Less than a week after the Hillsong board revealed that cofounder Brian Houston had sent improper text messages to a staff member and spent time in a woman’s hotel room, the Hillsong board announced Houston’s resignation.
The board stated on its website Wednesday (March 23) that it accepted Houston’s resignation and noted “there will be much emotion around this news.”
Houston, 68, a native of New Zealand, started Hillsong Church in 1983 with his wife Bobbie in the Sydney suburbs. The Pentecostal megachurch presently has 30 locations worldwide, with an average weekly attendance of 150,000. Hillsong’s music ministry has produced some of the most popular worship songs heard in evangelical churches worldwide, including “Oceans,” “What a Beautiful Name,” and “Shout to the Lord.”
“Regardless of the circumstances surrounding this, we can all agree that Brian and Bobbie have faithfully served God for decades and that their ministry has resulted in millions of people around the world being impacted by the power, grace, and love of Jesus Christ,” the Hillsong Church Global and Australian boards stated in a statement.
The allegations against Houston were first reported in the Australian press late last week, and in a March 18 statement, the Hillsong board acknowledged it had been “dealing with two complaints made against Pastor Brian over the last decade,” each of which was investigated and resolved confidentially by a board member or “a body appointed by the global board.”
Brian Houston’s family continues to support him following his resignation from Hillsong.
The board ascribed the initial complaint, alleging Houston flirted with a staff member via text messages a decade ago, to Houston being under the influence of sleeping medication—”on which he had formed a habit,” the board stated. Houston apologised to the staff member who quit as a result of the flirting, according to the board’s statement. “We also worked closely with Pastor Brian to ensure he received competent assistance to successfully discontinue his use of this medicine,” the statement stated.
The second incident reportedly occurred in 2019 at Hillsong’s annual conference, which was held at the Qudos Bank Arena in Homebush, New South Wales.
According to a statement from the Hillsong board of directors, Houston became “disoriented” after taking more than the prescribed dose of an anti-anxiety medication combined with alcohol. “As a result of this, he knocked on the door of a hotel room that was not his, entered, and spent time with the female resident,” the statement added.
According to the board, an investigation “by the integrity unit” was conducted following the incident, and Houston agreed to step down from leadership for a period and “take specific action,” but he ultimately did not follow through on all of the agreed-upon steps, “resulting in the board taking additional action in late 2021.”
Houston said in January that he will resign from his pastoral duties in 2022 to prepare for his trial in Australia on charges of failing to report his father’s sexual abuse. Houston and the board made no mention of the two allegations against Houston at the time, claiming merely his need to concentrate on the trial.
Houston was charged in August 2021 with hiding another person’s serious, indictable offence. According to police, his late father, also a preacher, indecently abused a young guy in 1970. According to court filings, Houston was aware of his father’s abuse as early as 1999 and neglected to report it to authorities “without justifiable justification.” Houston has denied any attempt to conceal the abuse. His trial is expected to begin in late 2022.
Additionally, the board stated in its statement that it has committed to conducting an independent assessment of its governance structure and practises.
Concerns have been raised about Houston and Hillsong’s handling of abuse allegations within the church, as well as the behaviour of its pastors, several of whom are celebrities in their own right.
Houston’s resignation announcement made numerous references to Bobbie Houston’s leadership at the church, but made no indication of her future role.
Houston’s resignation occurred on the same day that Australian news site Crikey released an article alleging that Reed Bogard, the former pastor of the Hillsong church in Dallas, Texas, raped a female church staff member. Crikey claims to have obtained access to a 30-page Hillsong internal inquiry on Bogard’s actions.
Bogard and his wife, Jess, abruptly resigned in early 2021, thereby closing the Dallas church for the foreseeable future. Hillsong and Houston first described the resignation as consensual and amicable, but church authorities later stated that the pair had “failed to live up to Hillsong Church’s commitments and standards.”
Hillsong did not respond to calls for comment on the Crikey claims and referred questions about Houston’s resignation to the public board statement.
In May 2021, a former staff member of Hillsong’s New York church came out with charges that former pastor Carl Lentz subjected her to “bullying, abuse of power, and sexual abuse” while she worked as a nanny in Lentz’s home for seven years.
The Houstons applauded the staffer for coming forward at the time and stated that they welcomed the “chance to grow in what is becoming an increasingly prevalent societal problem.”
Lentz, who co-founded Hillsong’s Manhattan church with the Houstons’ son Joel, had been sacked approximately six months prior for “moral failures” and confessed to an adulterous affair. Hillsong then commissioned an independent inquiry of Hillsong East Coast and Lentz, which Houston stated discovered “major areas” in which the New York City congregation “failed to reflect Hillsong global culture.”
And in Australia, Anna Crenshaw, an American student at Hillsong College in Sydney, was improperly touched at a party in early 2016 by a Hillsong staff member, Jason Mays, the son of the church’s human resources chief.
Crenshaw withheld information about the incident from Hillsong leadership for two years and told RNS in May that she believes there is a “lack of institutional accountability” at Hillsong, as well as a cultural propensity to “reward those ‘higher up’ or better connected.”
Crenshaw stated that while Hillsong leadership took her allegations seriously, they were hesitant to act, and Houston first appeared dismissive of Mays’ behaviour, stating that Mays was “simply young, inebriated, foolish, and in a poor situation.” Mays was sentenced to two years’ probation and obligatory treatment after pleading guilty to indecent assault in 2020.