The End Times with Scott Morrison: Turn or Burn Really is his Policy.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time 

Maya Angelou 

Credit: SBS

Never has it been more apparent that Australia’s PM, Scott Morrison is under the spell of Hillsong than with his response to the bushfire crisis.  Morrison has made no secret of his allegiance to the cult of mainstream Pentecostalism, and that he believes the answer to the fires is a prayer for rain.  

Yet there continues to be mirth and murmurs about his religion’s policies in relation to his government's.  

Please, believe me.  

They are identical.  Where they exist, that is.  

Throughout this attack on our nation, Morrison has mirrored Brian Houston’s organisation, Hillsong, with its response to their own crisis, that of child sexual abuse in their ranks.  

When fire experts wanted to meet with Morrison early last year, he refused. He knew best. When victims of Brian Houston’s father, Hillsong’s founding father Pastor Frank wanted to be heard, Houston jr refused. He knew better. He forced the New Zealand Assemblies of God to meet with the first of his dad’s victims to come forward and for NZ to provide compensation.  

When the crisis was hitting the breadth of the country, Morrison disappeared, took a holiday, went overseas as people cried for help, he gave them only what he had to. When the royal commission questioned Houston over his inaction regarding reporting his father to the police, he too, was unable to understand a conflict of interests, a gaping chasm in ethical leadership, or why he should have to sacrifice anything for a matter that, as far as he was concerned, was out of his hands.  

Morrison has relied on the efforts of volunteer firefighters, pushing them to the limits, providing limited resources to carry out their unpaid work, while insisting they are choosing to be out there. He has encouraged citizens to pitch in and help. Australia is a wealthy nation.

Australia should absolutely not be raising its own funds for emergency response personnel. It’s insanity. But not to PM Nero. That’s the business model he holds dear to his heart.  

Hillsong relies on unpaid staff and donations to keep their movement going. Their conferences are staffed by volunteers from their membership, encouraged in another duty-laden term to ‘serve’, and by bible college students who are worked within an inch of their lives or told they will fail the courses they paid thousands for if they, too, don’t also ‘serve’.  

Hillsong’s community work relies entirely on donations that volunteers distribute with a Hillsong ribbon wrapped around the hampers the unpaid workers deliver.  Hillsong the corporation gets the credit, while their own tax-free profits remain untouched.  Their current dubious fundraising for firefighter relief goes directly to them. Yet they will it call it their own effort.

When Scotty from marketing rolled his sleeves up to get among the people, he brought nothing. He cannot see a reason why he should give anybody anything.  The victims, he would presume, like the volunteer firefighters, ‘want to be there’.  It’s not for him to care. And when he does proffer an outstretched hand, and it’s refused, he grabs the unwilling’s other hand and squeezed it. You will, he was saying, receive my good intentions, how I give them, whether you want them or not. You will provide your own resources and yet thank me, like a Pharoah, when I see you pass.  

When former pastor Frank Houston wanted forgiveness from Brett Sengstock, who Houston had raped since Sengstock was 7 and for years afterwards, Houston told him it was because as an old man, he would face his maker soon and needed to be forgiven before Judgement Day. It wasn’t because he was sorry or had remorse. It was for Sengstock to forgive because that’s what Houston needed to get into heaven and no other reason. The delusions are deep and strong with this mob.  

Shake my hand, or I’ll squeeze yours without consent. Because this is all about me, says the paedophile and the prime minister who supports his son, Brian, who is under police investigation for concealing the acts against Sengstock; it’s got nothing to do with victims. I need to feel better, they say, and I need to save face before my judge and jury.  

In Morrison’s case, the Australian public and now, embarrassingly, the world are the jury he must face.  

Yet, like Houston jr, he has now positioned himself as a victim. It was never up to him to call on the army, despite using the power without notifying the state Rural Fire Service, he tells us now. He was waiting to hear from the premiers. Not his call.  He’s been doing his best according to what he knew. Don’t blame him.  

When the royal commission asked Brian Houston why he didn’t report his father’s crimes to police or anyone really within the churches who needed to know. Houston insisted Sengstock did not want it reported, a claim Sengstock denies.  Not his call, says Houston. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.  

 Global Senior Pastor Brian Houston is now using his experience as the son of a paedophile as his ‘testimony’ at conferences. He is the true victim of the story of his father’s prolific child sex abuse crimes. He can relate to people going through a hard time, because he’s been through a doozy.   

Scott Morrison’s own church, Horizon, is part of the Australian Christian Churches, who do not have a policy for the environment. Whereas the Salvos have a simple  mission statement that they believe their god gave them the planet to look after, the ACC has nothing.  

Because Morrison’s religion’s environment policy and his political policy is the same. The earth is theirs to plunder and use. If they cared at all, they would have said differently. So they just left that matter blank. 

Morrison will continue to show no remorse and to justify his total Hawaiian holiday response to this war zone with himself as a victim of circumstance, as the average dad who misses his kids or prime minister who had no idea that the states could use an army resource or two. He’ll keep repeating it like Houston keeps repeating and reframing his history with himself front and centre, not the people whose lives have been burned down by his inaction, his refusal to face reality, and his sociopathic traits. This is a man who offered sexual abuse victims an apology while supporting an organisation that bullied Sengstock during chemotherapy right out of court. Expect nothing less than brutality from any of them.  

While people giggle about ScoMo believing in the rapture, the truth is much worse. He isn’t a true Pentecostal whose biggest crime might be overzealousness about the end times or speaking in tongues and embarrassing their kids. He’s Hillsong through and through. When the end times hit, as they have done, expect to lose everything, and for those in charge to turn their back on pregnant women while children and koalas scream.  

For Morrison, he’s going to heaven either way. He’ll keep praying, as the only righteous man standing while what he knows to be Sodom burns down. The more it burns, the more righteous he must be.  

This is who Scott Morrison is and has always said he was.  

Scott Morrison, the New Australian Idol

Hello. I’ve been super reluctant to write about the recent Australian election win by Hillsong devotee, Scott Morrison because my knowledge of politics is not sophisticated. I can’t handle office politics, much less the Australian voting system. But yesterday, Fairfax announced that “Religion was the sleeper issue we didn’t see coming.” In it, the writer describes the PM’s use of the term “Burn for you” is a part of modern Pentecostal jargon, whereas my sources, all of whom are well connected, long standing members of this denomination, say they’ve never heard of it.

The information that is coming out is slow and inadequate and incorrect. The Conversation published a lightly analytical piece about ‘Pentecostalists’, demonstrating the overall lack of understanding out there of who these people are with no insight into what this will mean for Australia over the next 3 years and beyond.

So, I’m going to have an unsophisticated political stab at outlining some ways he ended up in office and how his beliefs will impact Australia. Religion was never a sleeper issue. For Scott Morrison and his supporters, it’s the only issue, and there won’t be any compromising when it comes to God’s will.

SO HOW DID HE WIN OFFICE?

My mechanic, a devout Baptist whose wife has friends in Hillsong, says his wife’s auntie is friends with Jenny Morrison. (true story), Scott’s long-suffering wife. Apparently, Scott called Jenny at lunchtime one day and told her to get a nice dress ready because the leadership was up for grabs and he could be it. Apparently, Scott Morrison was not expecting to win the job last year.

But you can absolutely guarantee that from the moment he did, every single Pentecostal Christian in the country, including the Prime Minister of Australia himself, believed that God had put him there for divine reasons. Romans in the Christian bible says “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. “

Scott Morrison doesn’t think that God made him Prime Minister. He knows it.

There’s no doubt that Labor’s candidate, the generally non-charismatic Bill Shorten, made the campaign a lot easier for the PM. He’s not alone. The unlikeability of the Left’s offerings is appearing to be universal. In Shorten’s case, the death of the man he’d hoped was his predecessor, Bob Hawke, two days before the election may well of backfired due to the onslaught of modern righteousness. The comparison of Labor’s two union boss philanderers with the high school sweetheart middle-class devotion that the Morrisons offered served to strengthen the cleanskin appeal of the latter. In the age of Tinder, the Morrison family stereotype, with their first and only marriage, weird Christian beliefs or not, is harder to come by than ever.

In his maiden speech to Parliament in 2008, which will get closer examination, Morrison thanks various supporters before redirecting his audience.

I turn now to the most significant influences on my life—my family and my faith. He goes on to say that he has “been greatly assisted by the pastoral work of many dedicated church leaders, in particular the Reverend Ray Green and pastors Brian Houston and Leigh Coleman. My personal faith in Jesus Christ is not a political agenda.” While all three men need closer examination, the now Global Senior Brian Houston of Hillsong Church is the man to watch.

Global Brian is visionary who has always wanted for Hillsong to take over the world. From the moment having his self-described prodigy in the Lodge was a possibility, every resource would have been provided to him, every strategist, ever marketing idea, all tax free care of Hillsong. This was Brian’s opportunity to shine brighter than ever before, and finally get the political influence and power he so desperately craves, no matter how much he says otherwise.

how good is winning Australian Idol? source:eternitynews

16 years ago, though, there was a different election of popularity in Australia. It was the first Australian Idol, and Hillsongers were all over it. Gospel is where a lot of the great voices are found or made and Hillsong is so named after its music conference. Their amateurs are professionals by virtue of the training they get with world class music studios and arenas.

The first winner in 2003 was Guy Sebastian, a former member of Paradise Community Church now known as the Influencers Church. Yes, really. It used to be independently run by the Evans family, one of the only previous competitors for Pentecostal greatness in Australia, but is now known as a ‘Hillsong family church’. Sources recounted Paradise’s pastor being chained to Sebastian, who had immediately become the poster boy for evangelical success. With enough hard work, an out and proud Pentecostal could make it in the big world of showbiz.

Sebastian managed to extract, distance, and untangle himself from the movement by 2012, apparently distressed about gay rights and feeling alienated from the belief system, a smart career move for an artist wanting greater reach. He’s not too alienated to speak at Hillsong seminars as late as 2 years ago though. Probably something to do with being all things to all men.

Hillsong was accused of inundating Australian Idol and catapulting Sebastian to success by encouraging congregants to spam the text-message method of voting. Hillsong denied it, of course, and even threatened to sue when they were accused again in 2007; and in 2009 when two of the contestants were from Scott Morrison’s own church, it definitely wasn’t true then either.

Did Hillsong have the power to determine those Australia-wide elections? There’s no proof, but it was concerning enough for the producers to deny it as well. Every time.

Sebastian’s former church, Influencers is run by Pastor Ashley Evans, son of Pastor Andrew Evans, who was elected to the Upper House from 2002-2008 for the Family First party. And it was Ashley Evans who sent an election-Eve email out to Pentecostal members urging them to

"Please pray for Scott Morrison and our Prime Minister as 2 Timothy tells us to and vote like your freedom depends on it."

It’s 1 Timothy, but whatever, and it’s in order “to live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness”, not because a vote for Labor or the Greens was "the next step in the assault against the Church, Christianity, and Christians in Australia", as the pastor states.

This is a beautiful example of how this religion works. The Christian bible serves as a prop to further their own belief system which may or may not resemble Christianity as you know it. The speaker asserts their agenda, they find a bible verse to back it up and claim that it came from God and this is how Scott Morrison will enact policies with some legislation and numbers to back it up.

As the stories start to filter in about churches doing favours for local councils, families moving to support Morrison’s efforts, and statistics show who voted why, according to Fairfax: Pundits identify correlations and overlaps between the seats that swung heavily to the Coalition in Queensland and western Sydney, the census data showing higher than average rates of religious affiliation and the electorates that registered significant “no” votes in the same-sex marriage plebiscite, it’s clear this was NEVER a sleeper issue.

Hillsong has replicated like a virus around the world. The practice of “church planting” is an evangelical method of ‘branch stacking’. Sending people into targeted locations to infiltrate the local community with the religion of Hillsong and other Assemblies of God churches (if there are any left) is an age-old technique to boost numbers and take over towns purposefully.

Why would there be any doubt that Hillsong would enact the old formula for a challenge like the Prime Minister’s Office?

Just over a month ago, Global Brian’s son Joel’s band, Hillsong United, debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard charts. Out of all genres, not just “Christian music”. Sales of books and albums have always been dubious, as it is traditional for mega churches to buy billions of copies and give them away, which still count as bestsellers. You can’t go to a Hillsong conference without being thrown a Houston book, and it’s not because they want you to read them.

I was also told by a former ARIA employee that Hillsong had been accused of infiltrating ARIA charts in Australia the same way and by strategically placing their people in staff positions to wriggle with the numbers. But who knows?

Below is our old favourite, Sometimes Pastor/Sometimes Wealth Coach, Mr Millionaire Mindset, Pastor Pat Mesiti, who seems to be very interested in church of late, which happens every time he gets a new wife. He was one of the original pastors at the church that became Hillsong, until Global Brian threw him out for bad behaviour. Poor Pat has been left out of the loop again, celebrating ScoMo’s win on Instagram, but wondering why he wasn’t told about the support of the nation’s pastors. He couldn’t see them, because most of the work was happening behind the scenes. Seems odd that even though Global Brian and Mr Millionaire Pat have known each other for more than 35 years, but they communicate ideas via Instagram.

So, just to be clear, even though Scott Morrison preached at Planetshakers, Ashley Evans’s brother Russell’s church in Melbourne, and Ashley instructed his Adelaide based people how to vote, and Pat is confused as to why the pastors weren’t campaigning in solidarity when it seemed so obvious to him whose side they’re all on, Brian insists “we are not called to be politicians.” Just so that all the leaders he has placed around the nations are aware.

I mean, except for the time he urged everyone in Hillsong not to vote for same-sex marriage. Or the time he stated that he won’t be changing his opinions in light of the new laws. Apart from when he’s interested, he’s completely neutral. Apart from that time when future PM Morrison preached at Hillsong, and former Liberal PM, Tony Abbott was beamed in on Anzac Day. Or when former PM John Howard was there. just visiting and the time he opened their new centre right after the Bali bombings.

Apart from those kinds of little things, Hillsong and Global Brian have NOTHING to do with anything political.

Politics is celebrity for the ugly and Global Brian wants no part of that. But if the history of Hillsong is anything to go by, the Prime Minister’s election win was just the beginning of a thinly-veiled Australian Pentecostal theocracy in the makings.

This election had nothing to do with franking credits and everything to do with Hillsong and the willingness to sacrifice whatever is required to spread the message of Brian Houston that Hillsong is the answer.

And that their contestant for Australian Idol is the only one worth voting for.

The Long Strange March For Phillip Hughes

A couple of weeks ago a terrible tragedy occurred.

A 25 year old man from rural NSW died at his place of work after suffering a sudden injury in the course of his duties. His family and friends lost someone they loved very dearly. For them, the grief is unimaginable.

But  unlike the other 169 Australians who died at work this year, Phillip Hughes’s death while preparing for Test Cricket represented a lot more to the nation than even his own teammates realised.

Cricket enthusiasts were distressed, too by someone they knew by name and batting style. I am not one of those people, but I understand the attachment to people you’ve never met but relate to closely. I would hate for anything to happen to Taylor Swift right now.

I said that to demonstrate that you've heard of Taylor Swift. Why is there so much attention to someone who most people outside of cricket followers did not know?

The last week has been a fascinating insight into Australian values. The mainstream media devoted a large percentage of their reports on who was crying. Headlines were about who broke down while entering or exiting the hospital after the accident, who cried alone, and even how telling him the news made Steve Waugh’s son cry.

Was there ever a greater Australian father/son moment? Men were crying freely. All bets were off. Michael Clarke was a mess and that was ok. I hope the same understanding is applied to men everywhere when grief thunders in unexpectedly.

Most people I know had never heard the name Phillip Hughes before last week, which is why I feel sorry for the family that is genuinely suffering while the stars get the headlines for hurting.

Watching more closely I see a lot more than grief. I see fear. It’s all different now..

Every single  player who has ever picked up a bat from the backyard to the MCG knows, “That could have been me.” Every one who has bowled to get him out is thinking, “That could have been my ball.”

So much fear. This is not what cricket is about. Young, talented, committed cricketers are not supposed to die suddenly. Cricket, after all, is a sport where a man can engage in minimal risk and still get a ticket tape parade. He can be a hero for standing around for hours or days in the sun. It is got physically fit males, it is elite,  it is white (the non-white nations were brought cricket with colonisation) and the brotherhood is close. With all of that on your side, what could possibly go wrong?

In some ways, the death of Hughes has ushered fear into sport. No longer is it streakers, or match-fixing that were the worries of old, but of the very real vulnerability of each and every one of us. Even if you have everything in the world going for you, a bright future, and a big team of mates, life is cruel, sudden and seemingly random. There is no escaping its inexplicable and blatant unfairness.

Apart from some Buddhist lamas,  very few of us can get our heads around that. So this young man carries at his funeral and as his legacy the loss of the golden boy that Australia’s dreams are made of. No matter how much you achieve, or how much you think you can control, life can still sneak up behind you and change everything.

The sinking in of that knowledge is a very brutal blow to the Australian psyche. No one could have predicted what happened, and there must have been ten thousand close calls. Worse than this, could it happen again?

Well, yes it could and it did. An Israeli umpire who was a former cricketer died of roughly the same thing a week later, but Australians are not huge fans of Israelis, umpires or has-beens. So there’ll be no marching in the street for him.

He didn’t have all that potential, you see.. It is said that Hughes was good enough to play 100 test matches in his career. He’d already played 26.  Now, they will never know.

There is nothing more crushing to our ideals than the meaningless destruction of potential in youth.

Like a sporting James Dean, he will be heralded much higher than a legend, who holds fixed records. He will be a could-have would-have should-have been. Philip Hughes, the relative unknown will be remembered as an If-Only, almost a martyr, and that is a very privileged place to hold in history, one he probably would have found to be a burden in life.