Hillsong, Once a Leader of Christian Cool, Loses Footing in America

Mr. Houston and his spouse, Bobbie, are towering figures in Australia. The church grew for many years as a part of the Australian department of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination. The church provided authentic music with excessive manufacturing values — typically carried out in precise live performance venues. Mr. Houston as soon as instructed pastors in Australia {that a} Hillsong sermon “leaves individuals feeling higher about themselves than they got here.”

Pentecostalism, a charismatic motion, usually options practices like talking in tongues and religion therapeutic. Hillsong took a extra accessible method. At all times attuned to mass attraction, the church accentuated private encounters with God, usually by means of music. Hillsong turned its personal denomination in 2018.

In 2020, the church’s relationship with cash, intercourse, and celeb got here below renewed scrutiny when Mr. Houston fired Mr. Lentz for “management points and breaches of belief, plus a current revelation of ethical failures.” Mr. Lentz, a one-time mentor of Mr. Bieber and a celeb in his personal proper, confessed that he had been untrue to his spouse and withdrew from public life.

For Mr. Crist, leaving Hillsong was the end result of a number of years of doubts concerning the establishment. He objected a number of years in the past, he stated, when a world church restructuring disbanded his board of native leaders and put him instantly below the authority of the Australia-based international board. And he bristled when he and different lead pastors had been requested to signal noncompete and non-disparagement agreements within the wake of the scandal within the East Coast branches. He by no means signed.

The church press workplace described the agreements as normal parts of their normal contracts with church leaders.

“This resolution wasn’t arrived at calmly, and it was made calculating the numerous price,” Mr. Crist stated in an interview, mentioning the chance for disillusionment and ache. However “anybody who has been victimized in our church must be seen and heard.”

Mr. Crist expects to start holding companies June 1 below a brand new title to be decided.

In his sermon on Sunday, Mr. Crist referred to as for an inside investigation into Hillsong’s international board, to make the findings of that investigation public, and to purge any board members “who’ve protected the establishment and never the individuals.”