MELBOURNE, Australia — Brian Houston, the founding father of the Australian megachurch Hillsong, has resigned after an inside investigation discovered he had breached the church’s code of conduct at the very least twice over the previous decade by behaving inappropriately towards two ladies.
The resignation, the end result of a sequence of scandals surrounding the church, was introduced by Hillsong’s board in a press release revealed on Wednesday that mentioned, “We acknowledge that change is required.” There was no speedy assertion from Mr. Houston acknowledging his resignation.
Mr. Houston’s resignation comes after he stepped away in January from his ministry duties, citing a must battle a prison cost of concealing previous youngster sexual abuse by his father, Frank Houston, additionally a pastor.
The Australian police charged the youthful Mr. Houston in August 2021 with one depend of concealing a critical indictable offense, alleging that he “knew data regarding the sexual abuse of a younger male within the Nineteen Seventies and did not convey that data to the eye of police.”
Mr. Houston has vigorously denied the accusation, saying that the allegations “got here as a shock to me, and it’s my intention to vigorously defend them.”
His resignation got here as one other potential blow to Hillsong, which grew out of the merger of two organizations: Sydney Christian Life Middle, based by Mr. Houston’s father in 1977, and Hills Christian Life Middle, based by Mr. Houston himself.
In latest many years, the church has grow to be a multimillion-dollar enterprise, standing on the reducing fringe of evangelicalism and Christian youth tradition. At its peak two years in the past, it had congregations on six continents, in addition to a median weekly attendance of 150,000, based on the church.
Its 1000’s of congregants included stars equivalent to Justin Bieber, Kylie Jenner and Selena Gomez, in addition to others drawn to the church’s pop-inflected worship music, powered by a profitable report label.
For many years, Mr. Houston had been Hillsong’s charismatic face, referred to as a good friend of Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia and photographed with high-ranking officers and celebrities alike. Extra just lately, the church has been a goal of scandal and criticism, a lot of it related to its management.
An announcement from Hillsong’s board revealed final week mentioned that Mr. Houston, who’s married, had despatched “inappropriate textual content messages” to a employees member and had hung out alone with one other lady in her resort room in Sydney, the place she had attended a Hillsong convention. The girl subsequently filed a criticism, a church official mentioned.
“The reality is we don’t know what occurred subsequent,” mentioned Phil Dooley, the pastor who changed Mr. Houston, in a video leaked to the Australian information media. “The girl has not mentioned there was any sexual exercise. Brian has mentioned there was no sexual exercise, however he was within the room for 40 minutes.”
In each instances, the church mentioned, Mr. Houston had paid the unnamed ladies an undisclosed amount of cash: The employees member was given the equal of two months’ wage, and he compensated the lady he had met in Sydney for her charge for attending the convention and for a donation she had made to the church.
Within the board’s assertion on Wednesday, it mentioned, “We’re dedicated to doing what is important to make sure God is honored, and our eyes are mounted on Jesus.”