8/6/2021- 1:00 p.m.
Brian Houston faces criminal charges in Australia as police allege he knew about, and covered up, his late father’s molestation of minors.
The charges are just the latest in a series of scandals Hillsong has dealt with this year.
Last November, “hypepriest” and pastor to the stars Carl Lentz best known as Justin Bieber’s former spiritual advisor lost his job after it emerged that he had been “unfaithful in his marriage.”
Lentz’s affairs catalyzed his firing, but then came the allegations of exploitation and assault — against Lentz, and against another staffer, Jason Mays.
In 2019, police in New South Wales began looking into reports that Houston had “knowingly concealed information relating to child sexual offenses,” per their statement.
Though Hillsong now a sprawling global entity with churches in 30 countries had not responded to the Cut’s request for comment at time of publication, it has addressed the matter before.
In a previous statement: “The abuse by Frank Houston occurred many years before Hillsong church existed. It is an indisputable fact that Pastor Brian is not a perpetrator of abuse, has never been accused of abuse, and took immediate action to expose and stop a child abuser.”
In May, a Boston pastor named Leona Kimes accused Lentz of bullying her during the seven years she worked as his nanny and housekeeper and said that he “physically violated” her through “unwanted and repeated sexual touching of her intimate areas.”
Vanity Fair also reported that Lentz had made a volunteer “extremely uncomfortable” with his flirtatious behavior in 2017, while Mays allegedly assaulted a Hillsong College student in 2016.
He will go to court in Sydney October 5th.
