Scandal’s repercussions

Under parliamentary privilege, Andrew Wilkie, an independent Member of Parliament in Australia, made an astonishing series of revelations concerning the finances of the Hillsong Church – the Australian-based worldwide franchise claiming a worldwide membership of 150,000.

This membership has severely declined after a number of scandals, not least with the former senior pastor, Brian Houston, who is currently on trial in a Sydney Court, accused of covering up his father’s child sexual abuse.

The financial allegations, which Hillsong deny, but which Mr Wilkie claims are backed up by hundreds of documents, and which are currently being investigated by the Australian charities commission, are dreadful. Hillsong is accused of hiding $80 million of income in order to avoid tax, and of using church funds to fund luxurious lifestyles for its pastors.

Amongst other things it alleges Brian Houston went on a $150,000 three-day trip to Cancun in Mexico while Australia was in lockdown, purchased a $6,500 Cartier watch for his wife Bobbi, and a $2,500 Louis Vuitton luggage set, and spent $16,000 on custom skateboards. Mr Houston is alleged to have spent $179,000 on private jets in a three-month period – ‘using them like Ubers’! Other ‘expenses’ paid for by the church include thousands of dollars on make-up for Bobbi Houston, personal security, and ‘excessive costs for Bobbi to have her executive assistant travel with her’.

The new head of Hillsong told his congregation that he travelled economy – yet the documents ‘show him clocking up $58,000 in business-class flights for him and his daughter to Guatemala, $42,000 in business-class flights to Mexico and $32,000 in business-class flights from Cape Town to Sydney via the US.’

Perhaps the most disturbing part is that the documents allege that the charity Compassion International is charged $1 million per year for Hillsong to be one of its sponsors. Australian tax laws are generous towards clergy and so Hillsong employ their musicians as ‘music pastors’. One music pastor earns a $68,299 salary, of which $41,737 is tax-free, but also made $1.4m in music royalties in just one year from writing hit worship songs. Other ‘pastors’ head Film and TV, Communications, and other departments.

The consequences of this are terrible for the church in Australia. Hillsong has already made 153 staff redundant, saving the church $9.47m a year. There will be pressure on the Australian government to roll back the generous tax concessions for all pastors. And above all, ‘the name of God is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles’. Australia is not the only country that has the problem with the American-style megachurch and the corruption and greed that inevitably follows – Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, the US, the UK, Brazil and other countries are reaping the bitter fruit of a Godless worldly ecclesiology and methodology.