Original subtitles

(gentle music)

(somber music)

(somber music continues)

(somber music continues)

- You can't live in Australia and not hear

about the Hillsong Church. - Hillsong.

- Hillsong. - Hillsong.

- Hillsong. - Hillsong.

(somber music continues) - In terms of becoming aware

of the failings of the church,

the crimes of some of its senior members,

well, I think you go back to this town hall meeting.

(tense music)

This was a time when institutional child sexual abuse,

in many ways, was considered a kind of dark secret,

a place for conspiracies. (tense music continues)

Victims were damaged individuals,

and the institutions were the kind of privileged voices.

(tense music continues)

I spent 11 years in Parliament

fighting for victims of child sexual abuse

from institutions, especially the churches.

When you're doing this kind of work as a politician,

you absolutely need to find a way

for the story to be told and fix these broken laws.

(tense music continues)

We booked a big hall for a Saturday morning.

We put out a few fliers,

and we weren't sure who would turn up.

And I remember getting there

about 15 minutes before the meeting started,

and there was a crowd of people outside

waiting for the doors to open. (melancholy music)

And I thought to myself, well,

this is going to be bigger than I suspected.

Within a few minutes, those seats filled,

and then we put out more seats and more seats

and more seats.

And then this hall filled

with hundreds, hundreds of people.

And there were people standing on the side.

(melancholy music continues)

There was this emotion,

raw emotion in the room. (melancholy music continues)

- [Victim] He was a monster.

An absolute monster.

- My son committed suicide. (melancholy music continues)

- Victims and families were telling their stories.

After we'd heard from the victims,

we had this police officer step up.

(melancholy music continues)

- Do we need a royal commission? By hell we do.

(audience applauding) (melancholy music continues)

- A royal commission looks a lot like a court,

but it has powers that go well beyond the court.

It can force the truth from institutions.

It can force witnesses to tell the truth.

This was the first and best chance

that these victims had had. (melancholy music continues)

There was this growing media coverage.

It felt like the moment had arrived.

(gentle downbeat music)

♪ I hope you find some peace of mind ♪

♪ In this lifetime ♪

(gentle downbeat music continues)

♪ I hope you find some paradise ♪

(gentle downbeat music continues)

(gentle downbeat music continues)

(gentle downbeat music continues)

(no audio)

(somber music)

- I think it's incredibly hard to report on Hillsong

for a number of reasons. (somber music continues)

The church is not transparent in any way.

It's run by a board of directors

that was ostensibly handpicked by Brian Houston.

- Amen! Amen!

- They don't communicate with the press,

and the church forces a lot of people

to sign non-disclosure agreements.

(somber music continues)

You know, if you say bad things about Hillsong,

Hillsong can then pursue litigation against you,

so that scares a lot of people off.

(somber music continues) (traffic whooshing)

So as a journalist, sometimes you have to talk

to other journalists who are working on the same story.

You share information, you share leads, you share contacts,

and together, you advance the story.

(somber music continues)

- [Recorder] Mr. Beckett, thank you.

- [Beckett] Pastor Houston,

I wonder if you could state your

full name, please.

- My full name is Brian Charles Houston.

- [Beckett] Thank you.

If in our litigation against any senior pastor,

if that had come forward,

you would want to know about that, wouldn't you?

- If I had been told something like that,

I would've been like a dog with a bone

going after what we're talking about here.

I was oblivious.

Completely oblivious.

- [Beckett] All right. (tense music)

I'll just take you through some of the period before that.

(upbeat rock music)

- We moved here in 1978, you know,

roughly 12 months after my parents.

Initially, it was going to be a one-year working holiday.

(upbeat rock music continues)

- Brian came over to help his father

when his father moved to Sydney to start a church.

(upbeat rock music continues)

There were a number of churches in Sydney

that were like 50 to 100 people,

and yet Frank had 1,000 in the space of a year.

(upbeat rock music continues)

- I was a window cleaner,

and then eventually became an assistant pastor.

From there, planted three different churches.

The third one was what now is Hillsong Church.

Give someone a warm hug or a handshake

and welcome people to church.

Amen! (congregation chattering)

- Brian really appreciated the role

that music played in his father's services,

so really early in the process of starting his own church,

he teamed up with a very talented professional musician

named Geoff Bullock.

- I spoke to the then worship pastor in my dad's church

and says, "Can you help us out

with someone to play piano and give us some music?"

And he says, "Well, I can only give you Geoff Bullock."

(tense music) (congregation laughing)

- The early days of Hills Christian Life Center.

We started in August, '83 with an out-of-tune piano

on the stage of Baulkham Hills Public School.

By summer '84, we had maybe 100, 150 people in the church.

A lot of musicians'd come from other churches.

(tense music continues)

Brian and I are floating around

our above-ground swimming pools

pretending to be millionaires.

And that's when I said to Brian,

"We should call the music team Hillsong."

He said, "Why would we do that?"

And I said, "Well, it's better than saying

the Hills Christian Life Centre Music Team."

So that's when the name Hillsong was born.

The thing exploded.

(tape clicks)

The Brian I remember was a bit of a goofy guy.

(gentle orchestral music)

- He was quite a Ned Flanders-looking character.

- And we just really love to have you here

and wanna encourage you

just to be a part of what God's doing.

- I found him so average.

I didn't really think he was going to go anywhere.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

Who knew?

- When Brian started preaching,

his eyes would blink flat out.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

- He wasn't the world's greatest preacher,

but he was full of enthusiasm.

He was very entrepreneurial.

- You can see the potential.

- God, I'm believing to see

a mighty revival in this part of the city.

How many can believe for that?

Hallelujah! (congregation clapping)

- And he was the type of person that you,

not only wanted to like,

but you wanted him to like you.

(gentle orchestral music continues)

I think Brian was always trying to impress his father

and follow in his father's shoes,

but not to do it like his father.

- So praise God! (congregation applauding)

- In 1989, six years after starting Hills Christian Centre,

Brian took a trip to the United States.

(gentle music)

1989 America was like real excess and very few apologies.

Americans were just doing it more and bigger.

(gentle music continues)

Brian hooked up with a lot of American pastors

who were teaching the prosperity gospel.

They teach that if you give money to the church,

God will give you money and good health in return.

- Someone had a growth.

I just saw a growth being healed.

- The message that's being preached:

power is good, and you should ask God for power.

Money is good, and you should absolutely ask God for money,

and the success that you have is a sign of God's blessing.

- I like new money.

I don't know if you do.

But I hate old money that's wrinkled and dirty

and got all the diseases on it.

- [Kristin] So it's an incredibly effective way

to amass money and power

if you're trying to build a religious empire.

(gentle music continues)

- When God speaks to you, I know He'll bless you.

- It also is very much prone to abuse,

(gentle music continues)

because anybody who has power

to speak for God can make demands of you.

- Then if you could send a gift of $50.

(gentle music continues)

- And I want you to make a $1,000 vow of faith.

Oh, I know you probably don't have $1,000, but vow it.

- Prosperity preachers are manipulating people to give,

not to bless people, but to line their own pockets.

(gentle music continues)

- It benefits the people who are preaching the gospel.

It doesn't benefit the faithful.

(congregation clapping)

That was the culture that Brian caught in the United States,

and so he came back and really made a shift

from an Assemblies of God Pentecostalism,

which is pretty blue collar,

and really money became the center

of what the church was all about.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music continues)

- [Announcer] Brian Houston presents "Money".

- There's not one person in this building

who doesn't need more money.

♪ Wake up, wake up, wake up ♪

- What an awesome thing it is

to have you as part of our world.

- [Announcer] To purchase any of the products

you've just seen, write to Hillsong Australia.

- [Kristin] "You Need More Money".

- You'll say, I am rich!

- Brian ended up writing that book, "You Need More Money".

I think what he meant was he wanted more money.

- All of a sudden, we're talking about Ferragamo shoes

and Armani suits. (upbeat music continues)

And every time we went anywhere,

we had to get a Gianni Versace tie

or we had to get Gianni Versace socks.

I remember laughing one day and thinking,

Gianni Versace's the patron saint of Hillsong.

(upbeat music continues)

- Then you saw this real deliberate attempt

to reinvent himself in the image

of what he thought would be most attractive

to potential followers,

which was very heavily fake tanned,

he's got bleach-white teeth,

he's got ripped arms.

- That's 29!

That's 30!

- [David] He's really the alpha male

in the room, and everyone knows it.

- Would you all say it with me? Spiritually alive?

Spiritually alive!

- They ended up hiring a consultant.

Brian said, "Look, I'm gonna hire this guy.

He costs $50,000, and he's going to teach us

how to raise funds so we can spread the gospel."

Recruitment and growth were very strong focal points.

There also seemed to be an increase

in opportunities to donate.

- Are you serving Jesus tonight?

- The church got bigger.

We moved into the warehouse next door,

knocked the wall down.

And then we moved into the local entertainment center,

1,500 people.

Then we bought more and more equipment.

Then we started recording albums.

We formed a publishing company.

We did all these music books, and it was...

Well, it was exhausting.

(tense music)

- [Alex] You're not there for Jesus.

You're there for Brian Houston.

- Why don't we just stay standing for a moment?

- He shows up on Sunday in a chauffeured car.

He gets in an elevator

that takes him to a private green room.

He loves to hobnob with celebrities.

He goes out into the church space

and he sits in a roped off area.

(tense music continues)

- Brian Houston acted

as a sort of spiritual father to Carl Lentz.

Carl learned a lot from Brian

in terms of how to run a church,

how to operate in a green room

with celebrities and athletes.

Carl also brought something to the table

that Brian didn't have.

Carl, by all accounts,

is a great speaker and a charismatic presence.

Brian's never really been praised for that.

He's been known more for brute force

and for making things happen by whichever means.

- My faith, my strength.

(congregation applauding)

(congregation applauding)

(tense music)

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

Our friendship grew.

And when Brian started Christian Life Centre,

I was asked to go in and pastor the church.

- Back in the day, Christian Life Centre

had some pretty strict boundaries for young people.

(tense music continues)

- Youth group was about resisting the flesh,

resisting those urges

and keeping yourself kind of for marriage.

(tense music continues)

And I actually became pregnant.

My partner was 19 and I was 20.

(tense music continues)

We were really shocked.

We didn't think it was unreasonable to go to the church

and say, "We need help, we need support."

(tense music continues)

But unfortunately, we couldn't have been more wrong.

(tense music continues)

The youth pastor approached us and said to us,

"The next step for you is to stand up in front of your peers

and apologize for what you've done."

(eerie music)

I can't even begin to describe the shock,

the trauma, the embarrassment, the shame

that we went through in that moment.

(eerie music continues)

The look on people's faces, their shock,

their sense of embarrassment. (eerie music continues)

Nobody knew where to look.

They couldn't look at us in the eye.

(eerie music continues)

(eerie music continues)

- This is something that I've only started thinking about

in the last few years,

is the cost of what was taken from me

in terms of this being my very first pregnancy,

my very first child. (eerie music continues)

I was ashamed to be pregnant.

(eerie music continues)

All the emotional stuff

that we went through made me physically sick.

I was physically sick throughout my whole pregnancy.

(eerie music continues)

Like, gravely ill.

(eerie music continues)

All we had was this church environment,

and here they were now treating us like pariahs.

(eerie music continues)

- Wow.

Well, to put a person up on a platform

and shame them, and it was in our church?

- Mm-hm. - Wow.

(eerie music continues)

Blatantly wrong.

And if I was responsible for that,

which as the senior pastor, I am,

then I was totally out of order, totally wrong.

Jesus said, leave the 99 and go after the one.

But when I started our church, I have to confess,

I saw crowds, I didn't see individuals.

(eerie music continues)

We have a lot to answer for.

A lot to answer for.

(eerie music continues)

- As far as a sense of holiness,

a sense of accountability to people's internal life,

it was about counting numbers and counting money.

(eerie music continues)

I always felt that Brian was out to prove

that he could go one further than his father.

(eerie music continues)

(car rumbling)

(tense music)

- Brian Houston's father, Frank Houston,

had this very mundane life.

(tense music continues)

It was hard for him to make a living.

There wasn't much money coming in.

And he meets this Pentecostal preacher,

a real fire-and-brimstone charismatic-style preacher,

and something just clicked with him.

(tense music continues)

He could be the living embodiment of God on the stage,

the Holy Spirit racing through him

and impassion a crowd of people

who would follow him anywhere,

who would do anything for him.

(tense music continues)

I think, for Frank,

that was everything that he ever wanted to be.

(tense music continues)

- So Frank started his career as a minister

at a Salvation Army boys' home in New Zealand.

(tense music continues)

He left there

and went to a small town outside of Wellington

called Lower Hutt.

(tense music continues)

Lower Hutt was working class,

the people knew each other well,

and he founded an Assemblies of God Church there.

(tense music continues)

- My family attended Lower Hutt Assembly of God Church

for probably 15, 20 years. (tense music continues)

My father was an elder at Lower Hutt AOG,

so he was quite friendly with the Houstons.

(audience applauding)

- Well, good morning, church.

- [Congregation] Good morning.

- How are you today? Everybody happy?

- [Congregation] Yes!

- Assemblies of God at the time that Frank Houston

became involved was not a large church movement

in New Zealand, but Frank Houston wanted the church to grow,

and he was really good at this, too.

(bright music)

From that humble beginning

of just a handful of congregations across the country

to there being about 700 congregations

across the country, it grew.

(congregants clapping) (bright music continues)

And so when it came to appointing a leader

of that church community,

Frank Houston was there and ready for it.

(bright music continues)

There were church elders in Assemblies of God,

and they had degrees of influence themselves,

but Frank Houston didn't want that.

- Instead of voting for board members,

he took that apart and basically said,

I'm gonna handpick the board members.

I am the leader. (bright music continues)

- Matthew 5:1-12.

- He was a very forceful person,

and someone who you never ever wanted to argue with.

- He would throw things at people like cushions and water.

I just remember being very fearful in church.

I think when we heard, oh, don't be alone with Frank,

it was always a bit of a joke because it was like,

well, why wouldn't you be alone with him?

You wanted to hang with God. (bright music continues)

- [Alex] Frank Houston practiced

an oppressive style of leadership.

He shamed people, he humiliated them.

(bright music continues)

- But it's not only Frank, because Brian Houston,

he goes out on his own and he starts

his own congregation up. (bright music continues)

- [Alex] What he does is really mimic

the leadership structure

that Frank had installed at his own church.

(bright music continues)

- There's really interesting parallels there.

All the power in the church centers on its leader.

Frank Houston had no one

that would stop him or question him.

I can't see that at Hillsong, either.

The accountabilities, the safety nets,

they seemed absent in both.

(no audio)

- [Director] Was there ever any rumors about Frank

back in those times? - Rumors?

I think there were question marks.

But,

well, he just seemed to be always surrounded

with young men. (ominous music)

(children chattering) (ominous music continues)

- Frank Houston's influence in the Assemblies of God Church

grew out throughout the country.

(water whooshing)

He often talked about the church that he'd dreamt of.

(ominous music continues)

You could sense that inside of him

was a passion to build a church

in Australia, too. (ominous music continues)

(traffic whooshing)

- Oh, everybody thought that Frank going to Australia

was the greatest thing that ever happened.

It was the call of God. (ominous music continues)

He had to go. He didn't have a choice.

Frank had a vision.

(ominous music continues) (waves whooshing)

Later on, we find out that there was rumblings

in the undergrowth, and Frank ran.

(ominous music continues)

(somber music)

- [David] Sometimes there are moments

in politics that surprise you. (somber music continues)

- Do we need a royal commission? By hell we do.

(audience applauding)

- When finally the announcement was made

two years after that town hall meeting,

(somber music continues)

I really couldn't believe it had happened.

- Okay, everybody's ready? (tense music)

I'm here to announce that I will be recommending

to the governor-general that a royal commission be appointed

to inquire into institutional responses

to instances and allegations of child abuse in Australia.

(tense music continues)

- The phone just started ringing,

and there was survivor after survivor after survivor

calling in tears saying, "I can't believe it's happened."

This was it, this was the chance

to finally hold any institution

that had abused kids to account.

(tense music continues)

What was happening in Australia was a microcosm

of what we saw happening around the rest of the planet.

- Devastating detail how the past leadership

of the Southern Baptist Convention

ignored sexual abuse allegations

for the better part of two decades.

- Thousands of former Boy Scout volunteers

accused of sexually abusing children between 1944 and 2016.

- For more than 150 years, an old system

of boarding schools.

- [Reporter] Which priests were known

to be the abusive priests? (tense music continues)

- This was a global failure.

It felt like the moment had arrived around the world.

So much of the story up to that point

had been about the Catholic Church,

and there's a reason for that.

It's the most dominant church in Australia.

And then eventually,

we had survivors and victims of Hillsong.

(tense music continues)

- One of the most notable voices was an Australian man

who was identified by the initials AHA.

- I call AHA.

Mr. AHA, I wonder if you could

please read your statement out to the Royal Commission.

- [AHA] I'll do my best.

(ominous music)

In January 1970, I recall that Pastor Frank

and his son, Brian, stayed with us for almost a whole week.

I'm aware of the date

because Pastor Frank signed and dated my mother's bible.

(ominous music continues)

- My wife told me about the Australian royal commission,

and I had no idea

about what it was all about.

- [Beckett] Mr. AHA, could you read

the entry for 5th of November?

- I listened very intently

and downloaded all the documents associated with it,

and started to really, really get into it

and understand what had happened and what it was all about.

- [AHA] Pastor Frank would creep into my room late at night,

and then I would wake up with him standing over me.

(ominous music continues)

He was touching me inappropriately.

I would be petrified and would lay very still.

I could not speak while this was happening

and felt like I couldn't breathe.

(ominous music continues)

I'm not sure how long he would stay in the room with me,

but it felt like forever.

(ominous music continues)

- This is exactly what happened to me.

(ominous music continues)

When I was eight years old,

my parents started holding a Bible study in our home.

(ominous music continues)

Frank would come for a meal beforehand,

and then us kids would be sent to bed.

(ominous music continues)

This thing came into my bedroom

that I called the black shadow.

And I would sense it there first,

and then I'd feel its weight on top of me

and I'd feel breath on my face.

(ominous music continues) And I was

fondled.

(ominous music continues)

I always had a suspicion that something had happened,

that it was Frank, that it was

that sexual interaction that happened when I was young,

when I was eight,

but I didn't really know.

I didn't really know for a long, long time.

(ominous music continues)

But when I read the Australian royal commission testimony,

that was the moment when I knew without a shadow of doubt

that the black shadow was Frank Houston.

(ominous music continues)

- [AHA] I was so ashamed of the abuse

that I kept it inside for many years

and did not tell anyone. (ominous music continues)

It was only on or about 1978 when I was about 16 years old

that I told my mother about the abuse.

My mother was still heavily involved

in the church at that time.

All of her friends were involved in the church,

and the Houstons were considered

to be almost like royalty in those circles.

(ominous music continues)

After I told her about the abuse,

my mother said words to the following effect.

"You don't want to be responsible for turning people

from the church and sending them to hell."

(ominous music continues) (fire crackling)

- I told my parents about it,

and they thought it was a nightmare.

They were so naive and so enamored about Frank

that that was not even on their radar.

(ominous music continues)

And I remember taking a piece of wood to bed,

a four by two, so I could bang on the wall

when the black shadow came so they could hear me.

(ominous music continues)

And it happened

quite a few times.

(ominous music continues)

This is a photograph of me taken in 1962.

I was eight years old.

(ominous music continues)

The boy in this picture is a boy

that had already

encountered childhood sexual abuse.

(ominous music continues)

I didn't really have any friends.

It would be unlikely that anything I said would be believed.

(somber music) (traffic whooshing)

(heartbeat thudding)

- I'd been reading survivor blogs.

One of the things that I came across

that I really wasn't expecting to

was just how much conservative Evangelicals

emphasized authority.

You show your obedience to God

by being faithful and submissive to people

that God has placed in charge of you.

(tense music)

They set people up for abuse of leadership.

And when I listened to the voices of survivors,

members of their own communities, their own churches,

sometimes even their own families questioned their stories

in order to continue to protect the ministry.

(tense music continues)

- There was a number of young boys

who said things about Frank Houston,

criticism of him in a way that resulted

in them either being thrown out of the church

or being ostracized by leadership.

(tense music continues)

There was an occasion where one young man came in

and said Frank Houston had been doing physical things to him

that he didn't like

and accused him in front of one of the other pastors.

The other pastor actually physically punched

this kid in the face and said,

"Don't you ever, ever talk about our pastor like that."

(tense music continues)

- Nobody came forward to the police,

a nd I think that says a lot about his hold on the police.

(tense music continues)

Any accounts of abuse most certainly would've been squashed

by Frank and the people that he sort of lorded over

at the AOG. (tense music continues)

You know, we're gonna keep this in the church.

- The motivation to keep Frank Houston's offending quiet

would've been huge. (tense music continues)

For New Zealand Assemblies of God,

they were protecting something that was all about the past.

For Australia Assemblies of God,

they were protecting the future,

and that future was huge.

(tense music continues)

(keyboard clacking)

I started looking into Frank Houston and Assemblies of God

as a result of the Australian commission.

There were documents that were put into evidence

that spoke of things happening in New Zealand

that had never been written about.

(tense music continues)

When Frank left in '75,

he left behind decades of sexual violence against children.

(tense music continues)

I thought I'd messed up

the way I was searching our news archives

because I couldn't find anything about Frank Houston.

(tense music continues)

It was really alarming. (tense music continues)

As it turned out, it hadn't really been written about.

There was a vacuum, and so that's what I sought to fill.

(tense music continues)

- When I go back and look at the timeline of events,

it's almost surreal.

(eerie music)

I was raised in Hillsong culture of forgive and forget,

move on, judge not,

for he who hasn't sinned cast the first stone.

And the more I've learned about Frank,

I'm realizing something is so wrong here.

(eerie music continues)

I feel the responsibility as a Christian to stand up

and actually start speaking out against the abuse.

(eerie music continues)

The Royal Commission shed light on the fact

that Hillsong was not honest to their own congregants.

(eerie music continues)

It really helped start me on a trajectory going,

what else are they not telling us?

(eerie music continues)

(water whooshing)

- Trouble starts for Frank and Brian

really in November of 1998.

(tense music)

When AHA was a teenager, he told his mother about the abuse,

and she refused to believe him.

And then, 20 years later,

she reported the abuse to an AOG pastor.

- [AHA] My mother called me and told me

she had a conversation with Pastor Mumford

and told him that I had been sexually abused

by Pastor Frank. (tense music continues)

Both Pastor Taylor and Pastor Mumford questioned me

about the allegations I had made.

They tried to tell me that what I was saying was not true,

and they both said words to the following effect.

"Frank Houston couldn't have done that, he's a good man."

(tense music continues)

- Frank first becomes aware of the accusation that month.

And instead of doing anything about it,

Frank decides he's going to take a holiday.

(children laughing) (waves whooshing)

In fact, he goes on two holidays.

Then in the first week of May, 1999,

Frank unexpectedly and very suddenly gives the keys

to his church to his son, Brian Houston.

AHA becomes fed up and really doesn't think

that anybody in the church community

is going to believe him or take him seriously,

so he tells an AOG pastor

that he's considering going to the authorities.

(tense music continues)

That's when things start to happen pretty quickly.

(tense music continues)

That same week, Brian Houston calls his father

into his office

and learns about the case officially for the first time.

Now, there are no minutes from the meeting.

There are no notes from the meeting.

There were no witnesses to the meeting.

(tense music continues)

- It was the worst meeting I ever had.

I confronted him.

He went extremely dry in the mouth

and said, "Yes, these things did happen."

- [Beckett] Well, I'll just to stop you there,

because that's the point I wanted to ask you about.

What did he actually confess to?

- He confessed essentially to fondling genitals.

- [Beckett] All right, of one or more children?

(tense music continues)

- We were only talking about that one.

At that time, he told me that it was a one-off occasion.

(tense music continues)

- [AHA] The abuse in my home

and at the different church meetings

continued over a period of years until I reached puberty.

What Pastor Frank did to me destroyed my childhood.

The abuse has had longterm effects on me.

Late in the night, I still get flashbacks

of Pastor Frank in my bedroom

and see his face floating around me.

I have difficulties being in the presence of elderly men.

I also have difficulty in being intimate with my wife.

(tense music continues)

I can't relate to my own children.

I find it awkward to hug my own sons

because I don't want them getting used

to another male hugging them. (tense music continues)

- [Beckett] Your father admitted to one act

or act on one occasion, I think you said a one off.

- No, I think was one act, one off.

One-off act, I think he said. (tense music continues)

- Brian Houston's always said, "That's what I was told.

That's what I believed.

I didn't know anything else."

But Assemblies of God had access to all the people

and all the records. (tense music continues)

And if I found all of these cases of sexual abuse

by Frank Houston without those,

I can't imagine how many they would find.

(no audio)

(somber music)

As I was looking through Frank's life

and trying to step back through the years,

I sought out Salvation Army.

(somber music continues)

And I said, "I know he was working at Temuka boys' home.

Was there anything on your files or anything on your records

that indicated something untoward?

(somber music continues)

Now, I couldn't believe it when they came back

and said there was an allegation

of sexual offending against children by Frank Houston

when he was at Temuka boys' home.

(somber music continues)

At that point, Frank Houston would've been in his early 20s.

(somber music continues)

But whatever happened

in the Salvation Army never seems to be properly addressed.

(somber music continues)

Frank Houston, throughout his career,

would take his ministry

into the poorer parts of New Zealand

and across the Pacific to very poor Pacific islands.

(tense music continues)

- [Frank] It's been my privilege in my lifetime

to travel around the world preaching the gospel

in many countries.

And I have actually preached

to the red, the yellow, the black, and the white.

I've preached to the Maoris all over New Zealand.

(somber music continues)

(water whooshing)

- I've no doubt whatsoever that when Frank Houston traveled,

he sought out victims.

(somber music continues) (keys tapping)

What we know now, looking back,

that period from 1945 through to 1975 is filled

with enough allegations of sexual violence against children

to conceive of Frank Houston as a lifelong predator.

We're talking at the least 30 years

of sexual offending against children.

(somber music continues) (keys tapping)

(plane whooshing)

- [Beckett] Let's move onto the meeting

of special executive on the 22nd of December, 1999.

You know the meeting at Sydney Airport

that I'm referring to? - Yes.

(tense music)

- So in December, 1999, there's an emergency AOG meeting

in the Qantas Lounge at Sydney Airport.

(tense music continues)

Brian is there as both the investigator of the case

and the son of the accused abuser,

and he's at the helm of the narrative.

- I told them the story.

I burst into tears, sobbed.

There was no way I could chair that meeting,

because I was a mess. (tense music continues)

- The way that Brian frames these allegations

for the other members of the AOG

is the same way that Frank framed it for him.

One victim in New Zealand 35 years ago.

- I told them everything I knew, I think,

in terms of the fondling,

you know, the nature of it at that level.

- What's really significant there is that, at that meeting,

there were 10, 12 leading figures

of Pentecostal churches in Australia.

(tense music continues)

This group of men who knew the Houstons well

decided amongst themselves that what Frank Houston did

was a moral transgression,

not a serious criminal offense.

- So the various times I spoke,

the wording wouldn't have been exactly the same.

And it's possible that the weakest of those,

I might've said the words moral failure.

(tense music continues)

- This wasn't a spiritual failing.

This was a series of violent criminal acts against children,

and the church knew about it and did nothing.

(tense music)

- [Alex] The AOG decides not to go to the police.

Frank's credentials are not revoked.

The matter is not to be made public.

- That's the Hillsong playbook.

If someone complains, you diminish it.

They're an irritant. (tense music continues)

Maybe you order a confidential inquiry.

The information goes no further.

It's held in a small group of people.

Whoever the victim is has to go.

(tense music continues)

- [AHA] I eventually agreed to meet Pastor Frank

on or about early 2000.

The meeting was held at McDonald's restaurant

of Thornleigh just up Pennant Hills Road.

(tense music continues)

- What did Pastor Frank want from you during that meeting?

- [AHA] He wanted me to forgive him.

- [Beckett] You were asked to sign

a food-stained napkin, is that right?

- [AHA] Yes. (tense music continues)

Words were said to the following effect.

"If you put your signature there, I'll give you the 10,000."

And at that stage, sir, I just wanna tell you

that I was in a state of panic.

I just scribbled my name on it,

and Frank kept badgering me about the forgiveness.

(tense music continues)

About two months after my meeting

with Pastor Frank at McDonald's, I telephoned Brian Houston

as I had not yet received any money from Pastor Frank.

We had a conversation to the following effect.

(tense music continues)

Me, "What's happening with the payment I was promised?

I agreed to forgive your father."

Brian, "Yes, okay, I'll get the money to you.

There's no problem. (tense music continues)

You know, it's your fault all of this happened.

You tempted my father."

(tense music continues)

- Shortly after the $10,000 payout,

Brian Houston really starts

with a pretty vigorous rebranding effort.

- It's a church growing so quickly

that buildings struggle to contain the increase.

- Christian Life Centre is renamed Hillsong,

and the Assemblies of God is relabeled

as the Australian Christian Churches.

(tense music continues)

Brian has really done everything he can

to really kind of parse his words

and manipulate, you know, meaning and syntax

to say the abuse didn't happen at Hillsong,

it happened at Christian Life Centres.

And it's sort of apropos of nothing.

- When these things happened, Hillsong didn't exist at all.

It was long before Hillsong existed.

This was not about Hillsong.

This was not about the Australian Assemblies of God.

This payment was between Frank and AHA.

- [AHA] No one believed my story,

and others put pressure on me to keep my mouth shut.

I felt that the church's response was completely inadequate,

and I have received absolutely no support,

no counseling, apology, or acknowledgement of the abuse.

(eerie music)

- That same year, 2000, at a conference,

Frank Houston is wheeled out onstage

and the Hillsong pastor announces, and I'm reading here,

"Here's a great man and a great apostle of faith.

Let's all stand and honor him."

And the whole congregation rises to their feet,

and they applaud Frank Houston wildly.

(eerie music continues) (congregation clapping)

This is an admitted pedophile.

This is, like, a child rapist.

Like... (eerie music continues)

By December of 2000, the AOG New Zealand has allegations

from six alleged victims of child abuse

at the hands of Frank Houston. (eerie music continues)

- It's now impossible to ignore,

and so they had to take action against Frank Houston.

And they quietly shuffled him sideways

and agreed to not tell anybody about it.

(eerie music continues)

- From the time these exposes started coming out

in late 1999 to 2004,

I think probably because of the stress

and the pain of all of this and the humiliation,

my father deteriorated very quickly into dementia.

So month by month, year by year, he got worse.

(eerie music continues)

- Now, the diagnosis with dementia is significant

because it means

that Frank can't answer for any alleged abuses.

(eerie music continues)

Coincidentally, that diagnosis is provided

by a guy named Dr. Gordon Lee

who served for 22 years as a board member at Hillsong.

(eerie music continues)

- There was an extraordinary correspondence

backward and forwards

between the Australian Assemblies of God

and New Zealand Assemblies of God

that showed that they tried to limit

as much as they possibly could

any knowledge of Frank Houston's sexual offending.

We learned that they had meetings about not telling anyone.

(eerie music continues)

They documented how they were not going to tell anyone.

They wrote a statement that they then agreed

they were not going to release to anybody.

(eerie music continues)

It's the Assemblies of God version

of the Nixon White House tapes.

- Confess your sin to the Lord and He'll blot it out.

(film reel clicking)

(traffic whooshing)

(somber music)

- [Beckett] The main person handling the matter

for the Assemblies of God was you.

- Yes, trying to pull in all the information

so I could bring it to this-

- [Beckett] You were the son of the alleged perpetrator.

- Yes, exactly.

- [Beckett] How did you expect that to be received?

- I understand what you're saying.

The whole idea of a conflict of interest,

to be honest, hadn't even occurred to me

and was never suggested by anyone else

until we got here to the commission.

I saw it as me being in a role,

having to make tough decisions and having the guts

or the courage to make those tough decisions.

No matter what any paperwork says,

no matter whatever else happens,

I knew he would never preach again from that moment.

- The idea that Frank never preached again,

that's not true. (somber music continues)

- I remember when I heard that audio in 2004

where he was still preaching,

that was chilling.

That was really, really chilling.

- [Frank] What a wonderful joy

just to be in church this morning.

- [Congregation] Yes.

- [Frank] Look at me today.

Nothing can separate you from the love of God.

- [Alex] We heard from former congregants,

some of whom wanted to remain anonymous.

I understand that you were close

with Frank and Hazel Houston in 2000, 2004.

- [Interviewee] Yeah, the last years of their lives, really.

All we were told is they were sent

to the Central Coast to retire.

(somber music continues)

- [Frank] God's got a purpose for your life.

God has got a purpose for your life.

- [Interviewee] I never heard a word

about them being stood down. (somber music continues)

They were like royalty.

They had their own parking spot out the front of the church,

and their names were on a plaque.

(somber music continues)

- [Frank] And the little boy back there,

two little boys, one bigger than the other,

but God's got a purpose for their lives.

- [Alex] You had young kids at the time, right?

(somber music continues)

- [Interviewee] He used to tell my son, who was 10,

"You look like you're a million bucks."

And you know what, if I knew what I knew now,

I would've punched him in the face.

(somber music continues)

- [Frank] What a fantastic young fellow he is.

Curly hair, sort of.

Good looking.

(somber music continues)

It's not your fault you're good looking,

so thank God you are.

- [Interviewee] Never, never in a million years did I think

that myself and my son were standing

in front of a pedophile, a sex abuser

who had actually abused other children at that age.

(somber music continues)

- [Frank] By the grace of God,

I'm still vibrant on the inside.

I'm still alive with the Holy Ghost on the inside.

(somber music continues)

- [Interviewee] Like, I just can't understand

that you would allow someone to be in that environment.

There was children there every week.

What the hell?

(somber music continues) (film reel clicking)

- For years, I would go to church

and I would try to immerse myself

in everything going on around me,

but I'd continue to get these thoughts.

This is rubbish. This isn't true.

And through the grapevine,

I found out that there was gonna be an announcement

about Frank Houston. (somber music continues)

- So I was Brian's intern.

Obviously super close with Ben and Joel.

I was at their house when all that stuff kinda went down.

I remember Brian talking about it

and what he was gonna have to do, to tell the church.

(ominous music)

- My own father, who was my hero,

was accused of sexual abuse.

It was like

jets flying into the Twin Towers of my soul.

(ominous music continues)

But the reason why I'm still here

and the reason why I still believe in the power of God

and still love to see people transformed

through Jesus Christ is because that still looks right.

What God says still looks right.

(congregation clapping)

Praise God.

(congregation clapping)

- All these people stood up and applauded him.

I thought, 12,000 people are wrong.

That was the last time I went to Hillsong,

and that was the last time I was afraid of going to hell,

because if it's between me and the guy

that's apparently covering up for the pedophile,

then I'll stand by me. (ominous music continues)

After that, I felt like I had a responsibility

to just raise awareness, to let people know

that they weren't everything that they seemed.

(ominous music continues)

- Frank dies in 2004 without being convicted of any crime.

(ominous music continues)

The police were never contacted by Brian or the AOG.

Brian's excuse was that he didn't know

that he had to contact the police.

(ominous music continues)

In fact, however, it was revealed later

that Brian had sought legal counsel

on the matter at least twice. (ominous music continues)

He knew that if he brought the matter to the police,

his father could have been incarcerated

and his church would have been disgraced.

(ominous music continues)

- When I was at the Royal Commission,

it was very interesting hearing Brian Houston's testimony.

The majority of his statements just didn't line up,

and I think it was like

there were too many cracks in the damn wall.

(ominous music continues)

- [Prosecutor] Mr. Houston, can I suggest to you

that the inconsistencies and errors

in your statement were deliberate?

(ominous music continues) - Why would I admit it,

why would I bring it up here,

if it was deliberate? - Mr. Houston,

I'm just making a suggestion to you.

- If it was deliberate that I was trying to hide something.

I mean, the truth is, I didn't have to talk about it at all.

I spoke about it

because I'm saying I had completely forgotten this

and now I remember,

so I'm telling the commission this is what I remember.

- [Prosecutor] Thank you. Nothing further.

(ominous music continues)

(ominous music continues)

- Typically the way that Hillsong has handled scandal,

because I've been a part of it,

was what looks best for the church.

(somber music) But most of the time,

it serves everybody to push everything down.

You just push it as far under the rug as you can.

We choose narrative over truth,

and that leads to absolute disaster

because the truth doesn't go anywhere

just because you cover it up.

- The Royal Commission's report has now published.

It's online, I encourage everyone to read it.

- [Reporter] 17 shameful volumes.

"It is a national tragedy perpetrated over generations."

- If you read the report of the Royal Commission,

it's pretty clear what happened.

The church had known about the abuse

for more than a decade and a half,

and the church had told nobody.

(tense music)

Here is a modern abusive institution

which the Royal Commission had just exposed.

(tense music continues)

This material is out there.

The police have it.

Time for some action. (tense music continues)

- The Australian government and this parliament,

on behalf of all Australians, unreservedly apologizes

to the victims and survivors

of institutional child sexual abuse.

- It soon became apparent that nothing was happening.

(dramatic music)

- We are sorry.

- This gross, gross failure

just kind of dropped into a hole.

There's no institutional explanation for this delay.

This isn't a hugely complicated case.

(dramatic music continues)

This isn't some kind of international drug smuggling ring.

So the question was, well, where are the police?

(dramatic music continues)

(church bell ringing)

- When Frank Houston died, a remarkable scene played out.

The next New South Wales Police Commissioner

attended Frank Houston's funeral as a mark of respect.

That police commissioner called Andrew Scipione

himself is a Hillsong congregant.

(tense music) - Post royal commission,

we still had very senior members of the state government,

including the former police commissioner,

very, very closely connected with this institution

as though nothing had happened.

(tense music continues)

- Perhaps it's coincidence,

but for the duration of Commissioner Scipione's time

running the New South Wales Police,

there was no effective investigation

into Brian Houston or Hillsong.

(tense music continues)

As a journalist, this is a moment

that is really worth untangling.

(tense music continues)

- Hillsong followers are rife

throughout Australian politics,

throughout the Australian public service,

especially within the police.

(tense music continues)

- And it turns out that in fact,

part of the church's business model was

to put its supporters in positions of power and authority

and look for people in positions of power and authority

and make them their supporters.

And it had been extremely successful in doing that.

In a few short decades, Hillsong had managed

to capture a fairly big chunk of Australian politics.

(tense music continues)

- The fact that Frank has passed away

has made it extremely difficult

to make any progress in terms of pursuing justice.

(tense music continues)

I don't know that there's any way

to compensate for what's happened,

and I don't think money's gonna do it.

(melancholy music)

It's all the lost opportunities.

It's still there.

I still feel a degree of shame.

Not okay.

Don't quite measure up.

(melancholy music continues)

Not a whole person.

Slightly broken.

Every part of my life has been impacted.

(melancholy music continues)

I just saw no hope.

(melancholy music continues)

Without the support of my wife and family,

I wouldn't be here today.

(melancholy music continues)

(no audio)

(tense music)

- Not only was there this delay,

but there was also very close associations

between the Hillsong leadership

and the then Australian political leadership,

and we just got stonewalled. (tense music continues)

All these institutional barriers started going up.

Well, that gets my hackles up, to be honest.

(tense music continues)

Thankfully, we had a survivor

who was not willing to let it go

and had the courage and the emotional strength

to speak to a national audience and demand action.

- My name's Brett Sengstock.

I appeared at the Royal Commission as AHA.

That was my pseudonym,

and I now stand before you

with who I really am.

(melancholy music)

- When Brett spoke to "60 Minutes"

he changed from being an acronym in a block of text to being

this compelling, powerful, brave human being.

(somber music)

- I'm tired of people speaking for me

and telling the world how I felt and how I am feeling.

Now I'm telling the world how I really do feel.

- And how is that? (somber music continues)

- Pretty annoyed.

Pretty annoyed.

And I'm not going away just yet.

(somber music continues)

- Neither Brian Houston

or any of the Hillsong Church's leaders

have faced any legal repercussions

for their failure to report an indictable offense.

It's now 49 years since the abuse started,

and 19 years since Brian Houston was aware of it,

and three years after the Royal Commission delivered

its damning report, yet nothing has happened.

(somber music continues)

Brett Sengstock has contacted my office for help.

He is suffering from a life-threatening illness,

and he is concerned justice

will not be served in his lifetime.

That would be a further obscene betrayal.

While Brett's waiting for justice,

we have the Trump administration inviting Brian Houston

to be his extra-special guest

at a White House reception in Washington.

(somber music continues)

- Well, what an honor to be standing in the White House

in the Cabinet Room,

and to have just had the chance to pray for President Trump.

- It's a fact that Brian Houston is a close friend

of the prime minister, Scott Morrison.

- What this country needs more than that is the love of God.

(congregation clapping)

- I just want to guarantee you

that we will be praying for you.

And praying for you not just now, but consistently.

(congregation clapping)

- No one, regardless of their friends,

should be beyond the reach of the law.

(somber music continues)

- I want my husband to have justice.

He deserves it. (somber music continues)

- To go on national TV as a survivor of child sex abuse

and to demand your measure of justice,

that is the work that finally pushes institutions to act.

(somber music continues)

There is compelling evidence

that Brian Houston knew while he was a church leader

about the abuse, about the hush payments,

and that he failed to tell the police.

This is a crime.

(somber music continues)

- [Announcer] A key question,

when did he first learn of those allegations of abuse?

- [Reporter 1] Now, amidst this turmoil

in church leadership,

an early leader of Hillsong has come forward.

- [Reporter 2] Brian Houston categorically denies

knowing any claims of sexual abuse by his father

before 1999, but Bullock says Houston knew

of allegations by his father years earlier.

- I do know that Frank was outed,

because Brian told me in the early 90s.

(somber music continues)

I should've said something and done something long ago.

Not only wasn't Brian accountable, but neither was I.

(somber music continues)

- It was only after that New South Wales Police Commissioner

departed the scene in 2019

that the police began a real investigation of Brian Houston.

(somber music continues)

- December, 2021, a year after Carl is banished,

Brian Houston is indicted in Australia

for allegedly covering for his father being a pedophile.

- Breaking news in relation to a religious leader

and a friend of the prime minister who's being charged.

- This is a New South Wales Police statement.

A church leader is being charged

over the alleged concealment

of alleged child sex offenses.

- You need to know that there is an enemy out there,

and his intent is to defile you,

and let's always remember that when we see the church,

His beautiful church on the Earth, attacked.

Royal commission week,

I have never felt so exposed in my life,

and I remember I didn't know what to do but wait.

And so all day, I waited.

I went out.

I did a manicure, a pedicure, and a massage

'cause I wasn't ready to back to my real world

which, gentlemen, that's what you do.

(congregation laughing) (somber music continues)

It is no point any of us wasting energy

on how unfair this seems.

Not the issue, but the unfairness that, yet again,

my husband's integrity was about to be assailed.

(somber music continues)

- More than seven years

since the Royal Commission first detailed what happened,

there is this chance, this very real chance,

for the courts to deliver justice.

- [Reporter 3] Houston is facing serious jail time.

- [Reporter 4] Fate of his church in the hands of the law.

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

(no audio)

(melancholy music)

(melancholy music continues)

(melancholy music continues)

(melancholy music continues)

(no audio)

(camera shutters clicking)

(bright music)

(somber music)