A Reckoning

I'm no Emmy would ebit. And this is the final episode of False Prophets, and I'm asking can there be justice? It's a Sunday, which means that today Hillsong had their service. And I don't feel like I owe the bunny thing. I don't feel weird being here anymore. This is the Boston Commons, the park where I took my dog Teddy. We're not far from Royale, the nightclub that gets transformed into Hillsong Church every week. After leaving the church, for

some time, I wouldn't go out. I was living outside of the city and I would get panic attacks if I ran into someone, and I wanted it to be my home again and not feel like I was invading a place, or I was out of place, and so I moved into the city, into the Back Bay area, close to this park. And I've been here for a year or so, and honestly, now I feel so much more confidence to just walk on the street. And now I'm able to contin They need to live in the

city knowing that Hillsong Church is still here. You know, my hope speaking out is that they will cease to exist as a church organization. But for now, for now Boston is my city again. I can enjoy life. Hillsong has made it clear they are not prepared to engage with people who want it to close down, and they won't discuss individual grievances. Hillsong needs to face a simple fact. When people get hurt by religion, there's no quick fix.

The church wants to move on. Brian Houston is out, a new leadership is in, but that's not the end for many of us. Trauma stays with you. I'm going to go back to a guy named Andrew to help you understand. In March of twenty twenty two, and media reports of Brian Houston's stepping down from church, those media reports created a setup in so many different ways for my body to relive exactly what it was like at

twenty to come out and lose everything. It's nearly twenty years since Andrew was shamed, tormented, and rejected when he came out as a gay man in Hillsong. He's built a successful and happy life since then. But when Hillsong scandals hit the news headlines, the past came flooding back. My body felt like a prison. I had rashes all over my feet, a rash all over my face. My body became inflamed. My chest felt like it had metal

wire trapping it. And it is astounding to me that after all of these years, my buddy is remembering that isolation, that threat to my existence. I can see why some people have not been able to survive these experiences. Andrew never had an apology from Hillsong, and I don't think he ever will. We asked Hillsong to respond to the issues raised in this series. So far, Hillsong has decided

not to respond on the record or on tape. The church wants to tell a story of renewal and change, but for me, renew means a lot of hard work. Healing takes time, and it comes at a financial cost. You can't talk about Hillsong for long without bringing up money because it's obviously a really big issue. And if I could, I would definitely submit an invoice for a refund for all the day images and all of the work and free labor that I gave. That would be amazing.

I would definitely get a lot of money back. So I did put together an Excel spreadsheet with all my costs, and so I like to now jokingly say that it's my invoice for that one year that I spent recovering from being at Hillsong, Texas twenty twenty medical expenses here we go. So I divided it between medical expenses and ESA expenses because Teddy at the time was my emotional

support animal. Just for Teddy. The grand total was one thousand, seven hundred and fifty six with sixteen cents and for medical cost this included just regular PCP visits, and I needed more than the usual in going to my psychiatric doctor, going to my therapist, dental. A lot of people don't talk about this, but mental health can really affect your teeth with grinding and your gums swell. It could be pretty dangerous. I had to get a lot of work done,

and I still go every three months. The usual is every six months, so I actually have a lot of costs that add up there. So with all of that together in twenty twenty added to two thousand, five hundred and six dollars with fifty seven cents, And honestly, that seems really low to me because I had a good insurance that year, luckily, and it covered a good portion, but I still had to pay twenty five hundred dollars

out of pocket. Twenty five hundred dollars is a lot to me, It probably wasn't a lot to some of the Hillsong pastors. Remember we reported Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz in New York was happy to blow five thousand dollars on a dinner with celebrities. But for people like me, a financial reckoning is probably not going to happen. No one's going to get their tides back, are they or get help with therapy. But a simple acknowledgement of the past might be a start, because I don't see how

Hillsong can fix things until it owns its past. Smoke and smoking beers. The track is Gritten and performed by my friend Janice Legata it's called Disneylands. It's all about her Hillsong experience. You don't have to believe to just drinking deep and don't forget to sing were Janice isn't hopeful that Hillsong will change, so she keeps on using her music, her blogs, her podcasts, and her videos to

call out mega church culture. You can here. So in the beginning, it would have been enough for it to just just go out of business, But now it doesn't help as much as I would like. Because of every Hillsong campus closed tomorrow and they were just gone, probably eighty percent of those people would just gravitate to the next mega church like I'm not special. There are a thousand means Hill Songs not special. There are a thousand hill Songs like it's it's the system. We need to

see the system kind of face justice. The leadership of Hillsong. Those people should have to account for what they did and offer true repentance and again reparation. But you know, so far a lot of these people, these bad actors Carl Lentz include it, right, They kind of have their moment, oh I'm no longer in Hillsong, and then they they just disappear and they go off and they continue living

off of the money of the people they abused. Legally, Yeah, there's very little at this point they could be done to make them pay up. But you know, if they want to keep moving from church to church, or they want to keep existing, I think it's just to keep shouting, well, hey what about these people over here. Hopefully people just see how they're treating the people who have left, and

just see how they're not willing to help people heal. Hopefully, as more people see that, you know, if you want to stay in Hillsong, stay but stop giving your money. Some people have stopped going and some people have stopped giving. Hillsong finances have taken a hit. COVID has been a big factor. The annual report for Hillsong in Australia shows revenues was more than twelve percent in twenty twenty one. But here's the thing. Hillsong is being replicated by other

churches and the Fallen Stars. There's always a shout at Redemption and Hillsong Church itself. They didn't want to talk on the record, but this is what we know. They're working to promote the message that it's a church again, it's not a corporation. That the message is about God and that God is cleaning out the church. This is l Hardy, the journalist has been with me throughout the series.

I've spoken to people close to the new Hillsong Board and they believe that they've implemented a new culture and that they're putting in place a more robust set of policies and procedures that's going to stop some of the problems happening again. They said that the Hillsong today is absolutely different from the Hillsong of a year ago, and Hillsong without Brian Houston doesn't look like the Hillsong of

Brian Houston. They say that the services are different, that the celebrity cultures go on the expenses of being cut back. They're also saying things like Brian Houston was a micromanager. Everything had to go through him, no one ever knew really what was going on, and that it was this culture under Brian's leadership that became detrimental and toxic. They're keen to tell people that financial oversight has changed, that

the old board was gutless. They're also saying that the big thing is that under the old system, the senior pastor had all the control. This is no longer the case, and complaints about senior passes should be dealt with externally and independently. They're talking about things like having psychological assessments come in for candidates and ministry, and they're pretty explicit

that their old system failed. Well, what about the specific issues you raison the series we reported on serious allegations of abuse at Hillsong, New York. We know from the reports leaked to you that Hillsong's own lawyers recommended changes. It's really interesting to me because that report that came out of everything that went wrong and Hillsong on the East Coast was so damning about their culture and made

some really explicit recommendations. But speaking to my contacts within Hillsong, it's really unclear whether these recommendations by their own lawyers have actually been implemented. And now some people are saying, oh, we've had a new review and we're putting in a whole lot of recommendations and procedures and policies in place based out of this new review. And this is being implemented right now. In fact, it should be complete by

around August twenty twenty three. One thing that Hillsong is clear about is that a hypercharismatic preacher like Carl Lentz isn't going to happen again. They can't let someone get out of control and damage the church, no matter how many souls they bring through the door. It sounds to me like the messages the bad stuffers in the past. Yes, people got hurt, but trust us, it's all going to be different. But I still don't hear much acknowledgment of

the hurt cause to people who've left. I'm talking about what i'd call spiritual abuse. Bostravijian is a lawyer who works with victims of church abuse. He's had professional experience with Hillsong. Yeah, so I wanted to ask a bit more of what does spiritual abuse or religious abuse? A lot of people define it differently. A lot of people use those two words interchangeably. But what does that look

like for you in the legal sense. Yeah, I'm not sure if there's a set working definition of spiritual religious abuse. I think in the work that I've done, if I was to try to unpack that a little bit, I would say that it is the use of spiritual matters which could include community theology, teachings to abuse or disenfranchise others. Now,

what does that mean? That can mean so many different things. So, for example, I believe that any form of sexual abuse is also a form of spiritual abuse, especially within the faith community. There's no way that you can have a spiritual leader engaging in sexual abuse of somebody under their care and there not be profound aspects of spiritual abuse.

People believing that this is what God God wants, or that it's okay with God, or that you know, a twisting of theology to say and to justify that type of conduct which does just devastates individuals emotionally, physically, but also spiritually. I think that legally there really isn't a cause of action in the United States for spiritual abuse. I think that courts generally stay far away from that because courts generally don't like to get involved with theological

disputes or ecclesiastical matters. So to say something spiritually abusive can be a nebulous term. I mean, I think anybody who's been spiritually abused gets it. But you know, there would be some people in the Christian world. You talk about a particular conduct and say that's spiritual abuse, and they would have no clue what you're talking about. They would say, no, that's not spiritual abuse. That's part of

our belief or our faith system. And there'd be others who would say, oh my god, that's about as spiritual abuse of as you can get. Often in the work that you do, what is the most common type of case that you've seen in which you're able to find some form of accountability or justice. One thing people have to understand is a difference between criminal and civil law.

Criminal law is when the government comes in and prosecutes or holds an individual or individuals accountable for committing crimes, and the ultimate consequence of a criminal case can be incarceration. On the other end, you have civil cases. Civil cases are private actions where one person and sues another based upon what we call a recognized cause of action, and in a civil case, the ultimate consequence is compensation, not incarceration.

And the big difference between civil and criminal case is that in a civil case, the victim is in the

driver's seat in the case, making the decisions. But what I look back on my cases were I think most of my clients and I think they would say this, that was the most positive and healing aspect of the process, and it's a difficult process, was the fact that they were empowered through the process to be a party, to step out of the shadows, to file a lawsuit with their name on it against that church or against that institution, to hold them accountable in some fashion, and to force

them to higher lawyers, to force them to come to depositions, to force them to answer questions. That's very empowering and in essence healing. Who a lot of my clients who as you know, as a as a survivor, so much is taken away from you. Yeah. Often, power is like the biggest thing that I have to work on in therapy. I've been hearing a lot of folks, mainly on social media,

when different things come out. The biggest thing that comes up is there a possibility for a class action lawsuit if we were to all come together to present the case. I know the burden of proof would be on us to show that there was intent, but what would that look like. I'm not a class action lawyer. Having said that, I really don't believe that these type of cases lend themselves to class action lawsuits. And the reason is that the primary objective of a class action lawsuit is really

not financial. It's really to hold whatever entity, whether it's a you know, a company, business, a car manufacture, whatever, to hold them responsible to fix a problem. And what the secret about class action lawsuits is is that lawyers are the ones who benefit the most from class action lawsuits. Boz doesn't believe class action lawsuits are an answer, but he says individuals can bring legal action, and he believes that this can be a part of taking back power.

The monetary damages can be economic and can be noneconomic, So pain and suffering damages. How do you even put a dollar a figure to that. One of the things that we think about, because a lot of my clients, which is which is a good thing, one of the things that get really uneasy talking about is money. And what I have to sort of gently push back on is, no, this is about money, because if you sat down and counted up the financial cost that this abuse has cost

your life, it's significant, It's beyond significant. And so why in the world should you be, as the victim, be pulling out money from your wallet or your bank account many survivors who don't even have it. Why should you be having to do that when the one that's responsible or the entities that are responsible, should be doing that.

That's part of why we sue churches and sue organizations because we're saying, listen, one way we hold you accountable is to make sure that you are going to compensate me for all of my loss, financial and non financial. When it comes to law and religion, accountability is elusive. Doctor Stephen Hassan is trying to come up with an answer. He spent more than forty years helping people get out of all types of authoritarian groups, religious cults, political cults,

therapy cults, and multi level marketing groups. He's best known for his work on something called the Bite model. You can check it out on his website. But to explain it simply, it's a list of red flags, a checklist of characteristics of mind control. Well, I believe everyone should understand stand the influence continuum and Bite model, and they should understand the qualities of most cult leaders is malignant narcissism.

And what I advocate is people be good consumers. So if they're being invited to something that they should do an independent investigation, not depend on the recruiters. To give you information. And the simplest thing these days with Google is to put the name in quotes of the group, the name of the leader in quotes. Then you do plus cult or plus scam, plus brainwashing, plus x members.

And don't just settle for the first page, go ten pages in because most of the big cults manipulate search engines because they know most people won't look more than three pages on Google. But the other thing is so research the leader, the story, and so you want to ask hard questions. And most cult leaders go for power, money, and sex, and some want all three. And you want to get involved with a religious group where the leader

isn't me me, me, Me, Me me. You want the centrality to be focused on helping lift up members and support them and teach love rather than hate. And if a group's legitimate, it will stand up to scrutiny. So you know, allow your inner gut or your inner voice, it's saying there's something wrong here, listen to yourself and reality test. When he was nineteen, Stephen was recruited into a cult, the Moonies. His experience motivated him to try and change the legal system. He wants those who exercise

destructive mind control to be held criminally accountable. It's become a mission and a crusade for forty six years, and the last seven years I've been focusing on getting a doctorate and trying to create a formula that judges and juries can use to evaluate undue influence in courts of law, because I feel that what is being done should be illegal. There's a long way to go before we see any legal changes. But Stephen Hassan's focus is also on recovery,

and a part of that is dealing with guilt. So I think that one should own the fact that you did interfere with other people's lives and perhaps cause great harm, but also acknowledge you were doing the best you could with the information and experiences you had. You were believing you were doing a good thing. And so it starts with not having a black and white judgment on your younger self. But here's what I tell all of my clients as a therapist. I say, the key to recovering

from destructive mind control is controlling your own mind. I ask people to answer, if they knew then what they know now, what would they have said or done differently. So, in the case of the younger me when I was nineteen. If Steve knew these women were moonies and they were going to ask them to drop out of college and become a right wing fascist, I would have told them, no, you can't sit at my table. In fact, get the hell off my campus. I'm calling security. So the idea

is I'm empowering my clients to heal themselves. And the critical thing is to be in your body, to be in the now and have goals for the future that can be very positive and attractive to you that you have a future you want to live. We can rewire our brains to be the way we want to be now. I was told by a professor at this forensic think

tank I've been a part of at Harvard. He said, if you really want to change the law, you need a doctor at Steve, and you need to do a quantitative study or in your model to prove that it has efficacy. And I said, Michael, I'm sixty three, and he said I'm seventy seven. Do you want to change the law or not? And I was like, damn, I guess I'm gonna go back to school and crack the textbooks and learn. And it turned out to be one of the best choices I made because I got smarter.

And that's one thing I hope you'll take away from false prophets. All of us, even the smartest people, can fall for stuff. But what about some of the people we've met in this series. How did the Hillsong experience affect their lives and faith? Oludharado was part of Hillsong, New York, New Jersey, and Los Angeles. So my relationship to faith is that you know it exists. I still believe in Jesus, but I'm definitely not part of a church. I don't plan to be part of a church ever. Again.

I do believe churches do do good, but for me, the damage that can be done to the individual supersedes the good that it does overall. So for me personally, I can't do it. I just can't be a part of a church at all. I really just don't think they are safe spaces for people who aren't white. And after I left the church, I definitely was scared that I wouldn't be as close to God or my faith, and that was proven wrong. I didn't necessarily need to be part of a church to be close to God

or to have strong faith. Racism came up a lot in this series. Who Song says on its website that it's woken up to diversity and inclusion issues. Also says that their new board is more diverse. And what about people who work for really low wages for Hillsong pastors and left feeling exploited? How do they feel now? Megan Fallon was one of the nannies and volunteers at Hillsong New York. She moved to San Francisco and she gave

birth to twin daughters soon after talking to us. I don't know the answer that what Hillsong could do to get better, but I know it starts with like listening to the people that they've hurt. And I just am a firm believer that like, if your intentions are good, you can go into any situation and spin it around.

But you know, this church and these people are hurting or have hurt a lot of folks, and so just be careful and if you did feel like it's time to leave, like trust that gut feeling the first time you feel it. And there's a lot of us kind of on the other side that there's like a lot of support out there now, which is really awesome. Hillsong isn't going to engage with us. We are the past. I guess it says the Hillsong of today is not the Hillsong of Brian Houston. Ashley Easter has been with

us through the series. She's an abuse survivor and an advocate for victims. In her experience, powerful people don't change. The people that you're dealing with in these church systems are not like you most of the time. They do not have the same kind of empathy you have most of the time. They're not driven by the same care

for other people that you are driven by. And so don't be disillusioned that talking about the problem and bringing up these issues is going to some help tug at their heartstrings and they're going to want to do the right thing. So focus more on what you can do for survivors and to advance the cause of survivors and protecting other people from getting in these situations. In the beginning, I used to think that AVOCA to see work. The goal was to maybe change the systems or the churches,

or maybe get the pastors to listen. I don't believe that that's the goal anymore. I think the goal that realized now is really just to empower the survivor community and to sound the alarm so it doesn't happen to other people, so they can make decisions to keep themselves safe. And to be able to have your story told and validated by a community, and to warn other people. I think those are some huge winds that we're seeing in the survivor community as a whole. What about my personal

story and queer identity? No sign of change there from Hillsong. Will Hillsong affirm gay people? The message we're getting is no, will gay people be accepted in leadership roles? No? Will Hillsong be more clear on their message? The sign we're getting is no. But the message is still welcome home, you belong here. It's time for a final catch up with Oh Hardy. We're not surprised that Hillsong doesn't want to talk on the record. From your perspective, does it

look any different to the Hillsong that you left? To be honest, I guess different in terms of the leader at the front, the person holding the mic, But in terms of systems, I see it the same, Like nothing has changed. The system was founded the way it was and they liked it the way it was and it's

not going to shift from that. Yeah, I've also been wondering, I mean, for you, is there going to be a point where you draw a line and say, Hillsong is so far in the revision mirror now I'm not thinking about it talking about it anymore, Like are you ever gonna have you ever sort of set that point for yourself or are you just kind of just kind of

rolling with it. That's a great question. I think as a person of color, as a queer person, when you go through experiences, you often and to use your story in order to advocate for change, and knowing that things are not going to change in terms of LGBTQ policies, if they were to change our LGBTQ policies, then I'd

be like, Okay, my work is done. But if they didn't until the day they change their LGBTQ policies and actually say we do not affirm LGBTQ people within their website, make it loud and clear that they are homophobic, then I will stop talking. I think that's the line I'm going to draw, But for now that hasn't happened, So I'm going to continue to do it. That's really admirable. I think it's really cool if you're still energized by it. And yeah, I think like you have to have a

good sense of division within your life. I have the Noemi that goes to work, the Noemi that goes to advocate for LGBTQ people within the work that I do outside of all of this, and then there's a Noemi that speaks out within this podcast or within Hillsong Realms. Once I walk out of here, I'm gonna take a deep breath and say, Okay, now let's go have fun. I don't need to carry this all day with me.

But it takes years for things to change when you're speaking out, and it hurts and it's sad, but it's the reality of how Hillsong had us before, where Hillsong was our whole life. So then to now have it only be a small part of your life where you're speaking out, that's really hard to make that division. But I think it's also empowering to do that, to place that situation in a little box and to be able to go have fun. I think, honestly, that's the best

form of revenge. That's the best form of justice and accountability that I have found within to be able to pick up and be happy. Yeah, you got a smile an her face. Man, it's the hard work of healing. Awesome. Yeah, should we see? Yeah, let's go. Look. I want to get a flag. This is New York Pride twenty twenty two, my first time here. For me, it feels like the best end to my story. We started the Pride Parade just a couple of blocks from Hillsong Church. It no

longer has the power to hurt me. It's fun. Welcome to my life. It all came together and it all became even more special and monumental in my life. When I was able to walk in the Pride Parade, I got to take back the start and finish where I wanted to finish, without someone telling me where to go or what to do, and telling me who I could or couldn't love. I think that for me was very special. You could hear Teddy barking in the back. He also

believes it was special, even though he didn't go. It brings me to tears because I went through so many dark nights and to just hear myself embrace all of me in that parade and just like seeing the people around cheering and like embracing and yelling and accepting me was like a very big contrast in comparison to my experience at a Hillsong where I was told to complete opposite. So yeah, a lot of emotions. I started the series

wanting to do this, get answers from Hillsong. I'm still waiting to shine a light on things Hillsong didn't want to see. We've done that, and to take back power. This march and this series was definitely a take back from me. I'm nomoibe and this is false prophets, and I want to thank everyone who shared their stories with me. Special thanks to l Hardy. The series producer was Louise Cotton, Assistant producer was Leo Schick. Thanks to our executive producer

Alex Holland's sound design was by David Thomas. Location production in Australia was by Sharon Davies and thanks to our production manager Carrie Louder. The development producer was Naomi Harvey. False Prophets Hillsong is a story Glass production and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The executive producer from iHeartRadio is Dylan Fagan, with special thanks to beth N Macaluso.