Hillsong Church Founder Brian Houston Has Been Charged With Covering Up Sexual Abuse

Brian Houston, the Australian cofounder and international senior pastor of megachuch Hillsong, was charged on Thursday with concealing his father’s sexual abuse of a kid within the Seventies. Australian police, who’ve been investigating since 2019, alleged in an announcement that Houston “knew info regarding the sexual abuse of a younger male within the Seventies and did not deliver that info to the eye of police.”

Houston has denied the allegations, telling Self-importance Honest by a church spokesperson, “These prices have come as a shock to me given how clear I’ve all the time been about this matter. I vehemently profess my innocence and can defend these prices, and I welcome the chance to set the document straight.”

An Australian royal fee present in 2014 that Houston did not report that his father confessed to him in 1999 that he had sexually abused a younger boy within the Seventies. Frank Houston, a pastor who based an Australian church in 1977 and died in 2004, is believed to have sexually abused at the least 9 kids.

The costs add to a rising record of scandals the church has confronted in recent times. Prior to now yr, Houston’s data of his father’s alleged crimes has obtained renewed consideration because the megachurch has undergone a wave of latest troubles throughout its international footprint. Houston fired his protégé Carl Lentz in November after his marital infidelity grew to become a tabloid fixation. Lentz, who introduced new ranges of fame to Hillsong through his affiliation with celebrities equivalent to Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, was accused in May of sexually abusing his former nanny, who can also be a Hillsong pastor. Lentz denies the allegations.

“We’re upset that Pastor Brian has been charged, and ask that he be afforded the presumption of innocence and due course of as is his proper,” Hillsong stated in an announcement to V.F. “He has suggested us that he’ll defend this and appears ahead to clearing his title.” Houston is scheduled to seem in courtroom in Sydney on October 5.

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