The Hillsong Church has announced its founder Brian Houston breached the “Hillsong Pastor’s Code of Conduct” involving separate incidents with two women, one of whom was a staff member at the church.
In a letter to church members on Friday, Hillsong’s global board described the complaints made against Houston and apologized to the women.
The Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) reported the board sent the letter to the congregation after interim Global Senior Pastor Phil Dooley met with 800 global staff members in a video conference to discuss Houston’s “indiscretions.”
“We have sadly been dealing with two complaints made against Pastor Brian over the last 10 years,” the board said in the letter that was also posted to the church’s website.
“We apologize unreservedly to the people affected by Pastor Brian’s actions and commit to being available for any further assistance we can provide,” the board continued.
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The Hillsong board said the first incident was approximately 10 years ago and involved Houston sending “inappropriate text messages” to a staff member, who later resigned. The board explained Houston was “under the influence of sleeping tablets and had developed a dependence” on them. He apologized to the person and the board worked with him to get “professional help to eliminate his dependency on this medication, and this was achieved successfully.”
“To this former staff member, we again apologize and would welcome the opportunity to provide further assistance if this is needed,” the letter said.
The second incident detailed by the board was a complaint the church received in 2019. The board said Houston “became disoriented after a session at the Hillsong Conference, following the consumption of anti-anxiety medication beyond the prescribed dose, mixed with alcohol. This resulted in him knocking on the door of a hotel room that was not his, entering this room and spending time with the female occupant.”
“The truth is we don’t know what happened next. The woman has not said there was any sexual activity. Brian has said there was no sexual activity but he was in the room for 40 minutes,” Dooley told the global staff members during the video conference, according to Australian Broadcasting.
“The investigation by the integrity unit appointed by the global board found that although all parts of the complaint were unable to be sustained, important elements of the complaint were sustained and the conduct was of serious concern,” the board said.
The board also told church members Houston had agreed to “take specific action including stepping down from leadership for a period. However unfortunately he failed to take all of the agreed steps which resulted in further action being taken by the board in late 2021.”
As CBN News reported in January, Houston, 67, stepped down from all “ministry responsibilities” until next year as he deals with legal charges that he concealed his father’s child sex offenses.
The New South Wales Police Force accused Houston in August of 2021 of covering up information about an incident where his father allegedly abused a boy in the 1970s.
At the time of Houston’s announcement, the church board said it did not make a public statement due to privacy issues.
According to ABC, Dooley told staffers during the video conference, “We’re deeply sorry for those victims and for what they’ve had to go through and what they’ve had to endure.”
“We acknowledge Pastor Brian has made significant mistakes … we also do want to pray for Pastor Brian and for Bobbie (his wife) and the family because there is a lot of pain associated with this,” he said.
The Hillsong board also explained it has been reviewing how the global church is governed and ways it can be more accountable.
“Like many other churches of its size, Hillsong’s governance model has historically placed significant control in the hands of the senior pastor, but we recognize that the way we do things needs to be reviewed,” the board said.
CBN News has reached out to the Hillsong Church for comment. We’ll post their response here as soon as we receive it.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN