Brian Houston: Hillsong pastor accused of hiding dad's sex crimes quits church board
Brian Houston, founder of the Hillsong megachurch, recently stepped down from the board of the church after the Australian police charged him with concealing his late father's sex offenses. However, Brian has confirmed that he will continue to be the church's Global Senior Pastor. "I also wanted to let you know that I've made a decision to step aside from my role on the Hillsong Church boards that oversee the governance of our operations. I did this so that these boards can function to their fullest capacity during this season. This doesn't change my role as Global Senior Pastor. I thought it was important to let our church family know in the interests of transparency, and I wanted you to hear it from me directly," Houston said in an email obtained by People.
Two months after Brian was charged for concealing his late father's serious offenses, he will be appearing in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on October 5. He was charged for his offense by the New South Wales Police Force. "Police will allege in court the man knew information relating to the sexual abuse of a young male in the 1970s and failed to bring that information to the attention of police," NSW police said in a statement. Depending on how long Houston had concealed his father's crime, he might get a maximum penalty of up to five years' imprisonment. This is not the first time a Hillsong church pastor has been in the news over sex crimes. In 2020, Stephen Carl Lentz, who was the lead pastor of Hillsong Church NYC, was fired by Brian Houston on grounds of "moral failures". Lentz was lead pastor till November 4, 2020. Turns out Lentz had "multiple" affairs, that weren't secret, and Hillsong knew about it for years.
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What had Frank Houston done?
Frank Houston, Brian's father, was accused of sexually abusing a boy, 7, from Sydney's east. The abuse took place during his trips from New Zealand, in 1969 and 1970. In 2014, NSW Police launched an investigation into child sexual abuse and gradually began looking to how Hillsong's forerunners, the Hills and Sydney Christian Life Centres, had handled the allegations of child sexual abuse against Frank. The royal commission's final report found that Brian, who was then the president of the evangelical organization the Assemblies of God in Australia, confronted his father, who confessed to the crime.
The inquiry further stated that Houston did not report the matter to the police, but instead gave some money to the survivor and let his father go into retirement. According to the survivor, he met Frank in 2000 at a McDonald's restaurant in Thornleigh, where Brian offered him a dirty napkin to sign in exchange for $10,000, following which the survivor felt 'shame, fear and embarrassment'. He also reportedly suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. Before dying in 2004, Frank confessed to a 'continuing problem' of a sexual interest in young boys.
Meanwhile, Brian justified not reporting the abuse by claiming that when the allegations surfaced, the survivor was already 35 or 36 years of age. He alleged that weeks after he learnt about the abuse, the survivor refused to go to police -- a claim that the survivor previously disputed.
Maintaining his innocence, Brian said that he was shocked at the allegations. "These charges have come as a shock to me given how transparent I’ve always been about this matter," he said. "I vehemently profess my innocence and will defend these charges, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight," he added.