There's been a huge uproar in the last week over comments made by Brian
Houston, who is the senior pastor of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia.
Hillsong is best known for its worship albums that have sold millions of copies
and contain songs sung weekly in evangelical churches across the world. The
Sydney church boasts over 20,000 members
1, but there are
eleven offshoot churches that have opened in major cities around the world,
including New York and Los Angeles in the U.S.
2
During
a press conference
3 prior to a Hillsong Conference in New
York City, Houston refused to provide a yes or no answer as to whether he would
allow the ministers in Hillsong churches to officiate same-sex weddings. He
said:
I mean we go to you — you know — the one big hot topic maybe for
churches is now with homosexual marriage uh legalized and uh — you know — and
churches for generations, they- they hold a set of beliefs around what they
believe the Word of God- the bible says. And all of a sudden in many circles the
church can look like a pariah because, to many people it's so irrelevant now on
that subject. So staying relevant, it's actually a big challenge…
Um-
homosexual marriages legal in your city and uh- and will be in probably in most
Western world countries within a short time. So the world's changing and we want
to stay relevant as a church. So that's a mixing thing. You think, "How can we
stay- ho-how can we not become a pariah".
So that's the world we live in. In
the weight we live with is the reality that in churches like ours and virtually
in any other church, there are young people who have serious questions about
their sexuality. And uh- who may be spea- you know — hypothetically — speak to a
youth leader. A youth pastor. And says -uh, "I think — you know- I'm gay".
And maybe they feel a sense of rejection there. Or maybe even their own
Christian parents can't handle it and uh- exclude them at the time when they are
the most vulnerable in their life. So you can have in churches not- not just our
church — churches, young people who are literally uh depressed. Maybe even
suicidal. And sadly often times grow up to hate the church because they feel
like the church rejected them.
4
The New York Times
reported that "Mr. Houston said he did not think it would be constructive to
delineate a public position on same-sex marriage" and quoted him as saying , "we
feel at this point, that it is an ongoing conversation, that the real issues in
people's lives are too important for us just to reduce it down to a yes or no
answer in a media outlet. So we're on the journey with it."
5
Evangelicals Reacting to the Wrong Mistake
Because Houston and his New York City pastor Carl Lenz both refused to say
whether homosexuality is right or wrong, the evangelical world was in an uproar.
I agree with the position many different evangelicals took that homosexual
practices are is clearly forbidden in the Bible and that those who are in
leadership positions must be as much about warning the saints against sinning as
it is in reaching out to those who are lost. Relevance should never trump
revelation.
The thing that bothers me in all of this, though, is that
Houston's stance on homosexuality is not his most troubling belief. Reading
Houston's own books, it is very clear that he teaches the very unbiblical
doctrine of the prosperity movement. In other words, Houston teaches that all
Christians should never have financial or health troubles. He published a book
in 2000 entitled
You Need More Money. Granted, Houston said that the title was a mistake
6,
yet his prosperity gospel is reinforced in his 2013 book
Maximize Your Life
where under the chapter title of Blessing he writes:
God's will is always to bless you, but if you think His blessing is entirely
for you, you are missing the point. The blessing of God in your life should
go well beyond your own existence, God told Abraham that He would bless him,
but the purpose of blessing him went far beyond his own life. This is what
God said:
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And
make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing: (Genesis 12:2)
The
purpose of God's blessing is to enable you to be a great channel of blessing
to others. If you have nothing, there is nothing you can do for anyone else;
if you have a little, you can only help a little; but if you have plenty,
there is a whole lot you can do. When you are blessed, you have a mighty
foundation from which to impact others. You are blessed to be a blessing.
But material blessing is not always God's will. Houston twists the scriptures
here. Paul died broke and in prison. Stephen, in Acts 8, was stoned to death for
his testimony—he was faithful, yet he received no material blessing. And
Jesus Himself told the rich young ruler not to give his money to the church for
use, but to "sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you
shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me" (Luke 18:22). Jesus Himself
was poor; he stated "the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" (Matt 8:20) and needed to have
Peter catch a fish because he didn't have a coin to pay a tax (Matt 17:27)
Prosperity Teaching More Dangerous than Sexual Impropriety
The big problem I see here is that Houston's prosperity doctrine has been well
known. He's written books on the subject and even this year posted to his blog
that "God is our Father and like any loving parent He enjoys His children being
blessed in every way, including financially. Simply put, it is God's desire to
bless us because He loves us!"
7 Yet, the prosperity
teaching of Hillsong hasn't causes a ripple while his distancing himself from
taking a stand on homosexuality has created a tidal wave of concern. Why?
Prosperity teaching is vastly more dangerous, because it claims to present the
will of God, but misrepresents God in so doing. Those that believe in this kind
of teaching and then find themselves in hard times can quickly give up
Christianity all together. In other words, it has implications for the salvation
of the believer. As one can see from the passages above and others, there's
always a subtle subtext about doing what's right, about obeying the law. In his
Blessings chapter, Houston writes:
Throughout the Bible, God consistently
promises to bless His people, but His blessing also depends on our choices. He
puts two dear choices before people: 'I have set before you life and death,
blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants
may live;' (Deuteronomy 30: 19)
The book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament
contains a list of blessings and a list of curses which were directly linked to
whether one chose to obey or disobey the commandments of the Lord. You can read
these in Deuteronomy 28: 1-14. To choose life with God is to choose a blessed
life.
But the New Testament is clear that believers are no longer under the
law. Deuteronomy 28's blessings and cursing are not applicable to
Christians, they were directly meant for the nation of Israel. Paul tells the
Christians in Galatia that they are no longer under the curse of the law, but
they have freedom in Christ and then warns then that "It was for freedom that
Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to
a yoke of slavery" (Gal .3:10,4:31, 5:1). He says that for anyone under the law,
"Christ will be of no benefit to you" (Gal 5:2). So which is the more important
issue?
Matthew Vines, who wants to see evangelicalism accept his
homosexuality, provided this insight to the
New York Times, "Is Hillsong
influential primarily for doctrine and theology? No, it's not, but its music is
as evangelical as you're going to get, in terms of reach and impact, and that's
very significant."
8 If Hillsong's position on
homosexuality is that important, shouldn't Christians be more upset over
Hillsong's undermining of the gospel through its prosperity teachings? "Jesus,
You're All I Need" is a popular Hillsong worship chorus. Too bad it isn't the message Houston teaches.
References
