Original subtitles

(somber piano music)

(somber piano music)

- [Interviewer] Thousands of people looked up to you

and followed you, but how can they trust you're authentic?

- I mean, I'm a tough guy to ask that to,

'cause I had obviously some major lies and secrets

that I was carrying for years.

Nobody's meant to live with lies, nobody.

I think for me it had run its course.

People who grew up in our church

with Laura and I leading them, they say,

"Okay, so Carl had some areas in his life

"where he wasn't honest with anybody,

"himself, with his wife, with his church.

"Does that mean everything he preached isn't honest?"

(somber music)

If you are led by somebody, you have to trust them,

and I think the biggest breach, one of the biggest breaches,

my life, my situation would've brought

would've been a breach of trust to thousands of people.

Marriage, any married people in here?

We love you.

Especially my wife and my children,

I failed at that,

but Hillsong failed at that too.

(somber music)

(somber music)

(somber music)

(Laura chuckles nervously)

(dramatic soul music)

♪ I hope you find some peace of mind in this lifetime ♪

♪ I hope you find some paradise ♪

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(footsteps pattering)

(papers slap)

(Carl chuckles)

(Carl grunts)

- I haven't thought about sermon stuff,

you know, in a while.

You don't forget how you felt, why you wrote some of these.

A message called "The mask has to go."

(Carl laughs)

Gotta have your strength mask,

so everybody knows you could handle it.

Gotta have your happy mask,

so everybody will always think you're having fun.

Gotta have your sex appeal mask,

after all, that's your value.

All these masks are designed to hide need.

You need to face some of the issues in your life,

so others can face theirs.

Yeah, this is heavy to read.

It's, um...

(tense music)

You could only get the help you need

if you let down the drawbridge of your life,

and typically people like me, the drawbridge stays up.

In the back of your mind, you're always going,

"This is not gonna end well."

You know when you go backwards and you start finding out

about how you ended up places, you find out,

wow, I've thought about this day for a while.

- All right, let's consider our giving.

Come up here, Carl, come on, Carl.

Carl Lentz, who is a college student in Australia.

- Fear, that's how my preaching style developed.

What's funny is I,

I didn't know enough about preaching to have a style at all.

- So come on, Carl.

- How you doing?

The first message I ever preached,

that was the first time I learned the power of desperation.

Like I preached like I was on fire.

I basically like paced a hole in the carpet,

like I never stopped moving,

and I didn't know any other speed.

I survived that night, and I remember the lesson.

You know, you're not always gonna have it before the moment,

but once you get in that moment, if you trust God,

he'll come through.

Well you just gotta get on your knees and get desperate.

Get on your knees and say,

"God, I want more out of this life.

"I want you to use me more.

"I want you to give me more passion.

"I want you to give me more fire.

"I am desperate to go from here to there.

"Do something with me!"

(crowd mutters)

I was a good freaking speaker, and I did it all the time,

anywhere that I had to do it.

Yes, New York is a challenge,

but just like that, I always saw it as an opportunity.

(uptempo music)

You know, Brian actually told me, he said,

"I picked you for this 'cause I know you'll try

"to win this city one by one if you have to."

We wanted to reach lost people.

We wanted to open up the doors really wide.

You know, pound the fricking pavement.

(uptempo music)

If we're gonna reach New York City, we gotta do it our way.

It's not gonna be traditional, it's not gonna be normal.

(uptempo music)

I remember waking Laura up one night at like 2:00 AM,

and I'm like, "Laura, you gotta wrap,

"you gotta wrap these seven bibles."

And me and my friend, we're gonna go to the club,

you know, I know the DJ,

so we're gonna be up in this DJ booth.

She's like, "I gotta do what?

"Like wrap bibles?"

And so she wrapped them in newspapers,

and we like put 'em in our jackets,

and go give these bibles to people that I love,

and we would do stuff like that all the time.

(uptempo music)

Originally in 2010 we started

with maybe two or three services,

and then quickly probably went to four,

and then after that we went to five and six.

You keep on believing, you keep on fighting.

Some of it wouldn't even be planned.

I remember one service in particular,

where it was the last service of the day,

it was like seven o'clock, and there's 400 people outside.

That's kind of how much fun and crazy it was.

(Carl preaching in the distance)

We were reaching people that had never been to church,

or people who gave up on all religion whatsoever,

so it was a good problem.

Anybody, take a 20-second praise break,

and give God a shot of praise

if he's done anything in your life.

(crowd cheers)

- [Announcer] Hillsong Australia presents

Hills Leadership College.

Not just another institution,

but a unique ministry training facility,

part of a vital, living, growing church.

- The church that I see is a church so committed

to raising, training and empowering a leadership generation.

(somber synth music)

- Went to Hillsong Bible College to like see the campus.

This really cool surfer dude rolls up in this big truck,

and he's like, "Are you new to college?"

I'm like, "Yeah."

He's like, "We're gonna go to Maccas."

I'm like, "What the heck is Maccas,

"like what are you talking about?"

Found out it was McDonald's,

and then, like, that's how I met Joel Houston.

We were best friends from that moment.

(waves crashing)

- I went to Hillsong College.

I had never left New York before.

It was hard leaving, but everyone around me was like,

"God got you," and I'm like, "Okay, God got me."

All my friends pulled together

and helped me raise all the money

that I needed for my semester.

I left in hopes that I would become a pastor.

Hillsong College teaches you about Hillsong leadership,

how to run a Hillsong service, and how to...

I don't...

Hillsong College didn't really teach me much.

(Tiff laughs)

I was sitting and listening to lecturers,

but some of them didn't have a degree to teach.

It was not what I thought it would be.

(uptempo music)

- When Carl was attending college in Sydney,

he first caught Brian's eye,

and he handpicked him as an assistant,

and then eventually as a protege.

- Yeah, obviously, just being around Joel

means you're gonna be around Brian and Bobbie,

so you get to know 'em in a different way.

You know, literally living at their house,

and growing to love them like another set of parents.

The funny thing is, I was never really good at school,

I actually didn't like it, but I was good.

Bible college, I crushed it.

I mean I loved the assignments,

I loved the work, and I loved learning

about the stuff I've always wondered about.

- I remember one time the Principal asked all the women

to stay behind, and lecture us about making sure

that we weren't wearing things

that would make our brothers stumble.

And I remember looking around the room and I'm like,

"I'm sorry, what?"

- What a great thing to know that you and I as followers

of Christ aren't limited by this natural world.

(hands clapping) (students cheering)

- Father, I thank you that we can brave

every storm of our life.

- In the case of Hillsong,

you do have women in positions of religious authority,

but that doesn't necessarily mean

that you actually have equality.

Even though you might have a woman on stage,

she will often be on stage next to her husband

in a kind of supporting role.

- My beautiful bride of nearly 22 years is gonna come

and encourage us around our giving this morning.

Thanks, babe. - Amen.

- Look who I brought up with me tonight.

(crowd cheers)

(pastor chuckles)

- [Kristin] Women will often be kind of directed

to ministering to other women,

but not necessarily the Sunday morning services.

(crowd applauding)

- Amen, amen, amen.

Hallelujah.

- Bobbie Houston is Brian's wife and often functioned

as Brian for the women of the church.

There is a lot of focus in Hillsong

on the way women should comport themselves

in terms of the way they dress,

the way they carry themselves, the way they have sex.

(dramatic music)

And Bobbie in so many cases was positioned,

and positioned herself, as the standard bearer of that.

- Laura, much to smile about in your life.

You have three beautiful children.

Her children, her husband, and even her God,

will stand up and give her praise,

and that is the ending that God wants you

and I to experience as women.

- I think all the girls in the house

should give all our college boys a big cheer.

We love you. (cheering)

- I did three years and I was able to graduate.

- [Announcer] Tiffany Perez from the United States!

- Knowing that Carl had also gone to Hillsong College,

just a few years before me,

and also got the same certificate,

actually didn't mean much to me,

because I am not a white man.

I knew there was a ceiling that I had to break, and,

I thought I can break it.

(cheering and instruments blaring)

- I was in college the same year with Carl Lentz,

with Joel Houston, with Ben Houston.

It was clear that they had

a different experience than we did.

Joel and Ben Houston, you know,

obviously they're in the Houston family,

we know that they're gonna be headed

for a leadership position,

and then there was a group

that was kind of surrounding them,

earmarked I think for particular attention,

closer mentorship, things like that,

that I don't think all the students had access to.

- But you've gotta have the talent,

you've gotta have the magnetism.

You know, I'm sure when Brian saw what Carl could do

at his peak, why would you not be overjoyed

to have that in your organization?

(dramatic music)

- Being from New York, "I was like I could do this."

Like, it's, I saw it as a challenge.

But I also understood that there were younger generations

that were going to eventually see my face somewhere,

and hope, "Hey, Tiff looks like me.

"If she can do it, I can do it."

- God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called.

That's definitely my least favorite,

most triggering Hillsong phrase.

Hillsong would tell you God, God does it,

but well I would say the leadership of Hillsong calls

and qualifies whoever they want.

(pleasant piano music)

- I grew up in Australia.

(projector clicks) (pleasant music)

Just the best Aussie upbringing ever.

My parents were really good friends

with Brian and Bobbie Houston.

(pleasant music) (reel clicks)

- I met Brian when I was 15 years of age.

- When Brian was starting the Hillsong church in Australia,

he asked Kevin to be the pastor

of this new, fledgling church.

- [Kevin] I mean, I've got photographs

of his oldest son, Joel.

Laura's in nappies and Joel's in nappies,

so, you know, our kids have grown up together

with their kids.

(projector clicks)

- We actually all thought we were related

until our teenage years.

Brian and Bobbie were like my other parents, I would say.

(pleasant music turns dramatic)

Hillsong was, that was my extended family.

(projector whirs)

- I first met Carl when he arrived as a student.

He brought so many people to church.

He would reserve rows of seats

for people that he just met when he was out and about.

It was amazing.

- Laura's mom was the bible college principal,

and so I would always go into her office,

and like pour out my heart, like deep stuff.

And then I end up dating her daughter,

it's kind of like, I wish I wouldn't have let

that cat out of the bag.

(projector clicks) (pleasant music)

The first time I saw Laura, I was like,

that girl right there is special.

Called my Mom, I said,

"Mom, I just saw the the woman I'm gonna marry."

- The first time I met Carl Lentz,

I had just come from the beach.

- [Carl] I remember the way her hair flicked,

I remember the jeans she had on.

Definitely the jeans.

(Laura laughs)

- He was tall, and he had

these flared boot cut jeans on, black boots.

Mind you, it's summer.

- [Carl] She was just like the quintessential Aussie chick.

Often barefoot in church.

- I'm pretty sure I had no shoes on.

- Took me a while to get her to date me,

but I worked through all that.

(gentle piano music)

Her reservations were probably my fake diamond chain I wore.

Probably my too cool attitude.

- [Laura] He had two big hoop earrings in,

and his hair was like NSYNC.

- [Carl] My NSYNC hair, my general Americanness.

- And I just remembered, I was like, "Ah, he's so American."

Week two, I think we told each other we loved each other.

(laughs) It went fast.

(gentle music) (projector clicks)

Our wedding was May 5th, 2003.

Pastor Brian did our ceremony.

We were 23 at the time.

- [Carl] You kind of think at that stage,

getting married's gonna fix a lot

of the issues in your heart.

Like your desire to have sex.

(tense music)

Your desire for other people.

- [Brian] Generation to know that I knew Laura at that size,

and I can remember holding Laura at that size,

screaming her lungs out.

(congregation laughs)

(words fade to dramatic music)

- Maybe everything in your fleshly desire

consumes you today, keep turning the page.

There will be a moment where your appetite changes,

your vision changes, where you love what God loves.

In Christianity, marriage is only second to salvation.

So you're basically incomplete until that happens.

You know, it was like I gotta find this,

this missing piece that's gonna make me whole.

There's no way that a loving God could want you

to stay with the same person for your whole life.

I mean it's ridiculous, right?

Marriage, yeah, it doesn't work?

Wrong.

You don't see like true single people

in high levels of leadership.

Like somebody who's big time preacher, and they're single.

So just you knew that getting married

was like the next thing you gotta do,

so everybody had that aim.

We spend so much time telling people to get married,

how to stay pure until you're married.

Surely I'm not gonna have these thoughts if I'm married.

Surely I'm not gonna have these thoughts when I get older.

Surely if I know Jesus better, some of these thoughts

and some of these feelings are gonna go away.

You gotta handle it head on, or else it'll destroy you.

(distant siren wailing) (tense music)

- In 2013, during the period of my reporting,

Carl Lentz was a very believable person.

- That you once lived one way,

and now I want you to live this way.

- I couldn't find anything that was going on

in New York that was,

sketchy, or gave me pause.

It was a very...

For me, it was an alarmingly positive environment.

- Anybody need that revelation today?

Maybe you came in carrying too much?

Let me pray for you.

Father, we give you praise right now.

- Well I mean, I don't know where abuse of power comes in,

I don't know where infidelity comes in,

I don't know at what point that started.

- Men are a lot worse than women

when it comes to being honest with what you struggle with,

'cause he's heard, "Man up."

What does that even mean?

We're a part of the new generation, man down.

- Performance can take over your life.

- I would rather be a man on my knees looking vulnerable,

than being a man on my feet living shaky,

because I don't want God to actually help me

because somebody might know I don't have it all together.

- You are the performer that you have to be every Sunday,

rather than the man you need to be every day.

- I define scandal as when you see something happening

that should not be happening.

- I remember watching him and thinking,

"There's no way what this requires

"can exist in the form of a man without that man breaking."

(tense music)

- Imagine planning a party for 20 people, and 350 show up.

The tension of Brian's pace of expansion,

versus the reality of what we were dealing with.

- Every time you get the chance to stand on a platform

like this with a microphone, it's a chance to stretch,

to enlarge, and to build people.

That's why I love building a church.

- Hey, like, we can barely handle what we have right now.

Like, we don't have enough leaders,

our structure's not strong enough.

(tense music)

- You choose to be miserable, you choose to be pitiful.

You can throw a pity party,

and you can invite anyone you want,

but the only person who's gonna turn up is the devil.

- You're trying to plan it,

you're trying to make sure you're doing the right thing,

you're trying to, you know, and all the while,

you're trying to make sure you're making

the mothership happy as well.

- Carl obviously, you know, he's magnetic, attractive guy.

I mean his tattoos are a problem, but big picture he's-

- You don't like, you don't like the tattoos?

- They're okay, they're okay.

- If you have issues in your life, influence, and power,

and position will exacerbate all of them.

And then we hit New York City, and the level of pressure,

and the level of visibility, and the level of responsibility

was so huge, so quick.

(tense music)

I talked to Brian, floated the idea

that I don't know if I'm feeling good.

Like I feel like my head is kind of spinning,

and I'm tired, and I don't know how long I can do this,

services like this.

I think I did seven today, and he goes,

"When I was your age, I was doing 11."

- And weakness makes us dig deeper.

The apostle Paul says,

"When I am weak then I am strong."

- Maybe I internalized that and just was like,

"If that guy's doing 11 then,

"and doing fricking basically 10 now,

"I better, I better up my ante here."

Before you know it, you're so far in over your head,

that it's a matter of time.

Can we all just give God three, four seconds of praise?

You can shout, you can clap, you can move.

(crowd applauds and cheers)

Fill me up again, he will do it here and now.

(crowd cheers)

Can I get an amen?

Are you grateful that he saved your life?

(Carl chattering rapidly)

Take a moment and give God thanks for what he's done.

One of my addictive patterns was something

that started just as a regular, you know, prescription drug.

You need to feel the touch of God, you don't have to...

I was diagnosed with ADHD super early.

Once I left college, I was given a prescription,

and I stayed on that prescription for the rest of my life.

I started just to take more.

I didn't tell my doctor I was doing that,

I didn't tell anybody.

If you're sitting on your hands, I'm preaching to you!

It enables you to continue to do your job,

and you're just going, and you're going, and you're going.

I was, you know, doing my best to wall myself off,

because you don't want to see what's in here.

(crowd cheers)

How y'all doin' up there?

- [Journalist] Any sort of drugs mixed

with any sort of sexual addictions,

mixed with any sort of pressure,

is gonna create a storm of problems.

(chaotic people chattering)

- In October, 2020, a Hillsong staffer

informed Hillsong leadership that they had found

some sort of incriminating text messages of Carl's.

The messages were to a woman named Ranin Karim,

and Hillsong leadership approached Carl about it.

- I just remember feeling like I,

am I in a alternate universe right now?

The hardest part of this was just try not

to look my wife in the eye, ever.

(Carl sniffs)

(tense music)

- It was October 25th, I remember that day.

(tense music)

Carl's like, "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

As soon as he shut the door and I saw his face,

my heart just...

(tense music)

My heart just dropped, and I was like,

I could tell it was, it was something big.

I didn't know what he was gonna say, but,

when he did, my whole world changed, it crashed.

(tense music)

- It was about one o'clock in the morning,

and the phone went, and it was Laura.

- That was hard.

Yeah, it was really hard.

She was very distressed.

- He basically said, "I have been unfaithful to you."

I was like, "What, what does that mean?"

Like, "Who is it and do you love her?"

Like what is, what?

Like it was just unbelievable.

- Being on the other side of the world,

and not being able to hug her,

(chuckles)

that was just, oh, devastating as it grieved us.

Yeah.

(tense music)

- I thought about my kids.

That was my first thought.

Then it was so stupid,

but I thought about our church and our staff.

(light music)

- I, I just, I...

There are some things that you can recover from.

There's other things

that I'll never recover from.

Just the sound of her voice, the kind of cry that she had

was like no other cry I've ever heard.

You know, nobody should go through that,

especially a wife that is flawless in character.

(light music)

And I told her the best I could at that time,

and at that time I wasn't even fully honest,

'cause I didn't even know how deep it ran in me.

- Carl is a person that doesn't know

how to get a no for an answer.

- [Reporter] Do you believe that you were

the first person he ever did something like this with?

- I honestly don't know at this point.

- I told Laura.

She wasn't mad, she was just so broken and...

I don't know, people who have walked through infidelity

know what I'm talking about right now,

and it's a dark place to be,

but that's how it went down.

And then we went home, I called Brian.

I told him.

I remember telling him I'm in trouble.

You know, I'm not doing, I'm not doing well.

I'm not doing well.

My mind was so scattered, and it was ugly.

I remember him saying, "Okay, okay."

It was short, it wasn't harsh, or not harsh, or anything.

It was more like I think I could see

the wheels already turning for him.

Hillsong leadership told me we have a Zoom meeting.

It was with some of the board, it was with Brian,

and they said we're gonna meet with you and Laura

and talk even more in depth.

At this time, I still think,

"This is my church, this is my family,"

so I'm like, "What questions do you need me to answer

"so you can handle this correctly?"

- On the Zoom call, they asked Carl about Leona.

At this point I didn't know,

he hadn't told me this part yet.

Leona came into our life to help me with the kids,

and be our nanny, and be on staff.

Leona was paid, but she was really a part of our family.

I knew my kids were in good hands.

(siren wailing)

- When I graduated from Hillsong College,

I made a decision to go help launch Hillsong Boston.

(audience applauding)

Hillsong Boston was being run by Josh and Leona Kimes,

who have always been a part of Hillsong Church.

- Let's live loud as a servant,

just like Jesus, Matthew 20:28,

who didn't come to be served but to serve.

- I ended up moving to be their nanny.

(train rumbling)

I was Leona's nanny while Leona was Carl's nanny.

This is a picture that Lila drew.

It's supposed to be her and that's supposed to be me.

So while I was watching her child,

she was watching over their children.

(children chattering)

- She was always there.

(children chattering)

Leona would be at my house Christmas day,

Christmas morning opening presents with my kids,

and I'm like, "Hey, you can go home.

"You don't need to be here."

"Oh no, no, it's fine,

"and I've got a babysitter so it's fine."

- I was doing up to 40, sometimes even 60 hours

during the week for Hillsong Boston.

I wanted to be a pastor,

but the closest thing I can get to it

was being a pastor's nanny.

(children chattering)

- You've got someone in your house all the time,

and I would sometimes get these little feelings.

And then one night I found them in a compromising position.

I know I'm seeing something that is not right.

I ran into the room, and I shoved Carl and hit him,

and then I jumped on top of her, and I punched her.

I may have broken my pinky finger.

Something came over me, and I was angry,

and I definitely freaked out.

(static buzzing)

She was like, "I'm gonna leave because I can't be

"around someone who thinks I did something

"that I did not do."

And then that kind of died down,

you know, never talked about it again.

She was still in my house and still was around.

And I'm sure people are like, "You're insane,"

but it just, I don't know how to...

We were her pastors, we were her leaders,

she was on staff, like it got really messy.

Instead of talking about it,

again I would just stuff it down,

and like things, I would definitely be very,

probably too harsh with her.

How's it going, Leona?

- [Leona] What?

Why?

- You offered to do it.

I was in a really tormented place mentally.

I don't know what's happening in my house anymore.

I was pretty much gaslit by both of them for quite a while.

- You have to really search out his stories,

'cause often they're just,

there's just some inconsistencies.

(traffic humming)

- On the Zoom call, the truth came out there

in front of everyone.

Another affair.

So my feelings about that situation

for a long time were actually true.

And I had to move off of the screen,

because I was devastated.

Like out of everything that I've had to deal with,

I've had to process that situation probably the most.

(tense music)

- I was way too vulnerable in that meeting, and I regret it.

I just...

I never thought that anything

from that meeting would be twisted, ever,

and so I told 'em everything I could about every situation.

Exactly what had been going on in my life,

and they thanked me for that,

and that was the last time I saw 99% of 'em,

when that Zoom call was over.

(tense music)

- A month before this,

and I got a call that my daughter had to go to the ER,

'cause she had tried to take a bunch of pills.

(tense music)

When I found out about the betrayal,

I sent texts and emails to Bobbie.

My biggest plea was,

if you could just spare the details as much as possible,

because my daughter is in a very fragile state.

(message dings softly)

(tense music)

(message dings softly)

(message dings softly)

(message dings softly)

(message dings)

The message back was that they would try,

and at this point I still felt like they were family and

that we would be taken care of and I was safe.

And I learned pretty quick that that changed.

(tense music)

- [Reporter] In this recording obtained by the Daily Mail,

Brian Houston allegedly revealing a timeline

of improper behavior by Lentz.

- I had no idea ever, ever,

that somebody would use confidential information

like that in that way.

- Speaking to our staff about things

that Carl had said privately and I had said privately.

- And it was leaked literally directly to the Daily Mail.

- We were fired.

Oh, resigned, sorry.

It just felt like I was fired,

because it wasn't really an option.

- There was a, you know, a story or a narrative

that she, you know, had resigned,

which is true but she was told to resign.

- There's children involved,

and to say such nasty things, it was really damaging.

- My head began to kinda lose the few screws

it had left in it.

I thought about just ways to get out of this,

to cause the least amount of damage,

knowing that there was no way out,

and definitely thought about vacating the planet.

- What's my life now?

What am, like what else can I do?

I'd lost everything.

(somber music)

- October of 2018, I got really,

really sick while at service,

and I didn't have insurance in Massachusetts.

My friends at church took me to the bus station,

so I can take a bus from Boston to New York,

just so I can go to the hospital and get checked.

I was still in this mindset, I need to serve,

that I was sick in bed in New York,

and still doing administrative work for Hillsong Boston.

And then the day after Thanksgiving,

I got a text message from Josh.

That text was basically him letting me go

from my volunteer positions,

as if everything I did meant nothing,

and I fell into a very bad depression.

I felt so alone, and I had no one to turn to.

(soft tense music)

- You know, church can be a phenomenal blessing

in people's lives, or it can be a sledgehammer of pain.

For a long time I defended everybody, I defended Brian,

and it took me a while to get out of that head space,

and realize probably some unhealthy mindsets

that I was intertwined with.

I'm tired of this damage, I'm tired of this wreckage,

I'm tired of putting people I love through pain.

The decisions that I made,

the pain those caused, the betrayals involved,

I did those things, those are on me,

I take responsibility for those,

and the rest of my life I'll be making amends where I can,

and it's also my job to go figure out

how the hell that happened.

(basketball thumping)

You know, when I really started unwinding

what happened to me as a child,

you know, it was really, it was really rough.

I'm able to talk about it now, you know, barely.

Well I pushed it down for a long time,

because I didn't wanna hurt my parents,

and my parents are amazing.

(thunder cracks)

And, you know, it was a family friend

had sexually abused me.

My brain had kind of shut off some of that memory,

just stuff you don't really like to think about,

I don't care how old you are,

you don't want to go through that.

(tense music)

And I was told when I was abused,

"Let's not tell anybody about this.

"This is gonna be our secret.

"You know, protect that," you know,

and when you're a kid, you don't really process it,

and you don't realize what your brain is processing,

and I would learn to hide stuff for no reason,

from my parents, from people.

I developed a pattern of secrecy.

(thunder cracks)

I had such deep shame.

My eyes saw things at a young age I shouldn't have seen.

(basketball thumps)

Gotta get a drink here, probably take a breath.

I've never really got into any detail about that.

(soft music)

- After Hillsong news and Carl Lentz news

had gone quiet for a few months,

Leona Kimes published an essay on Medium,

where she said that Carl had been sexually abusing her.

(soft music)

(soft music)

(soft music)

- I am responsible for allowing

an inappropriate relationship to develop in my house

with someone that worked for us.

Any notion of abuse is categorically false.

There were mutual adult decisions made by two people

who lied profusely, mainly to my wife.

(soft music)

It's an issue, because I was a boss,

this person was an employee.

I'm responsible for that power dynamic,

and the management of it, and the wisdom that goes with it,

and I failed absolutely miserably.

(soft music)

This is a shepherd's staff.

A real good shepherd would see

that little lambie walking away,

and it would crack its leg, sometimes even breaking the leg.

You know when you when you see those beautiful pictures

of Jesus walking in the hillside with that lambie,

he just broke that thing's leg.

- Spiritual abuse is where somebody

who's got authority in your life as a pastor,

as a spiritual leader of some kind,

is taking advantage of you.

- But a good shepherd would then take that little lambie

that has a little broken leg,

and it would stay right by the shepherd.

And as it would grow up,

the shepherd would never leave it,

and that lamb when it was tempted to wander the next time,

it would remember that moment when it got corrected,

and next thing you know, all that lamb has ever known

is living right next to the shepherd.

I'm not saying... - But there's no cost

that justifies the kind of damage

to the soul that happens

in a spiritually abusive relationship.

Someone who's acting in a spiritually abusive way

to their members, to their staff, to their family,

to whomever it is, they've disqualified themselves.

- In my heart of hearts,

of course I need to call someone and say,

"I have disqualified myself from ministry,

"and y'all need to, you need to take over."

That's what should have happened.

I should have done that.

I didn't, I wasn't healthy.

(tense music)

(tense music)

- Part of the devastation that happens

when these churches fall apart is people sort of wake up

to their own complicity,

and they see that they were part of something

that was so toxic and so damaging.

They're not only trying to sort of

reconcile it with themselves,

they're trying to reconcile it with their faith.

(tense music)

(somber instrumental music)

- Whether it's, you know, LGBTQ issues,

or Black Lives Matter, Christianity is always a step behind.

So it's not like Carl Lentz was

in front of anything, right,

as far as the secular world.

You take him out of church, he's not progressive,

but in the church world, he seems ahead of his time.

- It's okay if you're in America

to say "Black lives matter," end of sentence.

It doesn't mean that other lives don't,

it just means these do, we're gonna say that sentence.

- Okay, that's good, all right.

- We had a very diverse crew,

you know, very diverse church.

I personally have a lot of relationships

with non-white people,

and I felt like overall our church was pretty quiet.

(somber music)

It was less about politics,

it was less about, you know, this giant conversation.

More about if you're hurting, we're hurting.

You know, if you're going through it,

we're gonna go through it together.

To me it wasn't like this valiant call,

and people tried to make it like that,

because after we looked around, I was like,

but there are a lot of people who are silent on this,

and that's their right, no judgment,

but I'm not, I'm not gonna be silent on it.

(somber music)

- When all these, you know,

murders are happening, and Black people are being killed,

and nobody is saying anything,

he gets all this acclaim,

just because Christianity is so, so backwards.

- Black lives matter.

(crowd cheers)

- Here's why I'll say no, I don't think it was.

We struggled with diversity as a leadership team.

And, you know, I brought that up many times,

and I don't think it was intentional.

I'm not saying that we're a deeply racist church,

I'm just saying we do not have a single pastor

on a global level that is not a white man.

And so that's where the system failed.

- Megachurches are sending, you know, 26-year-old white men

to places like Brooklyn to pastor to minority populations.

Cultural situations that they don't understand,

or they're not equipped or trained to exist in.

- You ever been to jail?

Don't raise your hand if you've been, don't do it.

You gonna stay mad single.

- That becomes really problematic,

and we had, you know, a number of occasions

where sources would say to us,

"What Hillsong did was colonize the city,

"and I don't know if I want them here anymore."

- One time we did a conference in Harlem,

and it was a women's conference,

and I remember mentioning, I'm like,

"Hey, you know, we can't have a lineup

"of white women in Harlem.

"We shouldn't have it anyway,

"but this is gonna be a bad look,"

and I was definitely met with some resistance there.

Oh, here comes Carl again, he's the race guy.

You know, I remember being told sternly,

we're not gonna do that.

We're not gonna cater to what people think,

and we're not gonna specialize certain races.

I definitely quieted down a little bit,

'cause I hated that so much.

It's tricky when you run a church that you control,

but you really don't,

there're gonna be moments of complication.

(tense music)

- I disconnected emotionally.

I didn't even sing the worship songs anymore.

I stayed as long as my daughter Ashley stayed,

and when she said she had enough,

I said, "Okay, this is it, let's go."

After we left, Carl came to visit me in my apartment.

He said, "What did I do wrong?"

And I said, "You love basketball.

"When you are shooting the ball,

"you go up with the ball, and then you follow through."

I said, "That's your problem.

"You don't follow through."

And that's when he started crying.

(tense music)

- To the people who say I dropped the ball

when it comes to the whole question of race in church,

and that I didn't do enough,

I would reject that completely.

Funny, I remember we had a meeting in church one time,

and I gathered some Black leaders in our church,

and it was a really good meeting by and large.

And then afterwards, there was a lot of people

who wanted to say thanks, and then there were some people

who had, you know, issues with it.

And that was the night, you know I heard from,

you know, a woman of color who said,

"You had a woman up there who's married to a white man.

"What's she doing up there?"

We had another person come up to me and say,

"That person you had up there doesn't represent my culture,

"represents a different culture,"

and I remember that night going like,

"Wow, I gotta do what's in my heart and what's best here,

"because this isn't gonna be something

"that is gonna please everybody."

I do find it ironic that I'm being asked

about those questions when I feel like

that was one of the things we did the absolute best.

You know, I feel like we cut new ground with that.

And is it enough?

I don't know, what is enough?

So for the people who say that he didn't do enough,

what would be enough?

I would get 100 different answers from 100 different people.

I respect people's opinions.

I have one too.

(dramatic music)

- Hillsong is planting themselves

in this very progressive city.

They're saying everybody's welcome here,

and so you just give them all the benefit of the doubt.

Thinking about like LGBTQ things,

I knew what the Christian stance was.

I didn't know what Hillsong's was.

- I think the heart of our church at that time was,

we don't wanna upset the religious apple cart

that could affect our bottom line,

but we definitely love all people.

You can't have it both ways.

'Cause if people find out that, you know,

Hillsong Church is, you know, affirming to this person,

and if Hillsong, boom, it could affect our sales here,

so under the radar, yes, welcome, come one, come all.

Outside, this is Hillsong Church,

we believe traditional stuff here.

- B ecause we have to keep the main thing the main thing,

and the main thing is Jesus,

and just getting people in here.

But even if Hillsong Church does have an issue

with gay people, honestly,

that's part of the deal with Christianity,

and you just kind of know that.

(dramatic music)

- Hillsong New York City never spoke against homosexuality,

they never spoke against the gay community.

Well of course your congregation is filled with homosexuals.

Like, of course we're there.

What we're hearing sounds to us like you're on our side,

that you're with us, that we, you're telling us we belong.

Aren't you? Aren't you?

- [Carl] This is the kind of church

where you come as you are, not come as you should be.

We love you, we're glad you're here.

- They're an evangelical,

quasi-fundamentalist Pentecostal church.

Like of course they believe these things.

What did you all expect?

(tense music)

- I think Carl, while a naturally easy person

to peg all these issues on,

is really just, he's a cog, you know?

I think he's a pretty important cog,

but the wheel is broken.

Carl is just like part of the mechanism

that makes the wheel turn.

(tense music)

- Did I ever try to leave Hillsong?

We were definitely at a place

where we knew our time was up.

I did have some conversations with Brian,

and, you know, we came to an agreement that we wouldn't.

But it comes a time where

the most respectful thing you can do

is to do something different,

and so I think that's where I was headed for sure.

Rather than be a contentious player,

you just gotta go to a different game.

ity pastor

having an affair, to be honest,

felt pretty pedestrian to me.

It happens all of the time.

The more Dan and I talked about it though,

the more reading we did,

it seemed to me that there was something else larger

that was happening at this church.

What was most shocking about the way

that Brian dealt with the Carl situation,

was that for years, for decades,

Hillsong had been giving grace to pastors

who had really messed up.

Sweeping it under the rug, making it go away.

This was an instance where we had a pastor

who really messed up, you know, they got rid of him,

and they did it really publicly.

They did it on TV, they did it in the newspapers,

they leaked audio.

That is one of the sort of what we call

the black swans, right?

Like it's the thing that sticks out,

it doesn't make a lot of sense.

- Historically, people who have crossed Brian Houston

aren't really heard from again in a Hillsong context.

That happened to Carl a couple of years ago,

and it happened to Geoff Bullock a few decades earlier.

Geoff is one of the most influential figures

in contemporary Christian music.

In his world, he's like Nirvana.

(birds chirping) (solemn music)

- I was the initial Creative Minister at Hillsong.

I was part of the group of people

that pioneered the church with Brian Houston.

We went from being, you know, just an Aussie church,

having a whole lot of fun, to being more corporatized.

I said to Brian, "Look, we've worked together

"for these past 12 years.

"You are my family, but I've gotta tell you,

"we are doing things where we are pushing all our people

"to the limit."

Brian just said to me,

"It's not your job to come to senior management

"to represent the rights of the workers.

"No.

"If they don't like it, tell them to go to another church

"and we'll find somebody else."

Brian's anger is legendary.

He called it strong leadership.

There was a time when Brian and I were flying to LA.

Brian loved to have his business class seat.

His secretary somehow couldn't get that seat,

so he reduced her to tears.

He just yelled, and yelled, and yelled.

- There is a God of Israel who is alive,

and who can overcome every--

- I started to see the angry Brian,

the Brian that often struggled with how I did things.

I had to perform the way he wanted me to perform.

I was struggling with the intense pressure

on me to be somebody that I wasn't.

I just couldn't go on.

And I decided I had to leave.

In the space of three months, I lost all of my friends.

I lost my church family.

My wife left me, I got ostracized.

Brian wrote a letter to all the music directors,

saying that they can't sing any of the new songs

that I would write.

I got a phone call in early 2000's from Nabi Saleh,

one of the senior elders of Hillsong,

saying, "Look, I'd love to get together with you,"

and we sat down and ordered coffee,

and he looked me in the eyes and he said,

"Geoff, you do know we tried to destroy you."

And I said to him, "Nabi, why?"

And he said,

"Because we thought you were gonna bring us down."

(tense music)

- [Reporter] Right now on GMA

with that dramatic fall from grace

for celebrity pastor Carl Lentz.

- [Reporter] They began what she calls a consensual affair.

- [Reporter] Is reportedly now seeking outside help,

following his recent ouster and marital infidelity.

- After the barrage, there was a couple months of silence,

and Brian randomly goes on TV for this terrible interview.

And then he starts talking about me again.

I remember going like, "Why is he doing this?"

Like, why does he keep...

He doesn't need to do this.

I was trying to get my wellbeing back,

and out of the corner my eye, I'm going, "What?"

Like, this guy's on TV saying what?

- Carl is Carl, he's a unique character.

There's a lot of things I miss about Carl.

But having said that,

there were leadership issues that I believe included lying,

included what I would call narcissistic behavior.

- The first rule of power is don't outshine the master.

You don't show up your boss,

and that's 100% what Carl had done.

- Carl overtook the brand.

Brian went scorched earth,

just to ruin his chances of surviving outside of Hillsong.

The rumor is that Carl was planning

to leave Hillsong anyway.

If he wanted to start a new church,

Carl would've taken a hefty chunk

of Hillsong's congregations.

People and money, mostly the money.

(tense music)

- I think of Carl Lentz as Lucifer.

He was so beautiful, and he was growing in power so much,

that he almost thought he could be Brian,

and he had to be thrown out of heaven.

- Pastors everywhere, and in Hillsong church,

deal with things, and depending on how you get caught,

depending on who you are, that depends on how we treat it.

- [Reporter] There are some people

at Hillsong Church who face scandals,

and those scandals get swept under the rug.

And then there are other people who are valuable assets,

or even shining stars, and they end up getting buried.

- Maybe they just thought that they had crushed this so much

that, you know, we were just gonna vanish into thin air,

and to a degree we did, and we might,

but God reveals what he wants to reveal.

(journalists chattering)

And that train is not stopping anytime soon.

- The whole truth. - The whole truth.

- And nothing but the truth. - And nothing but the truth.

(engaging jazz music)

- [Carl] The calling is explosive and we need it.

Don't let the devil rob you of an opportunity

to have a hand in the greatest group

of God history has ever seen.

(engaging jazz music)

(engaging jazz music)

The purpose of Jesus saving your life...

(cameras clicking)

(orchestral music)