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1. #HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ CODE#
2. #HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ TRIAL#
3. #HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ SERIES#

#HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ CODE#

In March of 2022, Hillsong forced Houston out of the church entirely after the revelation that he breached the church’s code of conduct by entering the hotel room of an unidentified woman for 40 minutes while under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs during the church’s annual conference in 2019.

#HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ TRIAL#

That early reporting set us up to do a deep historical dive on the roots of Hillsong Church. So we hustled to develop sources and learn as much as we could about Frank’s crimes and the cover up. Brian’s prosecution also meant that a number of key potential sources who were affiliated with Frank Houston’s church in New Zealand in the ’60s and ’70s, and later with Hillsong in the 1990s and 2000s, would be called to testify-and thus be unavailable to talk to us or provide us with information. Shortly after, Brian stepped away from his role as head pastor of Hillsong Global to focus on mounting his defense. Then in August of 2021, Australian police charged Brian Houston for concealing his father’s child sex abuse. A bunch of smaller but nonetheless painful scandals-sexual harassment, financial malfeasance-kept Hillsong in the headlines. “extending grace”) became a key component of Hillsong culture.Īs we wrapped our reporting, in the winter of 2021, Hillsong was beginning to curdle. Child sex abuse scandals are bad for a church’s bottom line, and so covering up for bad behavior (a.k.a. Starting in the late ’90s, Brian and the board at Hillsong helped conceal the sex abuse and shielded Frank Houston from prosecution. But the cultural crisis was also rooted in the commission and cover up of child sexual abuse by Brian Houston’s father, Frank Houston, who for decades used his churches in New Zealand and Australia as vehicles of grooming and molesting boys. At the time, leaders and paid staff at Hillsong’s global affiliates exclusively had degrees from Hillsong College the culture was passed on there. Hillsong says you “catch the culture” in Sydney. In particular, it focuses on its founder, Brian Houston, a mentor to Lentz, who has been the subject of inquiries and investigations in the church’s home base of Australia for several years.Īlex French: The takeaway from our reporting on the Carl Lentz scandal and the toxic culture at Hillsong New York is that the problems in New York were emblematic of a larger cultural crisis at the global megachurch.

#HILLSONG CHURCH PASTOR CARL LENTZ SERIES#

The second half of the series traces Hillsong’s path backward from its cultural apex to its early days. Vanity Fair Studios partnered with Scout Productions to continue their investigation, along with director Stacey Lee, for what became the four-part docuseries The Secrets of Hillsong, the final episodes of which will air on FX on Friday and stream on Hulu. As Alex and Dan’s reporting quickly showed, there was much deeper cause for discontent among many Hillsong congregants: allegations of bullying and abuse, pressures to work church functions for no pay, and racial and gender inequities among them.Īs their story went to press for that year’s Hollywood issue, it was clear there was more to say about Hillsong. Even as the scandal played out in the tabloids, it was clear that there was more to the story than a pastor who had failed to live up to the standards that he preached. In the fall of 2020, though, the church abruptly fired Lentz, shortly before news broke of his extramarital affair.

His role as Justin Bieber’s pastor of record was a signifier of Lentz’s and Hillsong’s status. Lentz had for years grown his profile as the Australia-based Hillsong’s face in America, leading to its rapid growth in the 2010s, and become something of a crossover celebrity himself in the process. In February of 2021, Vanity Fair published “ Carl Lentz and the Trouble at Hillsong,” by contributing editor Alex French and staff writer Dan Adler, who had spent much of that winter and the previous fall reporting on the celebrity-favorite megachurch.