(RNS) – The board of directors of Hillsong, the global megachurch and music empire, co-founded by Australian pastor Brian Houston, issued a statement on Friday (March 18) addressing two complaints about Houston, including an accusation that the married pastor Spent time. alone in a hotel room with a woman in 2019.
In the statement, which came as the story broke in the Australian press, the Hillsong board said “dealing with two complaints against Pastor Brian over the last 10 years”, saying everyone has been investigated by a board, or “a body appointed by the Global Board of Directors, ”and treated confidentially.
The other lawsuit alleges that Houston flirted with an employee over a decade ago via SMS.
Prior to the release of the statement, Hillsong reported a video conference with 800 Hillsong staff around the world, in which interim senior pastor Phil Dooley, who leads the church while Houston is on leave due to ongoing legal issues, who first discussed. Time with the church as a whole. Dooley explained the lyrics, according to Australia’s ABC News, as having the effect, ‘If I were with you, I’d love to kiss and cuddle you’, words of that nature.
The second incident, as reported in the staff meeting in detail, took place during Hillsong’s annual conference at Qudos Bank Arena in Homebush, New South Wales, in 2019. According to ABC, Dooley said Houston “drank with a group.”
“Later that evening, Pastor Brian tried to get into his room but did not get his room key and eventually knocked on the door and the woman of the room,” Dooley said. “She opened the door and he went into her room.”
“The truth is, we do not know what happened next,” ABC told Dooley to staff. “The woman did not say there was any sexual activity. Brian said there was no sexual activity but he was in the room for 40 minutes.
Asked for comment, Hillsong showed the public board statement.
The Hillsong Board statement said Houston, 67, became “disoriented” after taking more than the prescribed dose of an anti-anxiety prescription mixed with alcohol. “This led to him knocking on the door of a hotel room that was not his, entering this room and spending time with the female owner,” the statement reads.
The board’s statement said Houston was also under the influence of sleeping pills – “on which he developed an addiction” – at the time he sent the inappropriate texts. The text messages eventually led to the employee resigning, the statement said.
At the staff meeting, Dooley said staff at the time filed a complaint with Hillsong general manager George Aghajanian. After the resignation, the employee could not find work immediately and, Dooley said, Houston personally paid “a few months’ salary” as compensation.
The board statement said Houston apologized to the staff member. “We have also worked closely with Pastor Brian to ensure that he receives professional help to eliminate his dependence on this drug, and this has been successfully achieved,” the statement reads.
After the hotel room incident, the board of directors said it was an “integrity unit” investigation, and that “although all parts of the complaint could not be complied with, important elements of the complaint were sustained, and the conduct was serious.” “
The board statement also said they agreed to return the money the woman had donated to the church, “to bring the resolution in a spirit of love and care”, and “their request for confidentiality” they get it. ” The statement said Houston had returned the money to the church.
At the time, Houston agreed to take a period from the leadership and “take specific action,” but ultimately, according to the statement, he did not take all agreed steps, “which led to the board taking further action. End 2021. “
The statement did not say whether Houston would return to his position in the church.
The incidents are the latest controversy to disrupt Hillsong, a Pentecostal powerhouse Houston founded with his wife, Bobbie, in 1983. The church, which has reportedly raised $ 150,000 in services at 30 locations, also has some of the most popular hymns produced. evangelical churches around the world, including “Oceans,” “What a Beautiful Name,” and “Shout to the Lord.”
In January, Houston announced that he was taking a leave of absence from his pastoral duties during 2022 to prepare for his trial in Australia on charges that he had not reported sexual abuse.
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“The result is that the Hillsong Global Board of Directors feels that it is in my and the church’s best interest for this to happen, so I have agreed to abdicate all ministry responsibility until the end of the year,” Houston said in January. 30. Video announcement.
Houston was charged in August 2021 with concealing a serious, indictable insult from another person. Police say his late father, Frank Houston, also a preacher, innocently attacked a young man in 1970. Court documents claim that Houston knew of his father’s abuse as early as 1999 and, “without reasonable excuse,” do not disclose this information to the police.
Houston has long denied revealing his father’s abuse.
“I think I’m pretty much a tolerant person, but one thing I really never had tolerance for is sexual abuse, and especially child abuse,” Houston said in a 2005 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “So, I do not think you would have beaten me in some way with a bigger blow to the gut.”
According to Australian news sources, Houston’s trial will be held at the end of 2022.
Founder of Sydney-based Global Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, leaves the Royal Commission and hears institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Sydney, October 7, 2014. (Mick Tsikas / AAP image via AP)
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More recent concerns have been raised about how Houston and Hillsong have handled allegations of abuse within the church and about the behavior of its pastors, some of whom are celebrities in their own right.
Carl Lentz, former lead pastor of Hillsong NYC, was fired in November 2020 for “leadership problems and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral error.” Lentz later admitted to having an extramarital affair. Shortly afterwards, Ranin Karim, a Brooklyn jewelry designer, discussed her relationship with Lentz on “Good Morning America”. Next month, comments from Brian Houston, in which he called Lentz “a narcissist”, suggested that the affair was not Lentz’s only offense.
Six months later, a former employee at Hillsong claimed she had been subjected to “bullying, abuse of power and sexual abuse” during the seven years she worked as a nanny in Lentz’s home. Lentz denied the allegations.
Reed and Jess Bogard, lead pastors at Dallas Location, also resigned abruptly in 2020, leading to Dallas Church being closed for the foreseeable future. The couple served in New York with Lentz and “did not meet the obligations and standards of Hillsong Church,” church officials later said.
In April 2021, Darnell Barrett, a pastor for the Montclair, New Jersey, Hillsong campus, resigned after sharing photos of himself on Instagram stories with a group of friends, including a woman who once worked for him in the New Jersey Church volunteered.
Anna Crenshaw, an American student who went to Hillsong College in Sydney, told RNS earlier this year that she was inappropriately touched by a Hillsong employee, Jason Mays, the son of the church’s head of human resources, at a party in early 2016. Crenshaw told Hillsong leadership about the incident for two years and told the RNS in May that she believes there is “a lack of institutional accountability” and a cultural tendency in Hillsong “for the” higher ” or more connected to appreciate.
Crenshaw said that while the Hillsong leadership took their accusation seriously, they acted slowly and that Houston initially looked dismissive of Mays’ behavior, saying that Mays was “just young, drunk, stupid and in a bad situation. . ” Mays pleaded guilty to indecent assault in 2020 and received two years of probation and mandatory counseling.
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