Hillsong under fire

I want to start off by saying I don't have a problem with religion in general. I do however an issue with certain toxic traits that some churches have. Most of the time the offender is a mega church. You would think more eyes on the leaders and on each other would mean more accountably but that's not the case unfortunately. So, what happened? How did it happen? Why does this happen at church?

What is Hillsong? Hillsong is a mega church that was started in Australia and is still based there. It was started in 1983. They are responsible for the worship songs performed by Hillsong United, Hillsong Worship, Hillsong Young and Free and Hillsong Kids. These songs were then performed by a lot of contemporary churches.

I was made aware of the scandal when I saw the commercial for the discovery plus documentary about it. What happened? Apparently, there was allegations of inappropriate behavior revealed that "breached the Hillsong Pastor's Code of Conduct." Brian Houston was the co-founder and the global senior pastor at Hillsong church. There was an internal investigation of Brian recently. The re were only 2 complaints over 10 years.

The first report came in about inappropriate text messages that Brian sent to a member of the staff about 10 years ago. Brian claims that he had a dependency on sleeping pills which lead to the incident. He apologized but the staff member resigned any way. Hillsong offered the former employee assistance after they left.

The second report accused Houston of knocking on the door of a hotel room that was not his at a Hillsong conference and entering this room and spending time with the female occupant. To the non-church goer or the non-religious this sounds like no big deal, but this is a no go for the religious. Most in the religious or church community don't think that a man and woman who aren't married should be alone together. Houston blamed anxiety medicine and alcohol for this incident. The church investigated and offered assistance to the person who filed the complaint.

After the second complaint Houston agreed to "carry out certain measures" but when he failed to do so Hillsong took action. This is when Houston stepped aside. Houston said it was to focus on fighting sex trafficking charges in Australia. Hillsong confirmed that this was a genuine reason for him to step aside. The church did not make a statement at the time because they were still working on a number of issues privately with the preacher.

This happens because preachers and leaders at churches are flawed humans like the rest of us. Unfortunately, the preachers or leaders can get away with this because people may be scared to say something bad about their leaders. If they come forward, they may not be believed. In some churches the leader maybe moved, or the victim maybe paid off. In some cases, the victim may be forced out of the church. Some of these preachers may do these things because they think that they won't get caught.

A lot of churches are filled with men who have a God complex. The church at large rarely keeps men accountable. They have all these rules for women but rarely have rules for men. Women are to be submissive, and men are to be leaders (and very rarely question). It's hard to question other men in church and church leaders.

People don't trust the church for many reasons, and this could be one of them. People want people in the church to match their words with actions. If you set a standard, you need to live up to those standards. Also don't expect people to live up to standards that you don't live up to yourself.

I want to write about things that matter. I also want to keep people in power accountable. I fell victim to the beliefs of the church when it came to men and don't want other women to fall victim to them.