So Brian Houston is:
1. Fearing man over God and that’s a huge problem, especially since he claims to be a ‘Christian Pastor’.
2. Openly admitting he wants to rebel against God’s Word and someone who has a reverence for it and will do so after this ‘key person’ is no longer there.
If ‘Pastors’ Brian and Bobbie Houston continue to ignore God’s Word and put their own thoughts and feelings as “Biblical truth,” then one can’t help but wonder how long it will be before homosexuals will be in leadership positions at Hillsong.
“[Homosexuality] is a dilemma because the Bible’s quite clear about some of the parameters that belong to those in leadership. And we’re still figuring it out… We want to bridge all the divides in society and I think that’s one of the final divides.”
Source: Bobbie Houston, Australian Women’s Weekly, We’re Not A Cult, March Issue, 2016.
* We appeal to the fact that Jesus Christ calls those who claim to be of him false prophets and on judgment day calls them lawless/wicked ones in Matthew 7:15-21. Since Hillsong continue to fulfill this criteria according to Christ – it is our opinion this title is fitting to apply to Hillsong so that Christian and secular communities do not get destroyed by such a fraudulent institution using the guise of Christianity to further their fraudulent behaviour.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”is a quotation from the 1599/ 1600 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It has been used as a figure of speech, in various phrasings, to describe someone’s too frequent and vehement attempts to convince others of some matter of which the opposite is true, thereby making themselves appear defensive, and insincere.” [Source]
Women’s Weekly have done a respectable job interviewing and covering a story of Brian and Bobbie Houston of the Hillsong church. This story was publicised and endorsed by Bobbie Houston herself.
I was a little nervous about this – but big pic it’s lovely. It was in context of my coming book “The Sisterhood”. Thank you to the Aust Women’s Weekly (and Juliet Rieden) for asking, for allowing me to meet you, have you in my home, have a few laughs … and in essence share my faith. And of course, the real miracle of “the Sisterhood” is in the THOUSANDS OF FABULOUS EVERYDAY AUSSIE WOMEN (& GIRLS) whose story this is. God bless you. #TheSisterhoodBook
Source: Bobbie Houston, Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/BB6AYZXIYwi/, Published 18/02/2016. (Accessed 02/03/2016.)
We will be tackling other aspects of this Women’s Weekly magazinereport in future articles. One of the biggest issues in the article we want to address now is Hillsong’s anti-biblical stance on homosexuality.
“[Homosexuality] is a dilemma because the Bible’s quite clear about some of the parameters that belong to those in leadership. And we’re still figuring it out… We want to bridge all the divides in society and I think that’s one of the final divides.”
Source: Bobbie Houston, Australian Women’s Weekly, We’re Not A Cult, March Issue, 2016.
Here is the first page of the “Special Report” from Women’s Weekly:
Here is an excerpt from the Australian Women’s Weekly:
What really goes on at a Hillsong service
Every Sunday, more than 10,000 parishioners descend on the Hillsong chapel in Baulkham Hills – we investigate what they’re coming for.
It’s a bright Sunday morning in Baulkham Hills and already the traffic is backed up on the Solent Circuit. Smiling teens in high-visibility orange vests and back-to-front baseball caps embroidered with Y & F – Young and Free – have been directing cars for hours.
They are all heading the same way; to the Hills Campus to take part in uproarious worship at one of the four capacity services at the Hillsong convention centre and chapel.
Every Sunday, more than 10,000 parishioners descend on this hallowed quadrant in the Business Park in Sydney’s north-west, some by car, some in the church’s private buses, and significantly more will be tuning in via Hillsong TV from all over the country and the world.
Seventy-five per cent of the church’s followers are under 35 and 91 per cent under 50. They come perhaps for the razzamatazz that has made Hillsong Australia’s fastest-growing church. Whatever they come for, it’s working.
At 11am, the crowds move inside in waves, eager to nab the best seats. It’s a vast arena with stacked rows of seating around an apron stage. Immediately in front of the podium, overexcited teens fresh from summer youth camps swap complex handshakes and whoop and holler.
And then the lights dim and the music starts. The stage comes alive with a flashing light show. Images of the heavens, of water, of palm trees flash across the central screen, which is surrounded by stars and circles of beaming neon tubing. Meanwhile, the 14-strong band pumps out classics from Hillsong’s repertoire. “Holy, Holy, Holy is your name,” they sing as the crowd wave their arms and sway to the beat.
With parishioners drunk on the music, the service kicks off. First are the prayer lists, specific messages from people eager to get a special hotline to God and then a call for tithes and offerings as buckets are passed along each row. On the screen, there are details outlining the ways you can give – via the envelope on your chair, online, via the Hillsong app, BPAY.
A Youth Leader bounces onto the stage and introduces young student Jasmine, who retells her revelation of speaking in tongues at last week’s youth camp, to loud applause. Next is an advertisement for the Bible college next door, where would-be pastors learn their craft.
And finally the leader of Hillsong, impresario Brian Houston, dressed down in jeans and a loose white shirt, moves to the front. His rasping voice echoes around the centre. He talks about the sanctity of marriage, about spiritual solutions to human problems. His parishioners are rapt. They are rapt for more than an hour.
It’s easy to take aim at this happy, shiny group of Christians gorging on their Sunday fix of clappy worship, but one thing is clear, they all love this place and they’re all having fun.
“There’s excitement, you’re involved,” says one parishioner. “There’s praise and for a young person on a Friday or Saturday night, it’s better than going clubbing. And on a Sunday, it’s a great way to start the day.”
Read more of this story in the March issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Source: By Juliet Rieden, What really goes on at a Hillsong service, Australian Women’s Weekly, http://www.aww.com.au/latest-news/celebrity/kate-winslet-settles-those-pregnancy-rumours-25774, Published 24/02/2016.
It takes Brian Houston to try and convince people that Hillsong believes the bible and it takes his wife Bobbie Houston to prove to people that Hillsong don’t believe the bible.
It is a fact that Brian Houston does not embrace the biblical stance on same sex issues. He has deceitfully been grooming his churches to embrace the homosexual agenda. However, since more direct pressure has been put on him to take a side, to save his brand image, Brian has to take what he calls the “conservative” stance. (He cannot afford his Hillsong record label be tarnished thus financially affected by the conservative Christian market.)
Here he is using the bible to justify why homosexuality is wrong (Transcript of Houston at the bottom:
[Click to download video]
There is one major farce Brian Houston pulls in this show. He states,
“As far as I can see in the New Testament in the writings of the apostle Paul, homosexuality is listed as sin. So what I think doesn’t really matter, its what the Bible says that I have to live by.“
Fancy that!
Have you ever heard Brian Houston EVER stand on the bible’s authority in his sermons or on other Christian matters in the public domain?
You’re not seeing a man who stands on the Word of God because he is a Christian minister. Rather, you’re watching a man hide behind the Word of God to give the impression he follows Jesus and His teachings.
If Brian Houston honestly believes what he thinks “doesn’t really matter, its what the Bible says that I have to live by,” then what does he do with the clear “writings of the apostle Paul” on this scripture?
“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” 1 Timothy 2:11-15
Here is his wife Pastor Bobbie Houston to prove that Brian is not “conservative” or a follower of Jesus Christ and His teachings:
Brian and Bobbie are still presenting to people what they think people want to hear, capitalising on their audience’s good will and ignorance. And Paul commands to have such frauds silenced and expelled from God’s assembly.
TRANSCRIPT
“Look the thing with gay marriage in Australia – some people won’t like me saying this – but its inevitable. Its going to happen. And Hillsong church and me personally we can live in our society. I mean the most important thing is that we are not forced to do things that would violate our conscience. I am a conservative, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I also see that everyone deserves to be happy, and so where I sit is, “This is my belief” but if that’s what’s going to happen – I’m O.K. with that. We’ve got many gay people in our church and not only in Australia but around the world.
As far as I can see in the New Testament in the writings of the apostle Paul, homosexuality is listed as sin. So what I think doesn’t really matter, its what the Bible says that I have to live by. So if I was to summarise it, again, I think you’ve got to live and let live. I’m not going to try to tell everyone else how they should live their lives. But where I stand is, yes, gay marriage is, I think, between a man and a woman.
I wouldn’t have any problem if there was some form of union for gay people, you know what I’m saying, and, I’m not trying to tell everyone else how to live their lives. People believe they’re happy that way – I’m OK with it. As long as I’m OK, you’re OK with me holding onto what I believe as well.”
For being prominent figures in Christianity, you would think that Brian Houston, Bobbie Houston, and their children would live godly lives and set the example for other Christians to follow, as is Biblical for a pastor and his family to do. If you think the Houstons are people of Biblical integrity, you are sadly mistaken and need to read your Bibles and compare their teachings, and lives, to Scripture’s standards.
Take for example, this instagram photo that was deleted after several people called out Esther Houston on Selena Gomez’ lack of attire and facial expression, in this picture? Esther Houston is pictured next to Selena, apparently unable to “live without you guys”.
Do you think this could cause Christians to stumble?
Here is a comment by natasha_hilburn that was attached to the deleted instagram photo above:
Do you agree with natasha_hilburn? If you do, then apparently you would be considered a “close minded Bible believing hater”. Although we can no longer demonstrate because the image was later deleted, there were many hateful comments against natasha_hilburn and her very observant biblical admonition. The majority to those commenting had no problem at all with the thoroughly inappropriate content initially posted then deleted. We would like to encourage and thank natasha_hilburn for her boldness, courage and concern for those who would call themselves shepherds of God’s precious flock.
Here is the alternative picture Esther Houston posted after receiving backlash?
Source: By Esther Houston, What a crew. LITerally, instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/_-1k6HAPLo/?taken-by=estherhouston, Published 31/12/2015. (Accessed 03/01/2016.)
Notice there was no apology for causing others to stumble, and no accountability for Esther Houston’s carelessness. Instead, the evidence vanished in the blink of an eye and was seemingly replaced by one more appropriate..
Of course, Esther Houston also posts very strange pictures of herself like this on her Instagram feed. We ask the question – is this the sort of image we need to see, by the wife of a high-profile pastor?
Source: By Esther Houston, That casual moment when you get stuck in a giant box., instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/9hwvyqgPFD/, Published 02/11/2015. (Accessed 04/01/2016.)
It’s sad and disturbing that neither Brian nor Bobbie Houston have publicly called out their children for engaging in, and promoting this self-indulgent narcissistic lifestyle.
“Hillsong doesn’t force us to give money. We give it freely.’
That is the protest of faithful Hillsong cult apologists and its members.
Of course Hillsong members give their money freely. Wouldn’t you give Hillsong your money “freely” if they accused you of robbing God if you withheld your cash?
Hillsong, after the recent A Current Affair report, made the mistake of letting Bobbie Houston do the offering talk. Here is Bobbie talking about why Hillsong members should give:
“… I want to encourage you with your giving this morning, because that’s what it’s about. Malachi 3 says, bring the tithe and offering, bring it into the house of God that there might be food in my house. And in context it’s saying when you withhold or draw back you actually rob God, well we don’t rob God because we can’t rob God, but we rob His heart for the earth…”
It only goes to show that A Current Affair is right to portray Hillsong as a Prosperity cult and a money-making machine. Prosperity cults are known for ripping Malachi 3 out of context to accuse people of “robbing God” so they are guilted into giving money. To Christians, this is what is known as “works-based righteousness.”
The Christian owes God nothing except repentance of their sins in light of Jesus being our perfect sacrifice to God so that we may be right with him. By placing money as the mediator before God and not Christ, Bobbie is espousing nothing but pagan idolatry. Money is her God and she wants it now.
To say that people are robbing God’s heart for the earth because we’re not giving him cash is neurotic. But then again, Hillsong members think that this is a valid reason to give “freely”…
Bobbie Houston advances the cause of womanhood… how?
One reason why we started Church Watch was because we noticed popular cults starting to rewrite their history. Specifically C3 and Hillsong.
In his book, ‘Live Love Lead,’ Brian Houston of Hillsong lied about his history in how he dealt with his father’s crimes and victims (he also added new information to the story that was not disclosed at the Royal Commission). The stories he told the media also contradicted his story at the Royal Commission.
He has also been promoting the lie that he started CLC/Hillsong (switching histories to suit whatever agenda). He also insists that he founded his church at Hills in 1983. This is now being refuted as well.
The philosophy with Hillsong is this: if your history doesn’t make you look good, change it or cover it up. And Brian Houston has had lots of experience with this (as we are about to find out).
EIC – no morals, no ethics, no Christianity. Just a network to promote stuff that sounds Christian to consumers.
Recently, Brian Houston was focusing on the Evangelical Industrial Complex (EIC) in America to sell his new book ‘Live Love Lead.’ Terry Meeuwsen appeared to make Houston nervous while he promoted his material on the Christian Broadcast Network. She raised the issue of Houston’s terrible experience losing his “best friend” in 1995. His body language indicated that he clearly was not comfortable with Meeuwsen throwing this experience in his face. (Watch at 7:10 onwards.)
CBN TRANSCRIPT
Terry Meeuwsen: “… When I think of Hillsong, I think of praise and worship because those songs are sung in my own church and the churches of so many of us. And God actually used the disappointment and the surprise of a leader leaving – a key lead- THE leader of your worship team, and yet God did an amazing thing.
Brian Houston: “You mean right back in 1995?
Terry Meeuwsen: Yeah.
Brian Houston: So it’s 20 years ago? It’s true.
We were on the edge of recording with ah- Integrity Music here in America. And of course we’re Down Under, like, you know, its already amazing that, that um- people were reaching out to us.
And so, the week that it was about to happen – and ah- I still don’t even understand it. I still to this day don’t understand it. But our worship leader walked out. [Behaviour gets antsy] And literally walked out. Like literally left my life- left our lives- and he was like a best friend, so there’s huge grief involved. [Rubs loose tooth?] And uh-
But the incredible thing in it all is that the only person I could turn to was a lady called Darlene Zschech. And of course Darlene Zschech is well-known now around the globe. So I kind of, as well as I could, I gently pushed her forward. I rang Integrity Music. And incredibly they never had a woman lead one of their projects at that time. So it was quite a big thing for them. But it turned out to be an amazing story.”
[Drinks cup of water]
That worship leader and “best friend” to Brian Houston in 1995 was Geoff Bullock.
Geoff Bullock was the man that gave Christian Life Centre the name Hillsong and helped put Hillsong on the map for it’s outstanding musical events and it’s famous music. Just like many others who made Hillsong what it is today, Brian Houston simply rode on the coat-tails of his “friends” who made Hillsong what it is.
So how does Brian Houston treat his best friends? Did he really suffer memory loss on the CBN set? To answer that question, we will look at Brian Houston’s book ‘You Can Change the Future’, Tanya Levin’s book ‘People in Glass Houses’ and finally read what Geoff Bullock himself said about his experience.
Tanya Levin wrote about Geoff Bullock in her book ‘People in Glass Houses’:
“Geoff left Hillsong in late 1995. I knew that his marriage had broken down and had remarried but, not having stayed in touch with the Christian music scene, not much else. The Geoff that I shared cappuccinos with was the same man as always. Same piercing blue eyes, soft mannerisms, and a voice born for the BBC. Geoff is not, by nature, an AoG salesman. Rather he represents a large group of artists who are attracted to the Pentecostal church by the opportunity for creative expression for Jesus.
What I didn’t expect was the brokenness. Although I had worked with people from a diversity of backgrounds for years, I assumed all the old wise men of God were naturally of stronger character than me, Over the time we spoke I found it not to be so. It was Geoff’s openness and willingness to talk that prepared me for a world of people damaged for the long-term by the work of Hillsong and the AoG.
Geoff says he remembers having episodes of mania when he was a child, although he wasn’t diagnosed with symptoms of any kind until after he left Hillsong. He sees a therapist to work on his long periods of depression, which are often followed by episodes of intense creativity. The other obstacle in his life is the nightmares he suffers dating from the time with Hillsong, an off-shoot of his post-traumatic stress diagnosis.
As the Hillsong conference expanded in the late eighties, so did Geoff’s responsibilities and pressures. He and his wife, Janine, were expected to spend infinite hours away from their children to run the music department. International interest in the music grew and so did Geoff’s profile. The couple travelled extensively with the Praise and Worship team, and personally with their old friends Brian and Bobbie. Despite the bright lights and the glory, his music career at it’s peak, Geoff was finding less satisfaction and spirituality in what he was doing.
After the most successful conference yet, Hillsong ’95, Geoff went to Brian and told him he was leaving. It was time, he felt, spiritually, to pursue other interests. Nothing personal.
Geoff Bullock had left a career with ABC-TV as a production manager to become a pastor with the Hills Christian Life Centre in 1978. For nearly twenty years he was able to use those skills to produce Hillsong music, and the show that accompanied it. During that time he wrote, produced and performed countless songs, and released seven albums. Because Hillsong still uses those songs, has remixed them and re-released them, Geoff’s royalties are growing at the same rate as Hillsong.
Which is lucky for Geoff. Hillsong did everything in its power to prevent his future success. Due to speak at a bible college occasion soon after leaving, he received a phone call with a sudden apology. Hillsong had informed the bible college that any associations with Geoff Bullock meant no further association with Hillsong. Christian magazines were told the same thing. Piles of the CD Geoff was about to release were found dumped at a tip in Blacktown, not far from Hillsong headquarters.
In Bobbie’s I’ll Have What She’s Having, this period is clearly referred to (the emphases are hers):
In July 1995, we witnesses a wonderful HILLSONG Leadership Conference. It was our 9th conference and in our nation and in our context of influence, to put it delicately- ‘we put the wind up the devil!!!’ Stories would flood into our offices of churches and towns being turned upside down with a revival spirit. God is good (all the time). Brian and I took a week to tie up loose ends and then together with our friends Pat and Liz Mesiti we took a little holiday. (I think God was just being terribly kind to give us a rest, because he knew what lay around the next bend.)
We came home a week later, stepped off the plane (‘hello, hello … lovely to see you … we missed you all … had a lovely time!’) and literally all hell broke out with one of our key people. It was the first and only time that something like this had happened to us. (I must admit prior to that conference I sensed something brewing, and had called our pastors wives to prayer.)
… For the next several months it was as though demons came out of the woodwork on every front. When attacks come from every side it is a sure sign that you are doing something right (which is contrary to some people’s belief). We experienced a barrage of attack-cancer, accidents, stinking thinking, people throwing in the towel, disloyalty in our team that disappointed our heart, devil induced confusion, opposition and fine thread ‘cancerous attitude’ bent on contaminating and taking out this particular Body of Christ.
Eventually, a Hillsong board member had lunch with Geoff. ‘We tried to destroy you,’ he told him. ‘until we realised you weren’t a threat.’ Geoff continues to work and write music, though he gave up performing years ago.
The nightmares remain one of the most intrusive spillovers from the old days. Three of four times a week he dreams about Hillsong events, being humiliated by Brian’s demands, being screamed at, berated and bullied along the way. His psyche is deeply affected. He is very aware that he, too, became a bully. Years later, Geoff has tried to make amends to many people he treated ruthlessly in order to avoid punishment from above.
At the end of our first meeting at a café, Geoff is exhausted. He tells me he feels drained by the remembering. I realise I have stumbled into a much more serious affliction in people’s lives than I had anticipated.”
Source: Tanya Levin, People in Glass Houses, Published: Black Inc., Melbourne, VIC: 2007, pg. 242-4.
Brian Houston writes of his best friend this way in his book ‘You Can Change the Future’ (a book that attempted to cover up his father’s crimes as a paedophile and exalted as a role model for others to follow):
Commitment to the right vehicle
“When I was a little boy, I had a scooter. As I got older, I rode a three-wheeled trike before I got my first bicycle. One day my father took me down to the shops and as I sat impatiently waiting for him in the car, all of sudden [sic] he came around the corner with a shining green bicycle. It was my pride and joy. Of course getting my first car was an unforgettable moment in my life. It was a ’57 Austin A50. It was also green and it cost me $650.
Many people desire to make an impact on the generations but rely on old vehicles to get there. Imagine me trying to fulfil my overseas speaking engagements via my original scooter or bicycle! You need the right vehicle and the right associations to enable God to take you forward. You may have a great vision to impact the earth, but alone you cannot do as much as you could together with others. If you are in associations which are holding you back or on a vehicle that is moving too slowly, stretch yourself by stepping into the mainstream and being committed to going forward.
I have been blessed to pastor at least four world-class songwriters, and many others heading in the same direction. I cannot take credit for their anointing or their God-given gifts, but I do have a sense of satisfaction about their opportunity. The Hillsong Church is a vehicle that has taken their songs to the world. One of these writers, who severed their link to our church several years ago, told me how they were writing more songs than ever before. Interestingly, it is only the songs that were written within the local church that I have heard anybody singing. It seems as though the local church was the vehicle which God was blessing.
Currently, the most sung praise and worship songs in Australian churches have emerged from the life of our church. Obviously that association with Hillsong Church has been very fruitful for people like Darlene Zschech, Ruben Morgan and Russel Fragar. They have obvious talent, a beautiful anointing, but also the right vehicle. Talent and anointing on their own aren’t enough, but placing the right people, in the right place, at the right time, has enormous potential.”
Source: Brian Houston, You Can Change the Future: Living Beyond Today and Impacting the Generations Ahead, Published: Maximised Leadership Incorporated, Australia, 2000, pg. 131-2.
And what did Geoff Bullock had to say about his experience? This is a very insightful interview exposing what Bullock went through, discussing areas of Hillsong’s philosophy, methods and dirty tactics which lead to his swift removal.
And Houston claims he has no idea why Geoff Bullock, his best friend, walked? What other lies and smear campaigns has Brian Houston written about in his book ‘Live Love Lead’? What other media organisations and Christian groups has he publicly mislead and lied to about his past life?
Let the sledge BEGIN!
Terry Allen from the Christian Faith wrote this piece back in 2010:
Geoff Bullock opens up …
We all know his music and we each have a favourite. He is Geoff Bullock. But what do you know about the man? About Geoff as a Christian? About Geoff as a sufferer of bi-polar disorder?
Join Geoff as he discusses his life and ministry with Terry Allen.
Geoff, what have you been doing for the last decade or so?
Oh, what a question! What have I been doing for the last 10 years? I would say I have been learning grace and un-learning working to prove myself.
Now, that is not just in a spiritual situation, that is in a whole of life situation: in my relationships with my kids, with my friends, with [wife] Victoria, especially as a step-father. Learning how to be rather than to do.
Spiritually, that has huge impacts on my life. I wrote two books at the beginning of the century, which was the beginning of that journey. Jesus’ story painted in a way that I hope you could see or visualize the impact he was making on society and the lives of broken hearted people; people without hope.
In the last 10 years I suppose, I would say, combined with that, I have been battling with mental illness: bi-polar type two which has caused all manner of symptoms in my life which has been confronting. One of the main ones being high levels of anxiety, which has seen me come and go publically three times.
I am now 10 years on and I feel the illness is manageable and the greatest gift, I think, is that I have been forced to learn insight into the way I think and the way that I do. I have learnt that by reflection on my past and reflection on the times where I can see the illness in that.
Also, over the last decade, I have had a most surprising return to public profile to tie that journey in to the life of Christ and the hope we see in the cross. So, I think that’s what I’ve been doing.
Life as a Christian, especially with bi-polar disorder, must be difficult. Some Christians believe it is demonic & should be dealt exclusively by prayer. How have you managed it?
Well, the first thing I want to wade in swinging is that I wish the evangelists and those who visit churches, and they arrive one day and leave the other, who drop such dangerous bombs on people’s medical situations; I wish they would go and do some research by sitting down with a psychiatrist and realizing how dangerous their teaching is.
You wouldn’t dare say that to someone with diabetes, but this irresponsible message; all it does is heighten the symptoms twice. You know, they go off medication, they get worse and then, getting worse, they think they must be possessed by demons, so that makes them feel worse and then they are totally without an anchor. Of course the hope of medication and a good psychiatrist is taken away from them, so I get furious about that.
And it’s also totally irrelevant to the gospel. There’s no resemblance to the life of Christ whatsoever. So, those are my little swinging punches.
For me, I do a lot of thinking, prayerful thinking and I think about the life of Christ all the time. Trying to strip away all of the things we’ve said culturally and theologically: strip it away. The drama that was Jesus when he walked into somebody’s life or somebody’s social circumstances: that is of great help to me.
I have a little saying: receiving grace compels us to begin the journey towards becoming gracious. Receiving grace is free but becoming gracious will cost you everything. It will cost you every opinion you have in your life and every bias.
So that has made a huge difference in the way I react to my symptoms because often my symptoms are feelings of rejection and a lack of affirmation and a feeling of isolation.Then I will expect people to do as I want them to do which is to work to prove their love for me as I am working to prove my love for them. So meditating on the life of Christ helps me to challenge that works based expectation of myself and others.
Bi-polar disorder is often suffered by artistic and creative people and one of the symptoms is depression. Have you suffered depression?
Yes, I’ve been absolutely lost in it. It was in 2007, actually it started back in November 2006, I remember vividly when i suddenly realised that I was falling into depression, I was sitting on a sun drenched balcony overlooking the sea and feeling absolutely miserable and that lasted for just on a year.
Obviously, talking to my GP and then my psychiatrist, I began a journey of trying to balance medication and cognitive therapy. I ended up as a day patient at a psychiatric clinic in Sydney, which I think was the beginning of helping me to have insight and, strangely enough, 2008 saw the rebirth of what I’m doing now and I spent a good 18 months of it depressed, but it was wonderful having a mission.
Have you ever felt Christian condemnation over your condition?
No, I don’t think I’ve ever been in that situation, but look, I can be a little outspoken and I have thought really deeply about my condition and so I feel that I have ammunition now. If, for example someone said to me, “Oh, it’s the devil”, which did happen to me once: one of my very, very oldest friends: he is not a man with insight. He does not think deeply and so he has a book of rules that he applies. He started a conversation with me about my depression being demonic and I think my response was strong enough for him to realize that even if he thought I was wrong, he would be wise to step away.
15 years ago you left Hillsong. Why?
Well, I’ve got to say that I was always a round peg in a square hole there. From the beginning of Hillsong’s association with the Word of Faith churches in America, their prosperity doctrine and their very works-based doctrine of spiritual and physical rewards, I just could not tie the gospel together with what they were saying. Not when I looked at Jesus at the cross; I couldn’t understand how they combined the grace of Jesus found in the gospel with the laws of conditional blessings and rewards found in the Old Testament.
They teach that Jesus rewards us according to our works. That is not the work of Christ. Grace is never a reward. We receive grace as a gift according what Jesus accomplished for us.
I actually tried to leave in 1992, but got turned around. It’s important that I say I chose to stay and rededicate all that I could to continue being part of their vision and the outworking of it.
Then, in 1995, I had two major things happening: I had this sensation that I really didn’t know Jesus. I knew Paul’s Jesus, I knew the epistles’ Jesus and Hebrews and I knew my movement’s Jesus: all the preachers and teachers who came through and spoke about him, but in my own life I felt I did not have this sense of meeting him. And so I started a search.
That’s when I wrote the song Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed. Towards the middle of the year, I started to really burn out because I was trying so hard to prove myself worthy of being who I was and trying to prove myself worthy of God’s presence on a Sunday: I had this poor, misguided feeling that if I play really, really well, God will come. It might sound stupid to say it, but it was where I think lots of Church musicians still are.
But after Hillsong ’95 I just felt so broken and so failed, I thought, “Look, I could just fall over dead and no one would notice.” But then I had this profound sense, and it grew: in fact, I would say it was the strongest spiritual encounter I had with God, where he said, through a whole lot of ways, to do something: that I had to go.
And it took three months and a whole lot of conversations, but eventually I wrote a letter and handed it on by a friend. I didn’t have the courage to do it to their face, but I knew that if I didn’t do what I felt God was saying… I had a choice: either I follow God or follow the church.
In the end, I’d rather build my relationship, my spirituality, on trying to discern what God’s saying to me and that’s how I left. And it really was the great divorce. It was unnecessarily bitter and divisive and that I found very confusing.
By saying it was bitter and divisive, do you mean you were stabbed in the back?
Yes, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt. There were letters written to other churches, there were approaches made to other churches, there was a statement made to the whole church leadership team. They just couldn’t understand what I was doing, but in the end that’s just human and it’s very painful.
One of the hardest things was when my marriage ended three months later people jumped to a conclusion which was so far from the truth. This sad piece of gossip is still believed to be the truth.
Even last weekend I had to retell my story to put events back into the order that they occurred. It would have been lovely if Hillsong helped to put things right. However I simply became the invisible and forgotten man and that hurts deeply. Very deeply. I would have thought that my work there was seen as a blessing.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that rift has ever been repaired. There is nothing to indicate that it has.
Has there been any reaction at Hillsong in recent times to your current ministry?
Well, firstly, I made contact within six months with Brian Houston who was my very best friend at the time. This is really painful stuff and I can fully understand how he felt. I tried to explain as I was slowing gaining insight into what eventually would be bi-polar. I talked about co-dependency, I talked about my spirituality and I would often find that Brian would understand and ‘get it’. I had a chance to go and see most of the elders and senior pastors at that time and try to explain that I was sorry it happened the way it happened. I could have handled it a whole lot better: I handled it very, very poorly. I suppose we both did, but I can only be accountable for myself.
I met with Brian many, many times because I didn’t like the thought that he thought ill of me and misunderstood me, but I also felt that I had wounded him in a way that I wished I hadn’t and that somehow I could take those wounds away or help heal them. So, we’ve had good contact, but as far as the church is concerned, nothing. There’s just been silence, absolute silence.
I must say, when I left and obviously it was getting rather sad, I decided not to contact any of my friends because I felt that if I did, the worst thing they could do is try to understand me because then they would misunderstand the church and I didn’t want to put my friends in the middle of something that was unnecessary but very human. So, I walked away too and that has to be understood.
Funnily enough, I could see something of my bi-polar going way back to when I was 17 and I was at a very good school in Sydney and all of a sudden I decided I had to leave and I left at the end of year 11. I’ve had almost no contact with that school ever since.
The same thing when I left the ABC and the same thing when I left Hillsong. There is a part of me: I just cut my ties and run.
In realising this I have to take responsibility for my actions and not blame others for my sense of isolation. This is a difficult lesson to admit. I must have hurt so many people. However, no matter how I set about leaving I always come back to believing that i made the right decision.
You wrote some of our generation’s favourite songs. They are ones we all sing in Church. How does that make you feel?
Weird. I’ve always been a musician and always written songs but it hadn’t really defined me all that much, so it was very weird when all of a sudden I was writing songs that were defining me. My claim to fame in the early to mid 80’s was that I was a former cameraman with the ABC. I worked on virtually all their programs for 10 years, so that was my claim to fame.
Then I wrote The Power of Your Love and The Heavens Shall Declare and off it all went. And I have really badly battled with it at times because I would feel it placed on me a responsibility to try to be someone I wasn’t. And that was hard and unnecessary, but I would still feel this pressure. People would come and tell me these stories and I wouldn’t know how to answer.
The way I relate to it now is that I just feel like I have very successful children, which I gave birth to. They’ve now gone and travelled the world, they’ve made a huge impact in their own right and I look back remembering their birth, but looking at their independence. I think that’s by and large how I relate to it now.
Many of the songs you wrote, you now sing with revised lyrics. Why?
Well, I suppose it’s because I remember who I was when I wrote the song. I remember my approach to God and I remember what was a real disfunctionality. Yes, it was the result of an undiagnosed illness, but it was also an error of theology. An error of grace or rather an error of works in grace.
When Paul says in Galatians, “You foolish Galatians.” ‘You silly things. It had to be done by the Spirit; what are you doing completing it by works?’
Well, that was me. I sort of felt like it was a one-time grace or two-time grace. You went back to God asking for forgiveness, you hung your head in shame, but then you tried to prove yourself worthy of it all. I was constantly striving and therefore constantly burning out.
I was so fierce on myself. I would just push myself and push myself and I would never receive any comfort because I would always be measuring myself and coming up short. I didn’t count myself worthy of comfort. I could never be than man of god that significant others were telling me I should be.
In the middle of this sad and broken time I became aware, ever so gently, that grace was embracing me. I started to realise that I hadn’t fallen from grace, I had fallen into it. I was no less righteous; I had simply lost my sense of self righteousness. Yes, there were consequences but I became increasingly aware that Jesus had come to give me hope and to help me to be accountable to all these consequences.
So, grace became my only anchor, sort of like lifeboat drill. When you’re a sailor and you do lifeboat drill it is usually in an Olympic swimming pool, but when you are in the middle of Bass Strait, you suddenly discover how effective this lifeboat is.
And so the phrase, “Lord, I come to you,” I was saying that in frustration. “Oh Lord I’m sorry. I should be there with you but I’m not. Here I come again. I come to you again.” And then the prayer, “Lord, hold me close” is like saying “Please hold me close because I don’t think you are holding me close at the moment. I think perhaps you turned away again because you are as frustrated with me as I am.”
The wonderful truth is that the “Lord you come to me to let my heart be changed, renewed flowing from the grace that I found in you” that the “weaknesses that I see in me are being stripped away by the power of your love.” Isn’t that so wonderful? Sometimes I wonder if we simply don’t understand what God has already done for us in Jesus.
So I changed that song to a confession of what God has done. It’s not “hold me close” but “you hold me close”. No matter how dry and disappointed I am, to be able to say to myself, “It’s okay, he’s holding you. You’re depressed, life is tough, but nothing’s changed between you and God. You’re not a disappointment.” And perhaps that also relates back to my experience with my father.
You would hope every Christian, certainly evangelicals, would be pleased that you are looking for ways to ground your songs in God’s word, because if they are not Scriptural we should not be singing them. However, in the case of The Power of Your Love, and I’m thinking in particular of that line you mentioned: “Lord I come to you,” Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all you who are weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” So the idea of us coming to God is not un-Biblical, therefore there is no need to completely re-hash all of your songs is there?
No, but you see the greatest thing about Jesus saying “Come to me,” is he wasn’t calling to me from the other end of heaven waiting for me to work and struggle all the way to him. Jesus came to mankind to say “Come to me”. And that’s outrageous when you really think about that. God put on flesh to come personally. I mean, he could have sent a postcard, he could have written in the sky, but he came personally to dwell as a human being.
Jesus has come to hold us close, to draw us to his side, to comfort us, to speak healing to our wounded souls. He comes propelled by a mission of such eternal and unconditional love.
For this current generation, singing in church has become synonymous with worship. Why is that? And how would you describe the current state of Christian music?
First, I think we need to look at ‘worship’ again. And I think ‘worship’ as our response to Jesus could be a whole lot of other things before we turn it into songs. The intimacy between a husband and wife is expressed many ways before it becomes a love song and that love song will speak of a life of love rather than a love song about love itself.
And I think we’re in error here. I’m not saying don’t sing or play. I think that’s fabulous; it gets down into the soul. Many of the lyrics we sing are great theological truths, mind you, many of them aren’t, but if we could get a grip on God becoming flesh to come to us, Jesus living a life of grace, love, forgiveness, mercy with his last dying words announcing forgiveness and then living a life that responds to his life. How wonderful could that be.
For me worship is my response to the grace of Jesus. This response is my choice to become gracious, to become loving, accepting, merciful, forgiving. This journey needs grace for every step, however, this journey will start its work of transformation in me and hopefully through my life: a worship that flows from grace becoming graciousness in us. A worship that is seen in our relationships with the world around us. A worship that cries “grace” to our leaders, the media, our friends and our enemies.
Does this mean we don’t sing anymore? Not at all. It simply means that our songs are more about worship rather than being worship. Yes, of course there is time for celebration, for adoration, for a corporate time of singing songs of love thankfulness but we will be on a wonderful journey discovering that there is so much more than we have ever realised. I think our songs would be more wonderful, but I think our worship lives would be even more wondrous and I think the way the church’s interaction with our world could be far more a work of love than us simply singing songs on a Sunday morning.
So now I’m wondering what elements have to go in to make a good Christian song. Is it difficult to write a song which has both a good “hook” and good theology?
Yes it is. I must admit, these days I write from experience first, or from meditation first. Almost every song I write is about brokenness being repaired in the most extraordinary way. So I start, I suppose, with my own sense of being overwhelmed with who God is when I see him from my own brokenness.
Then I try and work that into good poetry that has flow, a little bit of repetition but especially that each line contains a picture that is bigger than the words. Then, working that into a melody that can fly; that can float, so you can close your eyes and be caught up in just a beautiful melody.
Or you can turn the melody off, just read the words and become caught up in the words: a piece of poetry. But you put it together and I suppose I hope that people go, “Oh, my goodness, that’s me. How wonderful!” That it hits their life, not just their soul.
You have been a Christian for over 30 years. You’ve had highs and lows. Looking back over that time, what can you say you have learnt about God and what advice would you give to a young Christian about how they should prioritise their life?
What I’ve learnt about God is just the overwhelming amazement that God would do the Jesus story. He didn’t have to. He just didn’t have to. He lived in this huge creation of trillions and trillions of stars and constellations and whatever. That God would make a bee line to broken people finds me simply awestruck!
It appears to me that Jesus did not come to establish Christianity, he did not come to start a movement, he came to meet one person here, and one person there. Broken people, hopeless people, people like me, like you. Jesus did not come to reward us; there’s no reward in it. He came to give hope and he came to affirm the most unlikely people.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why he was crucified, because he put everybody’s nose out of joint, he was a disappointment to so many people who wanted a messiah in the image of their needs and theologies. Jesus was not a preacher of righteousness, he was a bringer of hope to the unrighteous, the poor in spirit. He didn’t start a campaign to overthrow the Romans, he affirmed a Roman centurion as having more faith than all of Israel.
He allowed a prostitute to anoint him with oil with her hair… Jesus was decidedly “ungodly”. This Jesus excites me because the more I look at him, the more I meditate on his life, the more grace I see.And that’s a growing thing, it continues in my life. This is the truth, it’s not just something I’ve learnt to do to get myself seminars & concerts. It is a constant source of amazement.
So I would say to a young Christian, “Look, this is different to any other relationship you’ve got. You don’t have to prove yourself worthy. You don’t have to dress up, know the right words to say or the right actions to make. You are totally free to be just who you are. You don’t have to have faith. There is no hurry. Ahead of you is a lifetime of discovery. Jesus offers his life, he holds it out to you. It’s free. It’s a gift. God comes to bring hope to the good times and the bad times, the times when we make mistakes, some truly awful mistakes. This Jesus shows us an acceptance that gives us the hope that we can walk forward with his comfort, his peace, his grace and his love. I have found that, in my life, a life that has had its considerable challenges, that I am slowly being renewed and transformed. And that’s really quite amazing.
Geoff, thank you for what you have given in service of the kingdom over the years and for enriching the lives of so many congregations who have sung your songs over and over. We pray the Lord will bless your ministry in whatever time remains. May you make the most of it.
Thank you for the opportunity of being part of what you are doing. And if you hear of anybody who wants that message, you know where I am.
Once again, Brian Houston comes across as an unstable man, ruling with an iron fist in a movement where he demands things are done his way. If Geoff Bullock was his “best friend”, why did Brian Houston and his empire destroy him? Why is everything always about Brian Houston? How come Houston is the victim… again?
Geoff Bullock repented of his sins and sought reconciliation to those he damaged. However, Brian Houston still refuses to show any sign of the Holy Spirit. No conviction of sin. No repentance. No seeking reconciliation of those he has destroyed.
Only lies, slander and cover up in his books and on national television. Lastly, if this is the way Brian Houston treats his “best friend”, you have to wonder how he treats people he doesn’t know.
This is an important news article worth revisiting to understand how Hillsong has NOT changed or evolved from its cult-like status nor has Brian Houston repented of his lying tongue.
Prosperity heretics preach Christ teach Jesus Christ is rich, Christ died to make you rich, that you must tithe and demands that you are to “bless to be a blessing”.
We wish to remind our readers how the EIC and propaganda-driven “Bible” Society tried to give the impression that Brian Houston was not a Prosperity heretic and cult leader. In an article titled, ‘Brian Houston: There’s a huge difference to living rich and living blessed’, John Sandeman, reported in 2014,
“Brian Houston has never believed in a “prosperity gospel”, he told Eternity at a press conference marking the start of this year’s Hillsong Conference…
“The prosperity gospel is… not a term I’ve ever heard used in our church in any context whatsoever,” he says referring to Hillsong Church, suggesting the term has been invented by critics.
“There’s really only one gospel: it’s the gospel of Jesus, the gospel of grace.
[…] And so, when it comes to personal blessing, I see it the same way. God blesses you to be a blessing… that’s the essence of what we are all about.” [Source] (Emphasis ours)
However, in this 2006 article below, the reporter accurately summarised the Prosperity Gospel:
“The message of Hillsong’s prosperity gospel is: the richer you are, the more you can help others.”
It’s getting tiring having to expose the continual lies of Brian Houston. Why the BibleSociety, John Sandeman and other Christians keep putting up with this compulsive liar and blasphemer would escape anyone’s reason.
HILLSONG EX-LEADER: GEOFF BULLOCK
We think it is important to publish Geoff Bullock’s response to the piece below, correcting some of the errors that were reported about him and to also reveal insights into the inner workings of the Hillsong cult (name of recipient withheld):
Hi _________,
I was surprised at how gentle the article was, considering all the things that we all spoke of. A few things to correct, my income comes from CCLI not APRA. CCLI is a worldwide copyright lisence to make sure that copyright law is being adhered to but in a very fair and cost effective way. Brian does not wear Valentino suits as far as I know. He does however have expensive tastes, which of course is his perogative. The issue is simply about being honest about the “blessings” he has recieved from the properity doctrine he preaches. Why preach it, then hide it?
Now to your questions:
I just read the article in the ‘Weekend Australian’ . It is revealing (and I would not be surprised if the author had picked up on some of the information on this site!).
We had several interviews, face to face and over the phone during the last seven months.
The place is obviously strongly controlled, the evidence might suggest (Lance do you like my wording!) that it is a money laundering cult.
No, i truly believe that in their heart of hearts they are doing what they perceive to be the “work” of God. They would se the “blessings” as from God, and the “cursings”, as in the artice, this website, myself and others, as from the Devil.
Thanks for your conviction and courage to speak out. I pray that you will find peace and strength.
Me too. Nervous about the statements they will make and it’s affects on my family. I thought Janine was incredibly brave. She deserves a medal.
I have some questions:
1. Are you attending a Church now?
Are you kidding? No. Jesus finds me wherever I am, and I am learning to recieve him wherever I am. Personally,I find more spirituality outside the church than I found within it. Please, no one take offence. I am endeavouring to be responsible to my cynicism.
2. Can you elaborate on what you meant that they stole your soul’ ?
I was continually challenged to be “the man that God called you to be”, rather than to be “the man that God forgave”. I was forced into a mould that never ever fitted me. In the last year or two,(94-95) I was pounced on almost daily for any diversion from the strict regiman of cold and callous vision driven leadership. It broke my heart to have to be a bastard to maintain the church vision. After I left I sought out many of my ‘victims” and sought forgiveness.
3. When you wrote songs like ‘Power of Your Love’ – where did the muse come from…God? Yourself? or were they just manufactured melodies?
I felt so flawed and I just wanted to crawl into the arms of God and feel accepted, loved and ok. It was a very honest song… it still is, I now wouldf see my perspective on it as being somewhere between the first version and the second. Both are relevant.
4. You obviously had a ‘worldy’ life style, reading occult books etc. before you joined Hills. What do you think is worse/more dangerous to your soul…Your pre HS lifestyle, Your Christian Lifestyle within HS?
Hillsong without a doubt. But only because I was not given the permission to have doubts, to question, to wrestle with my spirituality. God was defined by them and therefore anything outside their teaching was frownes upon, shunned or totally rejected. Part of this has to be seen in the context of my desperate desire to be approved. I was a very willing student.
5. In the midst of the commercialisation – are people truly finding the Gospel within HS?
The Gospel finds us through the work of the Holy Spirit. I wrote one of most successful songs on the toilet… the message of the life of Jesus is not the property of the church. It is the image and nature of God. I believe God can make himself known to us without our grandiose efforts.
I am very keen to hear HS’s reply. I am a little nervous…
As crowds – and their cash – flood into Hillsong Church, former members tell Jennifer Sexton about the heavy price they paid for leaving the flock.
Whoa! I wanna know you, I wanna know you today.” With that catchy lyric, the lead singer rips into a punky-pop riff on his electric guitar as the band and side-stage choir spring to life. Over a sea of raised arms, five cameras capture the action as the audience, in time with the lanky, tousle-haired lead singer, belts out a thundering chorus: “You’re the best thing that has happened to me.”
No, this isn’t MTV live. It’s Hillsong Church, part religious service, part rock concert, part multi-media conglomerate. Every weekend at Hillsong churches in Sydney 19,000 people sing, clap and jump through a two-hour tribute to a God who rocks. As traditional religious congregations shrink, Hillsong attendance expanded more than 13 per cent in 2004.
There are no images of Jesus being tortured on the cross at Hillsong headquarters in Sydney’s Baulkham Hills, no vaulted ceilings. The audience sits not on wooden pews but on 3500 cushioned theatre seats. Under each one is an envelope and credit card form for believers to donate their pre-tax 10 per cent salary tithe. Ushers flood the aisles and pass black buckets down each row. The buckets have holes in the bottom, presumably to discourage parish-ioners from giving coins. And the rivers of cash keep flowing: donations and salary tithes to Hillsong were $15.3 million in 2004; merchandise, CDs, books and DVDs, returned a further $6.93 million, while total church revenue has now passed the $50 million mark – all tax-free thanks to Hillsong’s charitable status. And then there are the donations – it’s anybody’s guess how much – from the owners of the $40 million Gloria Jean’s coffee empire, Nabi Saleh and Peter Irvine, who are both senior members of Hillsong, the former as treasurer. The message of Hillsong’s prosperity gospel is: the richer you are, the more you can help others.
But along with the expanding congregation and profit margins have come the ugly rumours that won’t go away – of underhanded treatment of disaffected church members, of attempts to silence critics, of profiteering from the faithful. Only last month, the Labor Mayor of Blacktown in Sydney’s west, Leo Kelly, accused Hillsong of attempting to pressure him, via an ALP state official, to dampen his criticism of their use of public funds.
Hillsong’s main benevolent arm, Hillsong Emerge Ltd, has been accused in federal and NSW parliament of misappropriating commonwealth grants worth millions of dollars. And a former member, Robert John Orehek, was charged with fraud after allegedly fleecing believers of up to $20 million, which he sank into failed and fraudulent property investments.
The king of Hillsong evangelism, Brian Houston, bounds onto the stage, clad in a dapper suit. “The faithful are in church tonight,” he declares, surveying the auditorium. “Awesome!” The background music fades away and the house lights brighten. People reach into their bags for Bibles and notebooks. Houston savours a silent pause. He’s been thinking about the seven deadly sins. “What would be my deadly sins, destructive in the lives of people?” Avarice, gluttony and wrath are apparently old hat. Houston instead says the sins are negativity, regret, complacency. Just a few weeks later, Hillsong’s formidable marketing arm has swung into action, releasing a four-CD set of Houston’s teaching on the sins that undermine potential in people, retailing for $35 in the church shop.
Houston has become the most influential pastor in the Pentecostal movement, and is a household name to born-again Australians. He also has political pulling power: Prime Minister John Howard, Treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW premier Bob Carr have all addressed the Hillsong congregation in recent years. In the last federal election, Hillsong member Liberal Louise Markus narrowly snatched from Labor the seat of Greenway, next to Hillsong’s Baulkham Hills church.
After the service – there are 30 every week in the two main Sydney venues, Baulkham Hills and Waterloo – people pour into the Hillsong shop. Half of the back display is devoted to the CDs and books by Houston and his perky wife of 28 years, Bobbie. Their bright white teeth and perfect hair seem to shine down from dozens of book and CD covers. In Bobbie’s CD set She Loves and Values her Sexuality she proclaims, “You might be happy with your weight but is your husband happy with your weight? … How are you going to do anything that might surprise your man when you need a hydraulic crane just to turn over in bed?” Boob jobs and face lifts get the thumbs up, as do good sex and a husband who says sorry with an impromptu spending spree at the jewellers. It’s a feel-good message, and when it doesn’t feel good, money makes it better.
Geoff Bullock knows all about Hillsong’s brand power and merchandising. He helped build it, even coming up with the name Hillsong more than 17 years ago. He launched the church on the international Christian music scene when he wrote most of the original songs, such as Power of Your Love, Refresh My Heart and Have Faith in God. For the church’s first decade he was Brian Houston’s best friend. For eight years, until a messy split in 1995, he ran the music department, nerve centre of “the brand”. Although his songs are now rarely played at Hillsong, they are popular on the international Christian music scene and Bullock lives off composition royalties paid through APRA (the Australasian Performing Rights Association).
When I meet Bullock at a sunny, beachside terrace cafe he is edgy and constantly apologises – for knocking the table as he crosses his legs, for being unable to eat much of his salad. A short, tidy man with intense blue eyes, he is approaching his 50th birthday. He hasn’t slept much in anticipation of revealing the backstage story behind the “miles of smiles” at Hillsong. “It was very nice being at the top of the tree but it just … ” He pauses, swallows. “This is going to sound dramatic. They stole my soul.”
Bullock’s moment of religious revelation struck in 1978 at Sydney’s Koala Motor Inn, where Houston’s father, Frank, was preaching. Bullock was 23 and had been touring the east coast in a rock’n’roll band, smoking dope and reading Carlos Castaneda’s stories of magic and sorcery. “It was wild,” he recalls of that November night. They sang hymns to a funked-up polka tune played with live piano, drums and bass. In the latest fashion blue safari suit, at the centre of the throng was the bespectacled 56-year-old preacher, Frank Houston, who declared that he used to smoke cigarettes before Jesus saved him. “People were trying to put cigarettes in his mouth,” says Bullock. “He lay down and he spat them out. It was a show of great confidence and charisma.”
Bullock was a needy, naive Sydney North Shore lad, schooled at the Presbyterian Knox Grammar. He believed in a higher being and was willing to try anything to reach Him, including cannabis. “I was absolutely ready for brainwashing. I was absolutely ripe for ‘love bombing’.” So, just two hours after walking into his first evangelical experience, Bullock answered God’s call, and his 21-year-old Anglican girlfriend from Lithgow in country NSW, Janine, followed. Individually, in back rooms, they were counselled. They had been born again and were now committed to Jesus. Satan would fight to get them back, they were warned. “I went in with a confident world view and I came out quite rattled. My whole belief structure had been turned on its head.”
He said goodbye to his rock’n’roll band, Arnhem, and to smoking, drinking and playing the occasional gig in topless bars in Sydney. A church leader came to his house and threw out his extensive collection of music – Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd, The Beatles. “I had this wonderful group of friends, a great lifestyle, going listening to bands. All of that was viewed as being ‘of the devil’ … I didn’t lose some friends, I lost all my friends.”
Five years later, when 29-year-old Brian Houston set up his own church, Hills Christian Life Centre, in the newly suburban northern hills of outer Sydney, Bullock was a founding member. Young Houston was inspired by Tony Packard, who established a high–profile Holden car dealership in the area at Baulkham Hills with the catchcry “Let me do it right for you.”
Bullock was among the 70 believers at Pastor Brian Houston’s first service on Sunday, August 14, 1983, at Baulkham Hills Public School. From here a Pentecostal phenomenon called Hillsong was born. Bullock sang, played piano and was music frontman on stage for at least three services every Sunday. He recorded the church’s first six albums, three of which went gold, one platinum. He also ran the Bible college curriculum. For this he earned no more than $45,000 a year from the church and gave back a pre-tax tithe of 10 per cent, even when he couldn’t pay his growing family’s bills. Now he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after being expunged from the church he helped build.
Bullock and Janine married in 1980 and had five children within a decade. At the height of his Christian stardom in the late 1980s to mid-1990s, Bullock toured the United States, Britain, Asia and New Zealand with an expanding repertoire of songs. For Sydney Sunday services they rose at 6am to set up the band and audio equipment and then rehearse ahead of morning, afternoon and evening church services. He was too busy to notice he was failing as a husband and father. “We had to put our parenting on hold,” he says.
Bullock began to feel like a real estate agent selling a manufactured ideal of God rather than one he really believed in. “I think Hillsong’s still got it, this feeling that God smiles a bit more when we’re singing our songs, and we’ve got good hairdressers, dentists, cosmetic surgeons. I came to think that the patron saint of Hillsong was Gianni Versace.”
Christmas Eve 1994 was the end for Bullock. He had rehearsed the choir and band to play the standard church repertoire for three Christmas services. Just hours before the first service, Houston discovered Bullock had not rehearsed traditional Christmas carols. “He just tore me to shreds and then left me to do three services,” Bullock says. Houston got his Christmas carols that night, but it finished his partnership with Bullock.
Once Bullock departed, a campaign of whispering about his morality and sexuality filtered throughout the church. When he broke up with Janine a few months later, his subsequent relationship with a married woman (whom he later married) was, he says, twisted to become the reason he had been forced out. At the same time, Houston preached about dark forces intent on undermining the church. “They ran a huge campaign to discredit me,” fumes Bullock.
Janine says she changed her phone number to stop friends from the church calling to tell her Bullock’s departure and their marriage break-up was against God’s will. She once hid in the wardrobe when a woman visited her house a second time. “I couldn’t bear her preaching at me again, telling me that this wasn’t of God.”
Janine still goes to Hillsong once a month, but says she can’t help but be cynical about the facade of spirituality compared with the lack of compassion and understanding she experienced. But, she adds, “there’s some beautiful Christian people who attend there”.
Geoff Bullock isn’t the only founding member of Hillsong to question its methods and ethics. For a decade until 1991, Stephen Grant was paid $100 a week to preach at Hillsong and was dean of the church’s Bible college. He admits that, as an eccentric, he was a strange fit for a fundamentalist church.
Still, Grant came from a wealthy family – he now runs a successful art gallery in Sydney’s Redfern – and had pledged (but never paid) $150,000 to the church’s building fund. He had a beautiful wife and was entertaining at the pulpit. He wore loud, colourful suits and sometimes a red leotard. When he blew on the congregation, the entire room of people would fall over.
But he realised his views diverged from Houston’s when they travelled together to the US in 1988. “In the US, I saw the wholesale commercialisation of born-again Christianity. I went, ‘Nah, truth is becoming a commodity here. It’s not a question of internal search, it’s a question of external commodification.’” But Houston liked what he saw and soon Hillsong’s fundraising became increasingly glitzy.
“I started to question what the bloody hell I was doing,” Grant, 46, reflects. “I was preaching all over the world. But I was getting really depressed.” He had lost both his parents and his marriage was under pressure. Grant subsequently discovered that, in the inner sanctum of the church, his wife was being encouraged to recognise that he did not belong.
His clinical depression was seen by the church as a sign of faltering faith. “I knew there was nothing wrong with my faith, and yet I was told: ‘You are not believing in Jesus enough.’” The Hillsong website backs up Grant’s claim. “Depression,” it declares, “is a supernatural spirit straight from the devil.”
When Grant broke up with his wife and left the church, like Bullock, he had to start life all over again, outside the Hillsong fortress. “People find a lot of healing in the church. I don’t have a problem with that. But … if you are kicked out, you are f—ed.”
The Christian message of the shepherd seeking lambs lost from the flock doesn’t apply at Hillsong, says Grant. “It was forbidden for me to be visited by the members of the church. Damn the lost lambs.” His recovery took five years.
The sentiment is echoed by theology student Penny Davis, who took years to rebuild her self-esteem after a shattering experience at Hillsong, which began in 1995 when she was just 20. Women who don’t fit Bobbie Houston’s mould at Hillsong, or those brave enough to challenge the male hierarchy, are swiftly brought into line, she says. With ambitions to become a pastor, Davis quickly realised she needed to change her wardrobe. “To get anywhere, you had to become a clone,” she quips. “I grew my hair, started wearing make-up and doing all the nice girly things.”
Life became very full, and it was all about church. She moved into a share house with four other young women from Hillsong, volunteered two days a week at church and did paid work with the Hillsong community youth centre three days a week, earning a weekly income of $600, less the 10 per cent salary tithe. “The pressure at Hills to be glamorous and have everything as well – it’s quite difficult on a low income.”
Just months after joining, she slept with a woman from the church – one who later confided about the liaison to a youth leader. Davis was immediately counselled that homosexuality was a sin. “I was just so vulnerable,” Davis says simply. She was assigned a mentor, who claimed she had successfully corrected her own “dysfunctional” sexuality. They spoke at least once a week, when Davis had to confess any lesbian fantasies. The mentor also read Davis’s diaries. After the “problem” persisted, she was put into an 18-week “ex-gay” program called Living Waters, then conducted at Hillsong. Once a week she attended the Living Waters group sessions, where she was told to focus on problems in her past which may have triggered her sexual “dysfunction”. “I was committed to getting these things fixed,” Davis says.
Three years of counselling, sessions with a psychiatrist and group therapies failed, however. Davis resorted to grabbing joyful glances at a video of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras while her flatmates were out, she laughs. “I started to subconsciously realise that this was not going to change … the shame and guilt were eating me up inside.”
Davis decided her sexuality and spirituality could never be reconciled at Hillsong and made the momentous decision to leave. In response, her Hillsong friends sent a barrage of text messages quoting the Bible on the “sin” of homosexuality. She was kicked out of her house and then her friends froze her out, ignoring her emails and phone calls. “She’s gone, we have restructured, there’s no need to continue communicating with her” was the message sent to her Hillsong friends by church leaders, claims Davis.
Social worker Tanya Levin, who spent her teenage years at Hillsong, says that those who question church policy are first shouted down and later ostracised if they persist. Levin has been commissioned to write a book about growing up in an evangelical church. For research, Levin attended the annual Hillsong women’s conference Colour Your World last March and took offence when poor children in Africa were being marketed for sponsors in the audience on the basis of being cute. “They are actually for life, not just for Christmas,” Levin shouted before walking out of the auditorium.
When she wrote an email the next month to the Houstons asking to meet them on a regular basis in order to gather material for her book, she got this curt response from the general manager, George Aghajanian: “We are aware that during your attendance at our recent Colour Your World Women’s Conference you caused a significant disruption. It is for this reason that we ask you to refrain from attending any future Hillsong church services or events; including accessing Hillsong’s land and premises at any time.” Aghajanian closed by saying the church’s leadership and staff were unable to provide assistance for the book.
When Levin subsequently attended a Sunday evening service, a pastor asked to speak to her outside. When she attempted to get back in to retrieve her bag, two security guards blocked her path, picked her up by the elbows and escorted her off the premises.
Brian Houston refused numerous opportunities to comment for this story, except to say: “More than 19,000 people come to Hillsong Church every weekend and I know that the overwhelming majority of them would testify to a healthy experience for both themselves and their families. They would also speak of the constant positive impact they see on others who are being helped through Hillsong Church and its many community programs.”
There is no doubt that Hillsong – or, closer to the mark, its loyal parishioners – perform many good deeds. The church has a number of charitable arms, including Mercy Ministries, a residence for girls dealing with unplanned pregnancies and eating disorders established five years ago by Hillsong’s Darlene Zschech, the country’s most popular and successful Christian singer. Although recently mired in controversy, the church’s main benevolent arm, Hillsong Emerge, has helped people find jobs and recover from addictions. Hillsong attendees sponsor about 2600 children in Uganda, and generously gave $500,000 to victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
But the criticism seems likely to persist as long as Hillsong makes $50 million in revenue, pays no tax and yet spends just $2.67 million on “welfare services”. It is not clear how much Mercy Ministries gets from Hillsong, but its total donations were just $304,840 in 2004. And Hillsong Emerge’s 2004 accounts show it got only $646,666 from the Hillsong Foundation Trust and about that again in government grants.
And Houston has been less than transparent about his own income. Until last year he had failed to declare that he and Bobbie had sold their own personal property holdings to a Hillsong-related entity of which he is a director, Leadership Ministries Incorporated. Bobbie sold a Bondi beachfront apartment on the same block as Jamie Packer’s pad to the not-for-profit LMI for $650,000 in February 2002. The couple also sold a waterfront property on the Hawkesbury River in October 2004 to LMI for $780,000, making $535,000 on their 1998 purchase price. They continue to use both these properties.
LMI is the tax-free entity Hillsong set up as a vehicle to pay the couple’s income. In breach of Office of Fair Trading reporting rules, no financial statements had been lodged since its inception in October 2001. Only after the property deals were uncovered by The Australian were the accounts filed in August last year. When the numbers came in they revealed the golden couple got a measly net income, after donations, of just $21,658 in the year to December 2002, $12,739 in 2003 and $69,041 in 2004.
If this is all there is, then how do the couple and two of their three children pull off a property buying spree worth $1.738 million over 12 months in exclusive beachside Bondi? On August 26, 2003, son Joel, who is a lead singer in the Hillsong band and earns song-writing royalties, bought a $676,000 apartment a few minutes’ walk from the LMI-owned apartment, paying $276,000 up front. That same day Brian and Bobbie paid $650,000 with a collateral mortgage for the apartment next door to Joel’s. Exactly a year later, son Ben borrowed just $90,000 to buy a $412,000 apartment a few streets from the other family holdings.
And questions persist about why it took 30 years for Brian Houston’s father, Frank, to be exposed over a complaint of sexual abuse of a boy in his homeland of New Zealand. Houston says his father was banned from preaching in 2000, when he confessed. But Frank continued to live on the Hillsong account, in church digs, until his death in November 2004.
Houston has hiring and firing rights over the board, and has appointed some influential and rich men to control the church’s empire (there are no women, he says, because one of the board members won’t allow it). The general manager of Hillsong – psychologist George Aghajanian – now oversees a $100 million property portfolio. And Hillsong has its sights on lucrative new markets in Europe – it opened a church in Paris last year and already has churches in London and Kiev.
Geoff Bullock says he can’t help but admire Houston. “He works hard and is gifted. He deserves to be a wealthy man.” But when told how little Houston is claiming as net income Bullock is incredulous – especially knowing the charismatic pastor’s fondness for Valentino suits and first-class plane tickets. And then there are the thousands of dollars in “love offerings” Houston regularly personally pockets for every talk he gives on the international Pentecostal speaking circuit. “Why not just be open about it?” Bullock asks.
As Bullock watches the church lurch from one controversy to the next, he has a sense of foreboding. He muses there is a valid expectation that the church should pour more money into helping others and less into promoting itself and amassing wealth. “In the end, it’s just sad,” he says, looking into his coffee cup. “It does look like it’s approaching a train wreck.”
Source: By Jennifer Sexton (Senior writer of ‘The Australian’), The High Cost of Faith, News Limited, Published 29/04/2006.
“[…] and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God.” Numbers 15:39-41 (Emphasis ours)
Hillsong is a classic example of what idolatrous Israel looked like in the Old Testament. In similar fashion, Hillsong are following after their own hearts and their own eyes, which they have inclined to “whore after”. The result of this never ends well.
In departing from the Word of God, they are prone to wonder into paganism, which sadly, this article will examine. Which pagan religion is Hillsong whoring after? The answer is the pagan religion of Roman Catholicism.
If Hillsong really take their worship “in spirit and in truth” seriously and want to be considered a Christian church, they will need to start cleaning up their beliefs and those they invite to speak at their conferences.
We really do hope Brian Houston and Hillsong really are listening, because at the moment, nothing can be further from the truth. This article will be looking at the speakers that “preached” at Hillsong Conference 2015, proving that Hillsong do not hear from God as their advertising suggests.
Before reading this article, we strongly suggest that you read Hillsong unashamedly and unethically manipulating Christians to embrace pagan Roman Catholicism (often through ecumenism):
Rick Warren recently spoke at Hillsong Conference 2015.
He said the following shocking statement in a Catholic video while referring to Catholics and Protestants, (see link to previous article):
“The most important thing is, if you love Jesus we’re on the same team.” [Source]
Muslims love ‘Jesus’ and Mormon’s love ‘Jesus’. Does this mean that Warren includes them on his team? Catholics also love ‘Jesus’, in fact this is a picture of the Catholic ‘Jesus’ (Eucharist) in the flesh, in a golden Monstrance.
Warren seems to think that this is the same Jesus of the Bible. However, if you love the Catholic ‘Jesus’ then you love an idol.
All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Isaiah 44:9
We showed in a previous article that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Eucharist turns into the actual flesh of Jesus.
Rick Warren is openly supporting the Catholic Church and Hillsong openly embrace him. Surely Warren would have nothing to do with the worship of an idol like the Monstrance right?
Wrong! This photo is from the ‘Proclaiming the Gospel’ Newsletter, September 2014 issue and it clearly shows that Warren has no problem in watching Catholic television and the worship of the Monstrance!
Here is the full video that shows Warren’s shocking support for the Catholic Church including calling Pope Francis, ‘our Pope’ and saying, ‘If you love Pope Francis, you’ll love Jesus”! This video is worth watching in full.
This is an example of Warren’s favourite TV show, ‘The Chaplet of the Divine Mercy’. Notice how the entire show revolves around praying to the blasphemous idol Monstrance, another Jesus.
So the question needs to keep being asked why Hillsong keeps Rick Warren to teach in their church?
This Twitter post is another example of Warren’s true position on how he views the Pope. Is not God our Father?
“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” Matthew 23:9
This Twitter post shows Warren promoting ‘Evangelical Catholicism’, saying that it should be read by all Christian leaders!
Source: Stand Up For the Truth, http://standupforthetruth.com/2013/03/is-rick-warren-promoting-catholic-evangelicalism/. (Accessed 03/12/14.)
So what is Rick Warren? Is he a Christian or a Roman Catholic? For him to flipflop over something this important only reveals that he is “unstable in all his ways”.
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8
This next video shows Warren supporting the ‘Catholic come home’ campaign.
So what is Rick Warren? A Christian or a pagan Roman Catholic? This is important to consider when you read these next twitter posts from Rick Warren
This shows that Warren believes leadership has nothing to do with ‘what you do’, or leading by example. (This teaching would have suited Frank Houston’s ministry, no accountability for any actions. It also suits Brian Houston’s approach in dealing with his father and his choice to preach a twisted gospel.)
JOSEPH PRINCE
Hillsong Conference 2015 also had Joseph Prince speak. Brian Houston’s close friend is also leaning toward Catholicism.
Watch this next video as Joseph introduces blasphemous ‘Mother Grace’ doctrine. Joseph Prince is more subtle than Warren when it comes to promoting Catholicism; however he is just as dangerous.
Prince”…Having the same mother. We have the same Heavenly Father and the same mother grace, and our mother is not law.”
This is what Prince says about repentance in one of his best sellers, “Destined to reign, The secret to effortless success, wholeness and victorious living”.
“Stop examining yourself and searching your heart for sin” [Page 187]
“There are still people who insist that we have to preach on repentance. Well, I disagree!” [Page 232]
Please watch this wonderful video of Justin Peters explaining how speaking things into existence is blasphemous. The video at 37:30, includes Joseph Prince explaining his version of repentance.
According to Joseph Prince, we receive everything back even to overcome death itself, by the work of ‘eating’!
“One time the Lord spoke to me… How can a small piece of bread and a cup make all the difference in the world? The simple act of eating and the Lord says, ‘All the tragedies known to men, all the cancer, the diabetes, the heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, even poverty even death it’s self all came about because of Adam simple act of eating from the wrong tree’. If that is so doesn’t it stand to Holy reason then that God would, through the last Adam, Jesus Christ, cause us to receive everything back from the simple act of eating, mmmmm Amen.” Source: Joseph Prince, Sermon: ‘Health and wholeness through the Holy Communion’, (Disc 5 DVD series.)
“Only those who are saved are the ones chewing His flesh, drinking His blood”. Source: Joseph Prince, Sermon: ‘Health and wholeness through the Holy Communion’, (Disc 5 DVD series.)
We do need to keep in mind that this may be a language issue. However, the parallels are there. Joseph Prince is again pushing pagan Roman Catholic doctrine, as the Roman Catholic Church teach that the Eucharist becomes Jesus in the flesh and that salvation is through the Eucharist.
MARTIN SMITH
Next we come to Martin Smith the former singer of Delirious, who was invited as a guest to Hillsong Conference 2015.
Smith fits right into Hillsong culture as Delirious performed at World Youth Day 2005, just as Hillsong did in 2008.
Not only did they perform but they were even included in the official Catholic, World Youth Day CD ‘Building One World’. (Note: the last time anyone tried to build ‘one world’ God intervened at the Tower of Babel.)
The Catholic building of ‘one world’ is all part of their ecumenical agenda of uniting all religions under themselves (and with a spokes person like Warren; they are well on their way of achieving their goals).
This is a screen shot from the Delirious? Web site promoting their performance and also showing the ‘Building One World’ album cover.
In a previous article we showed that Hillsong assisted the Catholics in worship to a false god and idol in 2008. Below are photos from World Youth Day 2005, showing the idol god that Martin Smith and Delirious? helped Catholic’s worship.
“At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.” Matthew 24:23
These are some blasphemous quotes that were spoken by the Pope at that same World Youth Day about the false god in the Eucharist and Monstrance. This is what Martin Smith is aligning himself with and supporting.
Prior to Mass, the Pope said the following:On Sunday 21st August 2005, the same day that Martin Smith performed.
“The new prayer – which the Church calls the “Eucharistic Prayer” – brings the Eucharist into being.”
“The Eucharist must become the centre of our lives.”
“This is because the Eucharist releases the joy that we need so much, and we must learn to grasp it ever more deeply, we must learn to love it.”
“Let us pledge ourselves to do this – it is worth the effort! Let us discover the intimate riches of the Church’s liturgy and its true greatness…”
“Through your love for the Eucharist you will also rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in which the merciful goodness of God always allows us to make a fresh start in our lives.”
Source of quotes: Pope, The Vatican, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20050821_20th-world-youth-day_en.html, Published 21/08/2005. (Accessed 26/07/2015.)
SO WHAT ARE WE SEEING AT HILLSONG?
Essentially what we are seeing at Hillsong are leaders leading with closed minds and closed bibles, following after pagan mystical experiences and slapping “Jesus” on anything that sounds spiritual. This is incredibly dangerous considering the men that he Houston family like to snuggle up to.
If Hillsong wants to be considered Christian in any way, shape or form, they need to break their Roman Catholic church connections.
This is an important thing to do considering the fact that Hillsong are sidelining Jesus at the expense of being in the “divine” presence of the pope himself.
Below are some recent comments of Bobbie Houston from her instagram page, showing that she thinks it’s “sweet” when one of her followers says how great it is that the Pope is reaching out to Hillsong and “we are one church in Christ. Makes me proud to be Catholic.”
Interestingly, it also shows that Brian and Joel Houston did in fact meet the Pope in 2008.
Hillsong continues to support and embrace Catholicism by not speaking out against it and embracing other “Christian” leaders who promote it.
If this is not enough, the Hillsong Conference FaceBook post shows that Hillsong are ‘excited’ to unite with Catholicism and that Hillsong are championing the cause of the local Catholic church.
If Hillsong is truly a Christian and Protestant church they would make a stand. Instead, they remain as “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14).
Again and again, we have proven that Hillsong only care about accumulating people who “will not endure sound doctrine,”are only “wanting to have their ears tickled” and accumulating “for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires”.
So who was listening to God at Hillsong Conference 2015? The answer is: none.
“… preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” 2 Tim 4:2-4
NOTE: ALL SCREEN GRABS WERE TAKEN BEFORE 27/07/2015.
Source: Bobbie Houston, Instagram, Published 25/07/2015. https://instagram.com/p/5iYEQ8IY1K/, (Accessed 25/07/2015.)
The stupidity behind this comment once again exposes that Hillsong leaders like Bobbie Houston have no clue who Jesus is nor knows how he will return in the last days. Jesus Himself said that he did not know when He will return but only His Father will know the day. Christ cannot return to earth through any form of temptation.
“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Matthew 24:36
Oddly enough, it was SATAN that used temptation to lure Jesus:
“Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Matthew 4:5-7
The above scripture highlights the fact that Jesus submits to the Word and will of His Father. Jesus neither submits to temptation whether it be from Satan or us. It only goes to prove that truth means nothing to Hillsong except to sell their own vain imaginings to gullible Christians.
Chris Rosebrough from Fighting for the Faith has recently reviewed Hillsong’s disgraceful and blasphemous Good Friday service.
“When the secular media critiques a pastor or church movement like Hillsong and stuff like that, they have limited ability to do this and what I mean by limited, is that they’re not theologians, they’re not dealing with an audience that understands doctrine and theology. But the thing they do understand is greed. And so the way they portrayed Hillsong is as just this money-grubbing machine and it’s all about the giving. And that probably is the case. The issue is that, you know, I look at this and it’s like that’s just a symptom, the root is the bad doctrine and theology. And so we’ll listen to Bobbie Houston from their Good Friday service, we’ll listen to her as she addresses the area of giving.” Chris Rosebrough
We would like to give special mention again to the mind of Bobbie Houston who had the audacity to twist this gospel scripture to elevate financial giving above the salvation of Jesus Christ:
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Cor 1:17-8
“The truth is when you actually think about it, the message of giving in like manner is also foolishness to those who are perishing but to us is the power of God.” – Bobbie Houston, Good Friday service, 2015.
Chris Rosebrough does another outstanding sermon review exposing how Brian Houston refuses to proclaim the Christian faith and the message of Christ and him crucified accurately.
• Creflo’s 65 Million Dollar Theological Tantrum
• John Hagee Warns of Imminent World Economic Crash
• Bobbie Houston Says Giving Is Our Power
• Patricia King Discusses Divine Wealth
• Sermon Review: Silent Saturday by Brian Houston
Source: Chris Rosebrough, Fighting for the Faith, http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2015/04/creflos-65-million-dollar-theological-tantrum.html, Published 23/04/2015. (Accessed 24/04/2015.)
Hillsong is a classic example of what idolatrous Israel looked like in the Old Testament. In similar fashion, Hillsong are following after their own hearts and their own eyes, which they have inclined to “whore after”. The result of this never ends well.
Hillsong Church Watch 