How Hillsong’s Houstons went from Baulkham Hills to Beverly Hills

If the writers of the dark but deliciously hilarious American comedy The Righteous Gemstones, currently screening on Foxtel and featuring a dysfunctional family of televanglists, are looking for inspiration for upcoming storylines, they need look no further than Baulkham Hills and our very own Houston dynasty of Hillsong fame.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny with Hillsong Church Pastor Brian Houston.

While the Gemstones are a source of much humour, these days the laughs around the Houston household, a palatial gated multi-million-dollar spread in nearby Glenhaven, have been somewhat muted thanks to a string of scandals.

So dire is the once untouchable family’s current position it has left many of us to wonder if Team Houston - comprising husband and wife Hillsong founders Brian and Bobbie Houston and their three adult children - has entered its own End of Days?

Bobbie and Brian Houston, founders of Hillsong. Credit: Hillsong

Given the success the Eyes Of Tammy Faye has enjoyed, perhaps there’s a Hollywood blockbuster waiting to be made about the Houstons? Playing the star-spangled televangelist Tammy Faye garnered Jessica Chastain the Best Actress Academy Award last week.

Just like Brian and Bobbie Houston, the late Tammy Faye Bakker and her former husband Jim created a glitzy multi-million-dollar Christian megachurch, though they were eventually sunk and shrouded in scandal owing millions of dollars in the 1980s.

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in Malibu, 1987.Credit: AP

Brian Houston may have once jumped at the opportunity to be immortalised on the big screen, and Kevin Costner or Nicholas Cage could easily pull it off.

However, given recent events, the Hillsong founder and his co-preaching wife Bobbie have been uncharacteristically quiet following his resignation as Hillsong’s Global Senior Pastor, stepping down from his glittering pulpit after breaching the church’s moral code. They’ve even suspended comments on their usually effusive Instagram feed after being flooded with vitriol from disheartened followers.

The tawdry tale, involving claims of booze and medication-fuelled romps, one of which allegedly involved Brian Houston with a woman in hotel room that was not his wife, have naturally made front page news, and created serious anxiety within the Hillsong power structure as it struggles to mitigate the unseemly fallout.

Praise be: Righteous Gemstones cast members Adam Devine, Danny McBride and Edi Patterson in character as the fictional evangelical Gemstone siblings.Credit: HBO/Foxtel

How could the man who preached fire and brimstone sermons from a Harley Davidson, bewitched stadiums of worshipers with rock bands and laser light shows, who reached superstar status among his millions of followers, who has written over a dozen books including one titled You Need More Money: Discovering God’s Amazing Financial Plan for Your Life; and who pioneered an enterprise generating more than $100m in mostly tax-free revenue from tithing, merchandise, stadium tours and music, have come so badly undone?

And things are not going to get any easier in coming months for Houston who is due to face a three-week trial in November after pleading not guilty to charges he covered up his now late father, fellow evangelist Frank Houston’s historic child sex abuse. The charge stems from the 2014 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which found Brian Houston failed to report knowledge of his father’s child sex abuse to the authorities.

Bobbie Houston briefly addressed the nightmare she and her husband have become engulfed in on her Instagram account, posting last week: “I’m okay. It’s been a very painful week, but I’ll always stand by the man I’ve loved and walked with for 45 years. I know more about his personality, character, and honesty than anyone else.”

Currently in the United States, where the Houstons and Hillsong have made huge inroads to become something of a celebrity magnet rivalling Scientology, attracting everyone from Justin Bieber and Chris Pratt to Kylie Jenner, the church has come under sustained attack thanks to a new documentary airing on the Discovery Plus streaming service titled Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed.

Carl Lentz tarnished the Hillsong brand following a series of alleged sexual indiscretions.Credit: AP

Among the “scandals” being exhumed is the one which engulfed the Louis Vuitton hoodie wearing Hillsong preacher in designer trainers Carl Lentz. Dubbed a “hypepriest” by GQ, in 2020 the photogenic Lentz - who studied his craft in Sydney and preached pre marital sex was a sin - admitted to having an extramarital affair and was fired from his position as head of Hillsong’s New York church.

The final episode of the three part series delves into the Frank Houston child sex abuse saga and the upcoming court proceedings facing Brian Houston.

While there are no immediate plans for the documentary to be screened in Australia, that is likely to change given local interest would be considerable. Even our sitting Prime Minister Scott Morrison once referred to Brian Houston as his spiritual “mentor”, though more recently has publicly distanced himself from Houstons and Hillsong.

Bobbie Houston and the couple’s three adult children, Joel, Ben and Laura, remain actively employed in Hillsong, either as pastors or headline acts in the mega musical productions the church is famous for.

From Baulkham Hills to Beverly Hills, the Houston’s have certainly come a long way from Hillsong’s humble beginnings in a Sydney community hall back in 1983, though exactly what path their future holds, and that of the church which they are so intrinsically part of, remains to be seen.