Australian police allege Hillsong Church founder concealed
his father's child sex abuse
Church founder Brian Houston suggested the charges are tied to allegations that
his preacher father, Frank Houston, had abused a boy in the 1970s.
Marcus Ingram / Getty Images file
Aug. 5, 2021, 2:02 PM PDT
By The Associated Press
CANBERRA, Australia — The founder of the Sydney-based global Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, has been charged with concealing child sex offenses, police said Thursday.
Detectives served Houston’s lawyers on Thursday with a notice for him to appear in a Sydney court on Oct. 5 for allegedly concealing a serious indictable offense, police said.
“Police will allege in court the man (Houston) knew information relating to the sexual abuse of a young male in the 1970s and failed to bring that information to the attention of police,” police said.
Houston, 67, suggested the charges related to allegations that his preacher father, Frank Houston, had abused a boy over several years in the 1970s.
“These charges have come as a shock to me given how transparent I’ve always been about this matter,” Houston said. “I vehemently profess my innocence and will defend these charges, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.”
Hillsong said in a statement the church was disappointed that Houston had been charged and asked that he be afforded the presumption of innocence and due process.
A government inquiry into institutional responses to allegations of child sex abuse found in 2015 that Houston did not tell police that his father was a child sex abuser.
The inquiry found that Houston became aware of allegations against his father in 1999 and allowed him to retire quietly rather than report him to police. His father confessed to the abuse before he died in 2004 at age 82.
Houston told the inquiry he did not report his father's abuse to the police because the victim at that point was in his thirties and did not want the authorities involved, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.
Instead, the outlet said, Frank Houston was suspended from preaching.
"It is easy to look back many years in hindsight, however, Pastor Brian acted in the best way he felt at the time and took decisive and immediate action against his own father," the church said in 2015, according to ABC, and added that the alleged abuse occurred years before Hillsong was formed.
Houston has been based in the United States in recent months, preached at a service in Mexico last month and delivered a livestreamed sermon from California on Sunday, ABC reported.
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The Cut
Claire Lampen
During a 2014 inquest, Brian Houston admitted that he found out about the alleged abuse in 1999 and that he confronted his father, who confessed. Houston then found out about eight of his father’s other victims but, according to commissioners, deliberately kept it quiet, forcing his dad into retirement rather than making the matter public and going to the police. Houston told the commission that, “rightly or wrongly, I genuinely believed that I would be preempting the victim, if I were to just call the police at that point.” But commissioners concluded that, although Houston “had no doubt that his father’s conduct was criminal, he made no attempt to report his father to the police.”
Houston subsequently said Kimes’ experience came to his attention during an investigation he launched into Hillsong East Coast following Lentz’s termination, writing that “abuse of any kind, in any circumstance, is always deplorable,” and “as a church, we are committed to learning more about how to identify such trauma and bring meaningful support to anyone who has experienced it.”
For his alleged concealment of his father’s serial abuse, Houston will appear in court in Sydney on October 5.
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Baptist association missions leader resigns over
'inappropriate behavior' with teenager
Crossroads Baptist Assoc. says misconduct 'fell far short of sex or sexual abuse'
By Nicole Alcindor,
CP Contributor|
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Unsplash/Gregory Hayes
A Baptist association missions leader in central Missouri has resigned after confessing to inappropriate behavior involving a female teenager several years ago.
Mark Carter, who has been employed as director of missions in central Missouri for the Crossroads Baptist Association since 2017, recently stepped down from the role he has held since 2017.
Crossroads Baptist Association, which includes a network of 29 churches affiliated with the Missouri Baptist Convention, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post that the organization was only recently made aware of Carter's past actions. Following the discovery, the association immediately acted to notify local law enforcement and state authorities about the facts surrounding Carter's involvement with the then-teen.
It is not immediately clear what the age of the teenager in question was at the time.
In an email, the association confirmed that as far as they know, "there have been no legal charges."
"The parties have agreed that the conduct of texting and touching was inappropriate, especially for a minister, but, the misconduct fell far short of sex or sexual abuse," the email stated. "Legal authorities do not believe there was a crime, and so legal charges were not filed and are not expected."
The association added that volunteers are "assisting with the associational operations until a decision about a replacement for director of the association is made."
The Missouri Baptist Convention released a statement through its news publication, The Pathway. Crossroads Baptist Association stressed that the convention's statement "clearly expresses the heart of the Crossroads Baptist Association."
The Missouri Baptist Convention said it grieves to learn that a Carter has engaged in inappropriate behavior toward a young person — "specifically, texting, emails, and inappropriate touching."
The convention also said the leaders of the Crossroads Baptist Association continue to love and minister to the young person and others impacted by Carter's "sin."
The convention reminds all churches to report any troubling or offensive conduct by anyone at church or related activities and notify appropriate local and state authorities immediately.
"We join the association's leaders in gratitude that the young person came forward, and in grieving the harm caused by leader's sin," the convention's statement reads.
"We also stand with the churches of the association in stating clearly that inappropriate behavior of any kind is not tolerated and will be addressed immediately, including the immediate reporting to all appropriate authorities. We know that all sin grieves the heart of God. He has given His followers responsibility for ensuring that our churches are the safest places for people and families to gather and worship."
Rob Phillips, the director of ministry support and apologetics at Missouri Baptist Convention, told CP in an email that the convention can't mandate training but has "long encouraged our affiliated churches to train their members in matters of church security and sexual abuse prevention."
"This includes 'Stewards of Children' conducted by Missouri Baptist Children’s Home and 'Caring Well' an initiative of the Southern Baptist Convention," Phillips explained.
He noted that the convention can't "answer for every church" since Southern Baptist churches are "independent and affiliate voluntarily."
"However, we know that our churches are experiencing a heightened sense of awareness with respect to sexual abuse and are taking positive steps to address this," he assured. "Many of our churches tell us they are going beyond standard background checks to ensure they are taking the greatest care to make our churches the safest possible places for people to gather and worship."
Such additional steps, he said, include participation in churchwide training offered by the MBC and the Southern Baptist Convention and other available resources.
"All of us have a sacred responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us. Awareness, prevention, diligence, church discipline – all of these are essential elements in ensuring that the children Jesus welcomes into his arms are equally safe in ours," Phillips stated. "The body of Christ always suffers when God’s people sin. And as we address these sins, we need to keep our focus on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2)."
Ex vicar Paul Battersby jailed again for child sex abuse images
Published2 days ago
A former vicar has been jailed for a fourth time for downloading images of child sex abuse.
Police uncovered 832 images on Paul Battersby's internet devices - some of girls as young as two as well as images of adults having sex with animals.
They were found when police arrived unannounced at his house to carry out checks following similar offences in 2017.
Jailing him for four years, a judge said he was a "dangerous offender".
Twice-married Battersby, who worked as a vicar for 31 years in churches across the north of England, has four previous convictions.
'Children's clothes'
The first time he was caught, in April 2007, he was turned in by his wife after his stepson spotted indecent images on his computer.
In 2009, Battersby was found to have breached a court order monitoring his use of the internet.
A year later, he was jailed for 12 months after 160 obscene images of children were found on a laptop used to organise missionaries for the Church of England.
The fourth time was in 2017, when police found a shoebox full of children's clothes at his Liverpool flat along with 1,730 indecent images of children he had downloaded.
During his most recent offending last October, York Crown Court was told, Batterbsy used software in an attempt to wipe his computer and that his laptop revealed searches relating to young and pre-pubescent girls.
Judge Simon Hickey sentenced him to a four-year prison term with an extended licence of three years.
He was also made subject to a new sexual harm prevention order and will sign the sex offenders register.
Helen Chapman, defending, said Battersby was desperate to change, and knew he was perpetuating child abuse by downloading the images.
Battersby, of Spencer Walk, Skipton, had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, possession of prohibited images of a child, possession of extreme pornography and breaching a sexual harm prevention order.
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