Selena Gomez reports for Gender Training Duty called Colour Your World

You can't blame Selena Gomez for thinking that Hillsong is related to Christianity. She grew up on the set of Disney.  She probably doesn't know that Winnie-the-Pooh isn't American and that Piglet never had a snout.

So you can't blame her for the picture above. I mean you can for the whatinjustinbieber2008sk8rboihellisshewearing outfit, but not for the book. It says BIBLE on it, and just because it was written by Joyce Meyer, who is Selena to know that theology is a thing? She's used to doing whatever the producers say to do, and these ones say 'god' a lot so they must know stuff.

I used to see her when my son was growing up on her show called Witches of Waverly Place. She played that dumb-sister-Mallory-from-Family -Ties kind of character, which everybody loves. She was totally better than Demi Levato and it was great seeing a new gen of Mouseketeers get trained into anxiety disorders, while being handed a series and singing career. So I've known her a while, and I still think she's better than Demi, but I thought Jessica Simpson was going places, so time will tell.

Selena is in town in Sydney for Hillsong Gender Training in the form of a conference called Colour Your World. I, for one, could not be more thrilled. Well, I guess Culty Carl, as my favourite website dlisted.com calls him and what we will always call him now,  and the Global Senior Pastors, as they have now Christened themselves, Brian and Bobbie would be, because they have a Katie Holmes for their Tom Cruise. She spent her first days in Australia doing what all good Hillsong women do, flaunting their wealth with as few clothes on as possible.

Selena Gomez was the most followed person on Instagram for 2016 and 2017 and her on again/off again boyfriend, Justin Bieber has followers on Twitter called beliebers that send death threats to girls he is seen in public with. Justin and Selena already have a worshippers of their own, so the smart cookies at Hillsong know that whatever Justin and Selena do, millions of tweens and teens and the Twighlight watching moms will do also,  automatically, feverishly and repeatedly. All Justin would have to do is tweet someone back and they'd be at Hillsong for life. They're old hands at culting it up.

Hillsong has changed Justin and he frequently credits it with bringing back religion and joy to his life. It's totally brought him closer to god in the way that only Hillsong can, by making it all about you.

he's been leading a cult all his life. he's thiiiiis close to being jesus.

This is why Culty Carl and Justin are BFFFFFFFFFs. It's been suggested to me by a gay male friend that the pics of Justin and Carl say more than bromance, but that's ridiculous because Carl is married with kids, like the founding father of Hillsong, Frank Houston was, and Frank always traveled with handsome young men, and that was entirely innocent.

just the married dad pastor of Hillsong NYC and his much younger best friend.

nothing  to see here.

The funny part is they make it sound like all the congregants get intensive help from their pastor, when finding pastoral care at Hillsong is like finding someone working at Kmart who actually knows when the next shipment is due. It doesn't happen. Hillsong is a one way show. There is no place to take your problems.

So, no one is shooting hoops with the pastor. Except Justin. But he didn't fall into the religion. His mother literally hypnotised him as a kid by making him listen to Judah Smith recordings. Judah is a good mate of Culty Carl's. The progression was as natural as a youtube career.

But back to Selena. She hasn't had an easy time. Her boyfriend used to do all kinds of stupid and cringey things before Culty Carl took over. He also used to make music and think his own thoughts, but there'll be none of that now. He's in training for something bigger. 

Selena  had a kidney transplant last year from her best girlfriend due to ongoing issues with lupus. She also has had a few stints in rehabs for anxiety including one in Tennessee at an undisclosed location, and I'm totally convinced that it was Mercy Ministries or Mercy Multiplied. So life isn't easy at the top, which is why it's great she has support of the gang while she goes through another split with Justin, following the relationship counseling that Hillsong (Carl) provided. I repeat: this is not a cult. The leaders control your relationships, where you go to rehab, spend intensive time with you, tell you what friends you can have and what do with your career. It's called caring about the influences on your life. Like how Jim Jones cared about his People and their Temple, or how Hef cared about the Playmates at his mansion.

I hope she has a great time learning to be a good wife at the women's conference. It's not one of those career-focused thingys that other women go to. It's going to break the Lord's heart, and bank account, if these two don't get married, so while she can have fun with her sisters, she'd better be taking notes on how to be  Bobbie.

She'd better move fast, too. Justin has already has, so she needs to find out what plans 'God' has for her. Now that Hillsong's mate, Joyce Meyer writes the bible herself, it's even easier to know. The Lord of televangelism works in not so mysterious ways.

Poor Selena. With anxiety, lupus, and a mother who doesn't like her boyfriend, she'd better take good notes on how to be a #pastorswife, or Carl's going to find her replacement. Lucky he's speaking at the women's conference. That's how you know it's a good one - when the powerful men stop by to help the women know what to do.

When do we tell her that being a Disney Princess is as real as being a Hillsong Princess, and about as empowering? Or would that ruin all the Fantasia fun she's having?

A lie by any other name is called perjury

In October 2017 an audio recording  surfaced of Senior Pastor Brian Houston's father, self confessed child sex offender and founder of the church that became Hillsong. In this audio below, dated by Frank's own words to be 2004,  Houston Sr is heard to be preaching, despite claims from his son under oath, that once he admitted his offences, he never preached again, nor were any children put at risk. Frank was also considered too wracked with dementia to face the accusations. The following is my FB post 2 Oct 2017

We know that Hillsong pastors are a straight up pack of liars. They say things like “We love you”, and “Everybody’s Welcome” and “We write our own books.”
So you know when the pastor’s lips are moving, he’s lying. The entire OJ Simpson defence team did not lie collectively as much as these guys can. Even the Kardashians are going now, purely out of professional respect.

But with all that money, and so much media, you’d really hope they’d throw a few bucks into covering up their lies better. Fascinatingly, they don’t.

When Brian Houston took the stand at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia in 2014 and said that he'd acted properly and ethically, we knew straight away he was lying. Because we’d been there and watched the first round of lies in 2001. Realising he couldn’t cover it up anymore as they had agreed to in the elders' secret meetings, Brian made some kind of announcement at church services one Sunday. He stated that his father had committed a "serious moral failure", you know, like lying to your mother on her birthday.

He never named his father Frank, founder of the church that became Hillsong, as a sex offender, only his family as the victims of some terrible tragedy that had happened to them, not the 7 year olds his father preyed on.
But later, when pressed he described some vague incident that had happened in New Zealand 30 years earlier. No big deal. Sounded like the old man had bumped into someone in the hallway and not said sorry.

Brian knew this wasn’t true. But no one had any power or evidence to dismiss it. And given the narrative was and continues to be about the Houstons’ suffering in all this, the victims have been mentioned recently, sparsely, mandatorily.
Under oath, Brian stated that as soon as he confronted his own father who confessed, Frank was removed from ministry, his credentials taken away and that he never preached again. He said that he’d told his church immediately, that he’d been open since the beginning about it, and that his father was never allowed in ministry again. The only true parts were that his credentials were taken away. The rest, even according to the documents Hillsong tendered to that court, is lies.

There are plenty of once innocent parishioners who were told to treat Frank like royalty when he was moved to their church. No one said, keep your kids safe from this old guy. And there's plenty of people who heard him preach in the years before he died in 2004.

Now, there’s audio evidence. A tape surfaced this past weekend with Frank’s voice preaching just months before his death, ostensibly from dementia, yet he's remarkably clear on this tape (in the comments). He has a few of his closest relatives nearby, including, surprise!, Brian's son, Ben, and apparently, Brian and his sister, Judith.

Once introduced, Frank says:
“I’m glad if you know – to see young Ben here this morning, growing up. And uh – it won’t be too long before he’s bigger than his father. And wiser than his father. And more anointed than his father because God moves in generations. And my son Brian is doing great things for God, you know? And then I’ve got a daughter Judith. And Judith, my daughter, she’s doing great things for God.

And so on for an hour. So we know that nothing changed much for Frank. He preached his codswallop until he died and Brian knew all about it.

Here’s the thing. You can lie to your congregation pre-Twitter, you can lie to the Royal Commission, also called perjury, because you think they’ll never get around to checking up on you compared with what happened in Ballarat.

But you should not lie to Leila McKinnon. After the Royal Commission, Brian did media rounds and his face started to relax as he repeated the words his publicist had coached him on. Finally, saying things like “ i knew it was criminal” and “ i care about victims” 14 years after the fact appeared to be working. People were listening to him and his story got quicker and smoother.

And while we know it’s hard for the world’s oldest narcissists like Donald Trump to come to grips with technology, the truth is the evidence stays around after the show's over. It’s not just teen girls who have to be careful with which way the web cam faces. The internet is permanent for everyone.
Brian is known for getting very upset at people on social media then deleting his comments. Maybe that’s how his whole life works. Have a tantrum, someone else cleans it up, who cares who’s crying? They won’t be on stage in the choir tonight.
But this isn’t 1982, and if you have go out and miss Mork and Mindy because your brother wants to look at motorbikes your parents will never let him have, you can actually watch the catch up now.

People share a whole lot of information, too. You can’t just keep them apart with hellfire and tithing demands. .

So when he told Leila Mckinnon on Inside Story
“We did tell people straight away. We did take his credentials away. He never did preach again and we did oversee and ensure that he was never put in a position to be close to kids to be able to do that again.”
He’s lying.

When he tells Karl Stefanovic the same thing, he's lying.

You’d hope that if our government won’t follow him up on the multiple perjury charges, that Leila or Karl would. I'm calling on the true leaders of this country to go over their own interviews and see how horrible it is when Brian lies straight to your face, even when you ask him not to.

Because when Hillsong tell you your kids are safe there, you need only to look how they handled the most important case that crossed their paths. They covered up, lied and then lied when it came out. They lied to the Royal Commission and they lied to Leila and they lied to Karl Stefanovic. And we all know the only people allowed to lie to breakfast TV hosts are themselves

#timesup for giving standing ovations to the offender

There is about to be enormous change in the mainstream churches as they know it. 

Spurred on by the public firing of Today show host, Matt Lauer, a woman emailed Memphis megachurch pastor, Andy Savage and asked him if he recalled sexually assaulting her when she was 17, and he was a youth pastor at their Houston, Texas church. After a month with no response, Jules Woodson wrote a blog post with her story that has now gone viral. 

Woodson reported being driven home in 1998 by Savage after a youth meeting one night, only to have him turn down a deserted road, where he pulled over and asked her to perform oral sex on him. Woodson says, "I was scared and embarrassed but I did it." Savage further molested Woodson.

After 5 minutes, Woodson says Savage stopped and ran around to her side of the vehicle. He begged her forgiveness and said sorry multiple times. He asked her to 'take it to the grave with her'. 

What followed is a textbook response to these cases in evangelical churches around the world. 

Savage confessed to the Associate Pastor, Larry Cotton, who demanded the young woman's account. She explained what had happened on the evening and was met with shame by Cotton  for 'participating.' Savage's life appeared to continue as usual, and he even held a True Love Waits weekend workshop a few days later. 

Woodson, overcome by distress, worry and shame recounted some of the event to the girls at her youth group, and word got back to the leadership. While nothing happened in regards to the assault, Woodson said they were forced to do something and a going away party was organised for Savage, comprised mainly of people who loved him and wanted to wish him well. 

The unspoken understanding amongst the congregation was that Woodson had caused him to leave, but because of an indiscretion such as kissing. It was she who was ostracised. 

But in Texas there are laws that do not exist in Australia and other places. 

Texas Penal Code Chapter 5. (22.011)

Title 5. Offenses against the person.
Chapter 22. Assaultive Offenses.
Sec. 22.011. Sexual assault.
(b) A sexual assault [...] is without the consent of the other person if: [...] 10) the actor is a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser …

Texas Penal Code 22.011(b)(9): “by exploiting [the patient or former patient's] .  .  . emotional dependency”; and (b)(10) “by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual advisor”

Australian law considers assault 'aggravated' if it is committed by someone in a powerful position such as a priest, but Texas nails it by identifying the lack of consent options available, due to the emotional dependency necessarily in place when the person is another's spiritual adviser. 

Your guru, your priest, your pastor, whatever, cannot have sex with you in Texas through such exploitation that happens due to assumptions about that leader's 'professional character.'

If only, Australia. 

But what is most significant here is the shift in how the act is now viewed. 

When I was at Hills Christian Life Centre, the church that became Hillsong, one of our youth pastors married a girl from our youth group right after she left school in the late 80's. I was younger than she was, but I remember they had to wait until she finished exams and was 18. He was 27. My memory is all the other girls being excited about how beautiful she would look on her wedding day to this wonderful man of God. There was no talk of grooming or power imbalances then. 

Young couples who were discovered or confessed to 'going too far' were separated. If the male were in some kind of leadership position, he was often suspended of that for a period of months, but always with an overview of 'restoration'. There was never any discussion of assault. Girls were expected to keep themselves pure, and not give in to temptation or permit boys to give in to it either. 

The understanding was always that the male was sinful, but the female should have talked him out of that sin, not gone along with it. Men can't help these things, quite often. But women are the gatekeepers. If a man falls, it's often because she didn't say no. Young women in evangelical and fundamentalist churches often find themselves shouldering the blame for their own 'failures' as well as for the men who participated equally, or who often coerced, if not threatened, or exploited. 

There was often talk of his being able to recover from such a relationship and hopefully find someone not so much like a harlot as that girl, and there were tearful prayers that the girl would be blessed enough to find an understanding future husband. 

And if such unholy unions produced a baby, woe betide the woman whose belly is watched by a knowing congregation, with condolences offered to his family and to hers for very different reasons. 

But times are changing swiftly. 

 People like Woodson through the #metoo and #churchtoo movements are renaming 'sin' as assault according to the law. 

The shift is going to be like a tidal wave, because these assaults have been frequent and systematic, because the system of fundamentalist Christianity itself, and cults like Hillsong and its associated franchises under different names, is abusive itself. There is no other possible result. 

The men and women in power have felt more untouchable than any Harvey Weinstein. After all, they have the backing of Almighty God, their huge congregations, and their swollen bank accounts. Savage and Cotton believed up until last week, that the matter had been 'handled in a biblical way.' 

And in textbook form, when the publicity became unavoidable, Savage's  held a meeting at  his huge church in Memphis, where he confessed to engaging in 'a sexual incident with a high school senior', despite being clearly aware of Woodson's perspective. 

His congregation gave him a standing ovation.

While this jury was not privy to the email, or any other information, there were no questions asked, and no answers given about where this high school senior might be now, and what her feelings were. 

Pastor Brian got a standing ovation when he told his congregation that his father, Pastor Frank, founder of the church that became Hillsong, had confessed to a 'serious moral failure.', when he actually meant 'child sex offences'. 

The language used by these organisations is deliberately vague and ambiguous. It is open to interpretation, and you are expected to presume the best of the leaders, and the worst of those who do not adhere to presuming the best of their leaders. 

The standing ovation is supposed to be a spontaneous reaction of enthusiasm, such is at the theatre, although peer pressure and the price people pay for their seats have also been found to be factors in why everyone stands when others in the audience begin to do so. 

The belief would be that Savage deserves forgiveness as his problems are between him and God, and that that is a personal matter. It is not for the congregation to question what someone in ministry especially for so long has gone through. It is for them to support him in his bravery in confessing his sins publicly and to pray for him and his family that they shouldn't have to suffer anymore. 

Yes, not her. For him. If this sounds all a bit like Steubenville, it's because it is. 

At this very time of writing, congregations give the perpetrator, and those who cover up for them standing ovations, but the shift is coming now. 

It's not sin, when you don't consent and it's not sin when it's assault.  And even if he's the mightiest man of God with an incredible calling on his life, it's still assault, in fact, even more so where exploitation of his mightiness is used. 

The Guardian in London called the new British tendency to give a standing ovation 'a filthy American habit' in 2008. 

There's another filthy American habit that's about to change. And it's how stories like Jules Woodson's end. 

#churchtoo #timesup #hillsong #fundies #evangelicals