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Tag Archives: celebrity pastor

Protesting Brian Houston’s Deception at Hillsong Melbourne, 12 July, 2015

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Nailed Truth in Hillsong Conference, Hillsong Scandal

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

Ady, Benjamin Ady, Brian Houston, celebrity pastor, Hillsong, hillsong conference, Hillsong Conference 2015, Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill, protest, protester

I want to say thank you to Church Watch for inviting me to write about my experience protesting Brian Houston’s deception at Hillsong Melbourne today. I hadn’t been planning to do so, but the exercise was useful for me in processing my own experience. Also, I just want to be really clear that I’m not a Christian, do not attend any church, and am not affiliated with Church Watch, but instead have graciously been asked to write a guest post.

Benjamin_Ady Hillsong Protest Brian Houston 2

Hillsong protester: Benjamin Ady

For a bit of background, feel free to read my post about my experience of being deceived by Brian Houston, Australia’s most powerful celebrity pastor, here http://burningreligion.com/2015/07/07/my-experience-of-being-deceived-by-australias-most-powerful-celebrity-pastor/ .  In short, I spearheaded what grew into a massive media campaign in Australia to protest Hillsong Church giving misogynist and abusive ex-megachurch-pastor Mark Driscoll a gigantic public platform at Hillsong Conference in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. Under gigantic pressure, Hillsong’s senior pastor Mr. Houston agreed to not have Mr. Driscoll appear at the conference. Then he went ahead and interviewed Mr. Driscoll at the conference anyway. In retrospect, one can see that his public  announcement that he was cancelling Mr. Driscoll’s appearance was very carefully worded so as to lead protestors and Australian media to believe Mr. Driscoll would no longer be appearing at the conference at all, whereas hidden in the details of his deceptive and misleading language was a loophole he’d left himself whereby he could interview Driscoll on camera, offsite from the conference, and then broadcast the interview at the conference and still not have technically “lied”.

I found this obvious deception quite outrageous, and given that I’d actually shown up at Hillsong Melbourne services with a gigantic “Thank you for listening and cancelling Driscoll’s appearance” sign, I felt I really couldn’t just let the deception go, but for my own sake, and because I want to live in a world where popular spiritual leaders can’t just completely get away with lying to the public, I felt I had to go back one more time to retract my thanks and publicly say “Brian Houston lied to me”. Some friends of mine in Melbourne, 3 Christians including one pastor, also found the deception outrageous and agreed to join me in protesting it. So the four of us stood outside Hillsong Melbourne Worship services this morning with our protest signs. Here’s a photo of us.

Benjamin_Ady_Protest

The fourth member of our little group, my wife Meg, is taking the photo. Here’s another including her.

Benjamin_Ady_Protest2

Here’s the protest signs right after they were made the other night

And here’s the other very silly one referencing Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” we made a bit later.

Benjamin_Ady_Protest3As you can see, we intended to protest with good humor =).

Some things I realised/noted/learned:

  • One thing that struck me today was the gigantic gulf between the take of so many people I know, who found Mr. Houston’s deception quite outrageous, and the take of every single Hillsong insider to whom I spoke today, which involved justifying and minimising and denying Mr. Houston’s deception. My brilliant friend Alister Pate helped me understand this gulf in terms of M. Scott Peck’s framework from “The Road Less Traveled”, which proposes 4 stages of human spiritual development.
  • As at my previous protests at Hillsong, 98%+ of people going into and out of Hillsong services basically entirely ignored us. I’m trying to understand this from their perspective, and it makes sense to me. I think most people probably just aren’t in the psycho-emotional space, most of the time, to engage with protestors. I mean I think the vast majority of Hillsong Church goers are probably reasonably nice people who are involved with Hillsong each for their own reasons, and that likely most of these reasons are fairly excellent and reasonable. Most people just aren’t like me. If I see a protester at something, I’m instantly overwhelmed with curiosity, and massively attracted to that person, whatever they might be protesting, because I see in them a kindred spirit who has the psycho-emotional capacity to be an unafraid outspoken outsider. It takes a certain amount of fortitude and energy to do this sort of thing and ask people to engage with you when you know most of them are going to disagree. I’m okay with most people being different from me and not wanting to engage.
  • My other realisation, about myself, this morning, is that I’m totally done with Hillsong/Mr. Houston now. I’ve spent the last 10 weeks or so engaging with them, to the best of my ability–first in asking them not to give this abusive ex-pastor, Mr. Driscoll, a platform, then in saying thank you when they acquiesced, then finally in publicly calling them out when it turns out they lied. This has sucked up a lot of my energy and time, and a chunk of my money as well. I thought for a long time that Hillsong/Mr. Houston and I were having a civil conversation of sorts. But when Mr. Houston lied, and then when all the insiders I spoke to at Hillsong Melbourne this morning (the <2% of folks who did engage) mostly spent the conversation defending, minimising, and denying Mr. Houston’s deception, as well as trying to proselytise me, psychoanalyse me, tell me I was robbing myself, and changing the subject, I realised I’m no longer willing to keep trying to have a civil conversation with these folks. I’m very happy to gently cut them right out of my life, in order to create space for more delicious, engaging, authentic folks. So you likely won’t see me writing/posting about, protesting, or otherwise engaging with Hillsong Church any further for the foreseeable future, unless something changes quite radically on their side of the conversation. I’m usually fairly happy to, as my friend Jim Henderson (author of “Question Mark, Why the Church Welcomes Bullies and How to Stop It”, which I highly recommend) puts it, stay in the room with difference. But not indefinitely with toxic difference.

Why is controversial Mark Driscoll speaking at Hillsong Conference 2015 (Part 1)

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in Associations

≈ 49 Comments

Tags

Brian Houston, celebrity pastor, Furtick, Hillsong, Hillsong Conference 2015, houston, Mark Driscoll, Rock star, Steven Furtick

Brian Houston announced that Mark Driscoll will be speaking at Hillsong Conference 2015. One has to wonder what on earth Brian Houston is thinking. The web is full of reports on the controversial conducts of men like Steven Furtick and Mark Driscoll. Notice how many of Brian’s friends conduct themselves in similar ways to Brian Houston as listed in this report.

1. They appear to have a, “[…] lack of transparency around [the pastor] and church funds.”

The media pressured Brian Houston to disclose the following – “My total personal income from Hillsong Church in its entirety is just on $150,000 including fringe benefits plus currently the use of a Holden Caprice, along with just over another $150,000 from Leadership Ministries which makes up my complete personal income.”). [Source]

2. They appear to have, “[…] non-disclosure agreements that […] pastors and staff members must sign when they depart”

3. They appear to lack anyone “[…] who holds [the pastor] accountable on money or any other issue.”

4. They appear to blur lines, “[…] between advancing the gospel and advancing the preacher.”

5. They appear to enjoy, “massive popularity”.

Frankly, the teachers joy should be seeing salvation and people growing into the fullness of Christ. Is it only because these preachers share the same totallatarian-like methods that they consider each-other valid teachers?

In the below article, we would like to point out that we do not endorse the New Age writer William Paul Young.

USA Today reports,

‘Rock star’ pastors lose luster: Column

It’s not easy being a celebrity pastor these days with that pesky Internet around.

Consider the struggles of Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Faced with mounting accusations circulating online — plagiarism, misusing church funds to prop book sales, silencing anyone in his church with the temerity to question him — Driscoll has urged his followers to stay off the Web. “It’s all shenanigans anyway,” he explains.

Steven Furtick, a megachurch pastor in North Carolina, and Dave Ramsey, an evangelical finance guru, have been taking hits, too, as have the wheeler-dealers on the Preachers of L.A. reality show. This, against a backdrop of culture shifts creating strong headwinds against the leader-and-follower model typified by today’s Christian superstars.

What are a megapastor and his followers to do? Remembering the biblicaladmonitions against idolatry would be a good start.

Some media outlets have dubbed Driscoll a “rock star” among pastors. He is hip, brash, very interested in sex and, for a reverend, unusually irreverent. He doesn’t throw televisions out of hotel windows in the manner of bad-boy rock musicians. But he comes close in the rhetorical sense, tossing out insults about gay people, women and his theological rivals.

Ongoing enterprise

Also true to his rock-star status, Driscoll enjoys massive popularity. His Mars Hill Church (including its 15 franchised satellite locations) attracts nearly 15,000 weekly. Driscoll’s podcast has 250,000 regular listeners worldwide, and his 2012 book, Real Marriage, topped a New York Times best-seller list.

Ah, that chart-topping book. Driscoll has admitted to using more than $200,000 in church funds to hire a consultant to game the system, boost sales and add that magical reference — No. 1 best-selling author — to his glittering résumé. This questionable allocation of church money is indicative of a wider problem that rankles those in Driscoll’s growing flock of critics: the lack of transparency around Driscoll and church funds.

His salary? Unknown. Who controls church funds? Good luck finding that out. And because of the non-disclosure agreements that Mars Hill pastors and staff members must sign when they depart, little is known about who holds Driscoll accountable on money or any other issue.

One of the problems with celebrity pastors is that it’s very difficult to draw a line between advancing the gospel and advancing the preacher. When a famous pastor grows his audience and fame, doesn’t this mean that more people are hearing his saving message about Christ?

Well, yes.

But as revealed by the long history of church authority and its periodic abuse, the dynamic also gives the preacher on the pedestal a too-easy justification for seemingly everything he wants to do. You don’t want to be against God’s will, do you?

Scrutiny shared online

Now, however, there’s a wild card that older-school religious celebrities did not have to contend with. Thanks to the Internet, any disgruntled current or former follower can write a scathing blog post, add nasty comments to reader forums or, as creator of@FakeDriscoll does, voice a spoof Twitter account in the target’s name. This can take a toll — as demonstrated by Driscoll’s church, which has had to lay off staff due to declining attendance and giving.

Because of the Internet, “the audience is now at least as much of a celebrity as the pastor, if not more,” says Jim Henderson, a Christian author and producer in the Seattle area who is convinced that the era of the celebrity pastor as spiritual paragon is waning. Henderson produces a live show called Where’s God When … featuring a very different kind of “celebrity” Christian — William Paul Young, author of the megaselling faith-themed novel The Shack.

Young is, seemingly, everything the megapastors are not: small of stature and ego, quietly reflective, and open about his painful journey and struggles (including his being a sex-abuse victim).

Henderson might be right about this being the beginning of the end for celebrity megapastors. Until that process runs its course, however, fans of the Driscolls, Furticks and the rest have a big question to ask themselves. Who, ultimately, are they following? Jesus? Or their pastor?

Source: Tom Krattenmaker, ‘Rock star’ pastors lose luster: Column, USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/31/rock-star-pastors-church-celebrity-internet-column/13422869/, Published 4:16 p.m. EDT, 31/07/ 2014. (Accessed 01/08/2014.)

Chris Rosebrough Tackling Hillsong’s Celebrity Pastor Syndrome

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Nailed Truth in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

carl, Carl Lentz, celebrity, celebrity pastor, Chris Rosebrough, Fighting For The Faith, hillson, Hillsong Church, Lentz, Rosebrough

Carl Lentz: Image vs Substance

from Chris Rosebrough PLUS 1 day ago ALL AUDIENCES

Episode 1 of the Fighting for the Faith video blog. This episode deals with Carl Lentz and the bigger problem of image vs. substance in the celebrity pastor culture of much of the Body of Christ.

For more information about Brian Houston’s bible twisting & the Word of Faith Heresy, click this link bit.ly/1gAQ1Zz

For more and deeper information about good Christology, click this link bit.ly/1bKD8XO

Source: From vimeo.com/83440952, Carl Lentz: Image vs Substance, Accessed 06/01/2014.

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