“It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt, yes or no, Brian Houston?”

It is not uncommon to hear Brian Houston, his leadership, and Hillsong’s adoring fans telling people, “judge not lest you be judged”, and “if you are without sin, cast the first stone”. And Hillsong would say that their movement never “demonizes” Christians for questioning the powers that be. At least up until now….

Brian Houston recently tweeted the following,

Leaders goal: Toughen up and lead when the heat is on; yet stay authentic and transparent. Better days are coming!

Source: Brian Houston, @BrianCHouston, Twitter, https://twitter.com/BrianCHouston/status/500981890208129024, Published 5:26 AM – 17 Aug 2014. (Accessed 10/09/2014.)

Live your life in a transparent & authentic way. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear & nothing to lose!

Source: Brian Houston, @BrianCHouston, Twitter,https://twitter.com/BrianCHouston/status/497431278049062912, Published 10:17 AM, 07/08/2014. (Accessed 10/08/2014.)

Leadership doesn’t bully. – doesn’t manipulate – doesn’t ‘control’ – & doesn’t crush or diminish others! Leadership leads!

Source: Brian Houston, @BrianCHouston, Twitter, https://twitter.com/BrianCHouston/status/512647263483887616, 18/09/2014 10:00AM. (Accessed 20/09/2014.)

Let’s see how Brian Houston went.

UNFATHOMABLE IGNORANCE 

It’s astounding to think that someone like Brian Houston can sit on an annual salary of $300,000 a year and operate out of such willful ignorance.

Brian Houston Responds To The Steve West Media Saga

Not only that, our most recent articles looked at how far removed Hillsong is from the orthodox Christian faith. The first article below is a report on how Hillsong wrote the song ‘This I believe’. The second article is a testimony of someone’s experience at Hillsong explaning how they discovered their rich historical Christian faith once they left the Hillsong bubble.

Mega-fail: Mega-church hiding under mega-rock

“I was a Christless, creedless, and clueless Christian in Hillsong”: A testimony of God’s grace.

With all this in mind, we can begin to understand where Brian Houston is speaking from.

 THE ‘DEMONIZING’ INTENSIFIES:

Below, Brian Houston tweeted lyrics from his church’s latest song, “This I Believe”.

A commenter, Matt Rollings responded to Brian Houston’s tweet.

@BrianCHouston Words matter. You do know modalists affirm the same, right? @piratechristian

Source: Matt Rollings, @Matt_Rollings, Twitter, https://twitter.com/matt_rollings/status/512196877391917056, 4:10 AM – 17 Sep 2014. (Accessed 20/09/2014.)

Matt Rollings summed up our thoughts exactly on the issue of this song. Furthermore, Rollings bought Pastor Christ Rosebrough from Kongsvinger Lutheran Church into the discussion, also an apologist for his radio show Fighting for the Faith.

So what was Houston’s response to Matt Rollings?

Rollings obviously replied to Brian Houston. And Brian Houston responded with this:

If you aren’t laughing now at least you should be raising your eyebrows with this comment. Brian, yes, you can find the word ‘modalism’ in both the Oxford Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. And you most definitely find the definition of modalism in Christian encyclopedias or systematic theology books.

Obviously ‘the great white shark’ Houston felt out of his league and started chomping and thrashing around on Twitter.

It is important to notice the words he used around “pharisaical”. Pride? Well, obviously. But intellectual? Being intellectual makes you a Pharisee? Weren’t the Pharisees false teachers who loved to parade a form of godliness (in a similar way before Brian Houston removed all his shocking comments from this Twitter conversation)?

By the way Brian, nothing is ever ‘deleted’ permanently from the internet i.e. your ‘deleted comments’, you do realize that? We found them as easily as we found ‘modalism’ in the dictionary. Just saying.

In response to @BrianCHouston, Matt Rollings introduces Prof. Nathan Busenitz (Instructor of Theology. B.A. M.Div. Th.M – The Masters Seminary) into the ring…

@BrianCHouston “religious people?” As a pastor are you not familiar with church history? http://thecripplegate.com/modalism_oneness_and_td_jakes/ … HT @nbusenitz
Source: Matt Rollings, @Matt_Rollings, Twitter, https://twitter.com/matt_rollings/status/512247653078286336, 7:32AM, 17/09/2014. (Accessed 20/09/2014.)

Ps Chris Rosebrough joined the ‘conversation’ to help explain to Brian Houston exactly what Modalism is, Matt having alerting Chris in the twitter stream as to what Houston had said earlier.

BECAUSE HILLSONG IS OPEN TO “CONVERSATION”…

It appears about this point in time, Brian Houston blocked Matt Rollings from commenting on his wall. In response, Matt put out these tweets:

@BrianCHouston Brian, you have blocked me. I can’t respond to you. Please please!!! pick up a theology text book.

Source: Matt Rollings, @Matt_Rollings, Twitter, https://twitter.com/matt_rollings/status/512267540177776640, 8:51AM, 17/09/2014. (Accessed 20/09/2014.)

But the conversation did not stop there. This, from the Pulpit and Pen blog site:

P&P Transcript: Brian Houston Asks if Modalism is a “Made Up Word”

The following is a transcript of a segment from Thursday’s Pulpit & Pen Program.

Brian Houston, pastor of the Hillsong United – whatever it is – “church,” had a conversation with one of my friends, Matt, from Canada “eh.” On Twitter, Brian said, “I believe in God the father, I believe in Christ the Son, I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe all three are one.” This is Hillsong’s attempt to say, “Hey! We have a theology! We’re not watered-down and all about worship music!” And so, he’s going to show his theological prowess by affirming the Holy Trinity, and the way he phrased it left open room for interpretation. Matt says to him, “Words matter. You do know that modalists affirm the same, right?” Like, “You know that modalists can actually agree with that, right?”

So what do you think Brian Houston said? Now, he has like 354,000 people following him on Twitter. Yes, three hundred and fifty-four thousand people following him on twitter. Probably, when you count churches and people and followers throughout the world, we’re talking about a huge number of people look to this man for spiritual guidance. I’m not talking about some podunk pastor from Goober Town Arkansas (yes, there is a Goober Town, Arkansas) or Possum Grape or Bald Knob or some place like that in the middle the country. We’re talking about a huge international so-called “church.” Here’s the main guru. What do you think was [Houston’s] response when Matt was like, “Could you be more specific? Modalists agree with this.”

This is his response… This is his response; “Are you one of those religious people who make up words?” He says, “Not even a dictionary has the word modalist in it.”

Listen, if you’re a layperson I understand you may be like, “You guys are snobs, just because he doesn’t know a word.” Listen, if you’re layperson, if you don’t understand… I’m glad you listen to the Pulpit & Pen Program because you need to know what this means. But if you’re a pastor and you don’t know what the word means, get educated. A leader of worldwide movement and you don’t know what modalism is? Why are you the leader of a worldwide movement bounding off towards anything, let alone heresy? How did Brian Houston become a pastor? When Brian Houston became a pastor, did he look a lot like the guy that should have preached that night and they accidentally put him behind the podium instead? Is there a body double? Is he a Manchurian candidate?

He doesn’t know what modalism is, so he actually looks it up and he says “there are no definitions available in the dictionary for modalism?” He said [to Matt], “I don’t even see the definition anywhere? Did you mean medalist or modelist?” And then, finally his response was to (of course) block him for being one of “those religious snobs who throw around big words” like “modalist” – three syllables, for crying out loud. It’s three syllables.

Is it too much to ask that we project leaders who are people that have read a theology textbook at some point in their life? Who might know what ‘modalism’ or other major heresies are? Because you can quote the creeds all day long, Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed, to make yourself sound Orthodox, but you haven’t the ability to provide an apologetic against Oneness Pentecostal heretics like TD Jakes? You see, Satan hates the Trinity – he can’t stand it – and every cult under the sun attacks the Trinity (Mormonism Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc…) every single cult attacks Trinity. So you’re the leader of a movement? Was has come of us? That’s why you, sir -Brian Houston – are in the Daily Downgrade.

Source: P&P Transcript: Brian Houston Asks if Modalism is a “Made Up Word”, Pulpit and Pen, http://pulpitandpen.org/2014/09/18/pp-transcript-brian-houston-asks-if-modalism-is-a-made-up-word/. (Accessed 19/09/2014.)

Baptist Pastor Jordan Hall notified Brian Houston of winning the daily downgrade award. Brian seemed to receive the award well…

In the above screen grab you can read this cheeky response from Pulpit & Pen:

@BrianCHouston The P&P staff gives our apologies. What do you mean by “evil”? We can’t find it in the dictionary. Is that a word?

Source: Pulpit & Pen, PulpitAndPen, Twitter, https://twitter.com/PulpitAndPen/status/512685576579854336, 18/09/2014 12:32 PM. (Accessed 20/09/2014.) 

Brian Houston chomped back with this comment:

Right. So Jesus refers to Christian ministers and elders as heretics in Romans and Galatians… Huh? What is Brian Houston thinking? Didn’t the Apostle Paul write Romans and Galatians under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

Pulpit & Pen later followed with this comment:

@BrianCHouston @drewchinski Are you sure you’re an expert on heresy to be accusing us of it? “Is Modalism a word?”

Source: Pulpit & Pen, PulpitAndPen, Twitter, https://twitter.com/PulpitAndPen/status/512708352275513344, 18/09/2014 2: 02PM. (Accessed 21/09/2014.)

Yet another twitter response to Brian Houston came from Baptist Elder Gene Clyatt:

If you’re ignorant of both theology & church history, “pastor” is not the job for you… @PulpitAndPen @BrianCHouston

Source: Gene Clyatt, @Shinar_Squirrel, Twitter, https://twitter.com/Shinar_Squirrel/status/512689297724407808, 12:47 PM – 18 Sep 2014. (Accessed 21/09/2014.)

Tony Miano from Cross Encounters also weighed in and rebuked Brian Houston,

. @BrianCHouston To which savior are you referring, Brian? Jesus of the Bible, or the false Jesus of TD Jakes?//REPENT!! (Acts 20:29-30)

Source: Tony Miano, @TonyMiano, Twitter, https://twitter.com/TonyMiano/status/512955263653908480, 6:23 AM – 19 Sep 2014. (Accessed 21/09/2014.)

Now Brian likes to think of himself as being transparent. Authentic. Rising above, when under fire. So what did you think Brian Houston did when he was ‘under fire’ by Christian pastors, brothers in Christ who rightly, and with polite restraint, corrected Brian Houston’s ignorance about modalism?

What does he do? He deletes his tweets. Calls other Christian pastors demonic.
Sounds like he has the “spirit of a pioneer”.

DOCTRINE IS IMPORTANT

So why the big kerfuffle over Brian Houston’s original statement about the Trinity? In light of Brian Houston’s ‘confusion’ about the god of Islam, former Muslim Abdul Saleeb really demonstrates why it is important for Christians to understand the Trinity in this Ligonier podcast:

Opposing Foundations

We thought we would leave you something that Matt Rollings put together with his encounter with Brian Houston.