Love your innuendo, but I have no concern about Morrison's influence on other Governments around the world, but I do question what influence Hillsong's Global Empire has on him and his thought processes when making decisions on behalf of Australians.
Maybe I should just join the LNP/Hillsong party and sing along. I just don't like the sound of millions of out of work Australians, comprising of many small business owners, singing for the supper.
FROM A SCHOOL HALL IN SUBURBAN SYDNEY, HILLSONG FOUNDER BRIAN HOUSTON HAS BLENDED COMMERCE AND CHRIST INTO A GLOBAL EMPIRE THAT’S DEFINING THE FUTURE OF RELIGION.
Buttoned up in his suit, at first Brian Houston looked a little uncomfortable, standing there on the White House lawn. But once he started speaking, it was as though God himself had put him there. And Houston might well have believed it, too.
In December 2019, the senior pastor and co-founder of Hillsong Church posted a video to Instagram after going into spiritual service for the most powerful man on earth.
“Well, here I am at the White House, never say never,” he said in his rasping, charismatic voice. “It was a great honour to have had the chance to go into the Cabinet Room and even into the Oval Office and to pray for the President of the United States of America.” This wasn’t about politics, he assured us, but the position. “And a significant man like the president of the United States can do with all the prayer that we can possibly give him.”
Arriving in Washington DC seemed like quite the feat for a pastor’s son from Auckland, but Houston’s journey to the White House had not been without its detours.
Three months earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House had turned down a request from Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Houston, whom he has called his “mentor”, accompany him to a state dinner with himself and President Trump.
“I don’t comment on gossip, honestly,” said Morrison at the time, refusing to confirm nor deny the reports, “it’s all gossip”. Morrison’s dismissals aside, the event highlighted the central paradox of Houston and his Hillsong Church.
How can he at once be too on-the-nose to attend a state dinner, yet so important that he could be part of a select group chosen to pray for the evangelical-courting president only months later?
In seeking to understand Houston, there is a lot that can be taken on face value.
The handsome 65-year-old is far more comfortable in his traditional uniform of leather jackets, fitted jeans and sneakers. For him, dressing like a traditional clergyman is as old as whiskers on a preacher.
Buff and confident, he is as likely to drop into push-ups on the stage as he is to babble in tongues when filled with the Holy Spirit. Most at home performing in front of an audience of tens of thousands, he has the heightened rhythm of an auctioneer in a frenzied bid for our souls, upping the offer before shifting into a soothing, reassuring plateau.
That day on the White House lawn, we saw a humility not usually associated with Houston or his Hillsong Church. But make no mistake: he is one of the most prominent voices in the evangelical-industrial complex, one that is fast becoming among the most dominant social and political forces on Earth.
Houston, along with his wife Bobbie, founded the Hills Christian Life Centre in 1983. In the years since it was renamed after the music group that helped make it famous, Hillsong has been labelled Australia’s most powerful brand, a money machine, and even a cult. Since its humble beginnings of 45 people gathered at a school hall in Sydney’s western suburbs, it has expanded to 23 countries on six continents, with an estimated 130,000 weekly worshippers.
The church is better known for its uplifting style than its substance, which fuses the basics of Christianity with general notions of spirituality and positive psychology.
A recent clip of a sermon from Brian Houston posted on social media is illustrative of his mesmerising, circular wordplay that marks his style: “The bible talks about self control, but so often our self is out of control. It’s ruling our emotions, it’s controlling our spirit, it’s choosing our actions.
I wonder if you are controlling yourself, or your self is controlling you?”
