Speaker 1: M The day that it landed in my inbox was
Speaker 1: such a crazy day. I was receiving so many emails
Speaker 1: and communications from people at the time, so it was
Speaker 1: just sort of another thing that landed. And then later
Speaker 1: that night I went hang on. Someone sent me all
Speaker 1: these PDFs of reports coming through from from New York,
Speaker 1: and so I opened them and was trying to read them,
Speaker 1: and there was just so much information. It was actually
Speaker 1: really overwhelming at first. It sort of took me a
Speaker 1: few days to actually be able to sit down and
Speaker 1: think about what I would seeing. This was outlining just
Speaker 1: the extent of the culture of impunity, of the culture
Speaker 1: of sexual assault, of abusing the labor of a lot
Speaker 1: of young women especially. This was the culture that completely
Speaker 1: got out of hand with hill Song and almost singlehandedly
Speaker 1: brought it down. When their own lawyers are saying, you
Speaker 1: guys have got to get control of this, because you're
Speaker 1: in big trouble. This was never exactly about writing all
Speaker 1: of the wrongs. This is really about protecting the institution
Speaker 1: of Hillsong and a lot of the people who were
Speaker 1: still employed by it, who have clearly done wrong things,
Speaker 1: looked the other way and and just been a part
Speaker 1: of a really rotten and toxic culture. This is Fast
Speaker 1: Profits the story of Hillsong Church with Miami ut eb
Speaker 1: and journalists Our Hardy. We're investigating Hillsong success and scandals.
Speaker 1: Just some of the quotes in the report are quite incredible.
Speaker 1: They say things like there was a culture of submission,
Speaker 1: a wild West attitude, acceptance of rudeness, abusive work rules
Speaker 1: and unfair treatment, an ocean of ill will, concern, hurt feelings,
Speaker 1: and despair. They even quote passer Carl Lentz admitting that
Speaker 1: he's a very good liar. I guess I just wanted
Speaker 1: to know from your perspective, how did you feel when
Speaker 1: you first so this stuff written in print, I mean,
Speaker 1: actually saying it that must have elicited quite some strong
Speaker 1: feelings for me. It was just like so much to
Speaker 1: process of, Like, holy sh it. The first reaction I
Speaker 1: had was a gasp when I read a name that
Speaker 1: was familiar to me and that I didn't know what
Speaker 1: they had gone through because I know they're currently in therapy.
Speaker 1: So it was it was very non surprising, but also disgusting,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I need to take a walk after
Speaker 1: reading all of this. So the lawyers used this raise
Speaker 1: a culture of submission. I want to dig a little
Speaker 1: deeper into that. What does that mean? How did it happen?
Speaker 1: And perhaps even how did we let it happen. It's
Speaker 1: about power, it's about hierarchy, and it's about accountability. The
Speaker 1: kate is the power and privilege of senior postage. The
Speaker 1: report that was sent to me says the most serious
Speaker 1: incidents happened in New York because the senior past is
Speaker 1: behavior was and a quote privileged, even when their conduct
Speaker 1: was undesirable, immoral, or potentially illegal. So the lawyers say
Speaker 1: it's difficult to establish what actually happened. Remember, the report
Speaker 1: describes personal recollections and there was a lot of ill
Speaker 1: will and some access to grind. But here's a list
Speaker 1: of what the lawyers heard. First, allegations of consensual and
Speaker 1: non consensual sex between leaders and congregants, staff volunteers, and
Speaker 1: people outside the church. Second, allegations of sexual harassment and
Speaker 1: hostile work environments. Third, allegations of cover ups design to
Speaker 1: conceal ms conduct, and the list goes on. There are
Speaker 1: claims of low wages that might have broken labor laws,
Speaker 1: discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, and race,
Speaker 1: and finally claims of non sexual harassment and abuse. There's
Speaker 1: a quote that stood out for me on that last point.
Speaker 1: The lawyers talk about behavior designed to intimidate, humiliate, subjugate,
Speaker 1: and exercise pala. This episode is all about abuse of
Speaker 1: power in that word submission. It's weird, right. No one
Speaker 1: at Hillsong said you've got to submit to abusive behavior.
Speaker 1: There was no big banner next to welcome home saying
Speaker 1: welcome to a culture of submission. Of course not you'd
Speaker 1: run for the hills. But this isn't quite as mild
Speaker 1: as it sounds. I want to go back to Jannis Lagata,
Speaker 1: who we talked to in the first episode. She was
Speaker 1: there at Hillsong, New York while this culture of submission
Speaker 1: was happening. She was trying to change things, and she
Speaker 1: felt she was failing. If, like Janice and me, you
Speaker 1: come from a background of Pentecostalism, you might recognize a
Speaker 1: little christian Ee happening here. To hear something like that,
Speaker 1: like the culture of submission to the world, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that would sound wild. But in Christie Nity, that
Speaker 1: would be not even just the tame part of that
Speaker 1: report like that would almost that that's like a given,
Speaker 1: Like submission is a word that I didn't realize as
Speaker 1: someone who grew up in the church. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not a normal word. Like, that's not a word you
Speaker 1: just hear a lot. But all throughout childhood, as children,
Speaker 1: you are submitting to your parents. As women, you are
Speaker 1: submitting to men. As sheep, you are submitting to your shepherd.
Speaker 1: As followers, you are submitting to your leader. And so
Speaker 1: there is just a Christian culture of having to be
Speaker 1: in community and having to have a leader, Like you
Speaker 1: need to be submitted to somebody or something right, And
Speaker 1: they'll tell you are submitted to something. And if it's
Speaker 1: not God, maybe it's money, maybe it's sex, maybe it's drugs,
Speaker 1: maybe it's your job up, maybe it's your relationship. Like
Speaker 1: everyone is submitting to something, so you want to make
Speaker 1: sure you're submitting to the right things. And yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're part of Hillsong, then you have said this is
Speaker 1: my church and these are my leaders. They are hearing
Speaker 1: from God on behalf of this community which I am
Speaker 1: a part of, and so I need to be submitted.
Speaker 1: And who do you submit to? Well, the most senior
Speaker 1: passes in Hillsong, New York were the ones with the power,
Speaker 1: and we know from the report many people felt that
Speaker 1: they couldn't challenge their behavior. My name's Ashley Easter. I'm
Speaker 1: a cult survivor and abuse victim advocate. I'm also the
Speaker 1: founder of Courage three sixty five, where we support survivors
Speaker 1: of abuse. I think people would describe me as being
Speaker 1: pretty fiery. I'm only five ft one, but I think
Speaker 1: I pack a lot of punch in this small frame.
Speaker 1: Some people have called me a witch. I've been told
Speaker 1: that I'm rebellious and that rebellion in is like the
Speaker 1: sin of witchcraft. Witchcraft is alliance with the devil, and
Speaker 1: alliance with the devil will get you cast into hell.
Speaker 1: And so I've certainly been called a rebellious woman. I've
Speaker 1: been told that I just don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I've confronted face to face
Speaker 1: some tall, large men who have a lot of stature
Speaker 1: and some of these church movements, and it's so interesting
Speaker 1: to see them cower when you actually talk to them
Speaker 1: in person. So I think that they try to dismiss me,
Speaker 1: but I also think that I'm sort of that little
Speaker 1: stone in their shoe. That I might be small, but
Speaker 1: they can't really forget about me because I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep calling them out, and I think that really annoys
Speaker 1: them a lot. Actually worked with survivors of abuse at
Speaker 1: different churches, and she campaigns for better safeguards and accountability.
Speaker 1: We asked her to look at the claims in the
Speaker 1: Hillsong Report and the Sexual Abuses Report it in New York.
Speaker 1: This is your take on what she learned. So I
Speaker 1: was looking at the sexual exploitation and the sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: and the first thing that stood out to me is
Speaker 1: that Hillsong seems to know that there's already a dangerous culture.
Speaker 1: And the thing to start to pick up on that
Speaker 1: was their conversation around the green rooms. So the green
Speaker 1: rooms are basically, I assume where speakers go before they
Speaker 1: go on stage, and they were talking about not allowing
Speaker 1: loose women into the green rooms, basically with this ideology
Speaker 1: that the men could not control themselves. These are pastors,
Speaker 1: people who are supposed to be the cream of the
Speaker 1: crop when it comes to morality, and they couldn't be
Speaker 1: trusted to have women in the green room because nobody
Speaker 1: knew what they would do. To me, that signals that
Speaker 1: the church already knows that there is a culture a
Speaker 1: misogyn that there's a culture of men blaming women for
Speaker 1: their short falls, for their sexual abuse in many cases,
Speaker 1: and putting the onus on women just not to be
Speaker 1: available because these pastors and church leaders can't control themselves.
Speaker 1: So that's what stood out to me first is it's
Speaker 1: not just that there are these isolated instances of abuse,
Speaker 1: of rape, of sexual assault, but there's a whole culture
Speaker 1: where the church is even aware that they need to
Speaker 1: keep women out of a green room around pastors because
Speaker 1: they don't know what would happen. And keeping in mind,
Speaker 1: the pastors in that situation are the ones with the
Speaker 1: power and control, not women who would walk into the room.
Speaker 1: And I just want to add something on the green rooms.
Speaker 1: Another quote really jumped out at me from the lawyers.
Speaker 1: It says they didn't appear to be any effort to
Speaker 1: exclude women who are attractive, to the contrary the in
Speaker 1: ram saying to have selected beautiful helps. Only women with
Speaker 1: history of sexual encounters were excluded. Yeah, and there are
Speaker 1: multiple allegations of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and inappropriate behavior
Speaker 1: against quite a long list of people at Hillsong. People
Speaker 1: also complained about misogynistic and dismissive behavior, and the teaching
Speaker 1: of celibacy before marriage only seemed to be enforced against women.
Speaker 1: Here's actually Easter again. Then there's this idea, this whole
Speaker 1: culture of submission within Hillsong, where pastors, church leaders, ministers
Speaker 1: are given this almost godlike honor, praise, and really worship
Speaker 1: in some scenarios, and abuse is always, always, always motivated
Speaker 1: by a lust for power and control, whether that sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: verbal abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse. These aren't accidents. There
Speaker 1: may be other factors like anger management issues or impulse controlled.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, when it comes down to it, the choice
Speaker 1: to abuse somebody is the choice to try to gain
Speaker 1: power and control over them. So when you have a
Speaker 1: culture where it's very hierarchical, particularly with the men, you
Speaker 1: are going to find some sort of abuse because abuses
Speaker 1: about power and control. So this whole culture lends to
Speaker 1: dangerous things happening and being excused because who wants to
Speaker 1: speak out about the Man of God. Now we come
Speaker 1: to the allegations against one high ranking pasta. These are
Speaker 1: the most serious allegations we've come across. It's a difficult
Speaker 1: story to listen to The details we're going to share
Speaker 1: with you are from a lawyer's report ordered by Hillsong
Speaker 1: and leaked to out. We have concealed the woman's identity
Speaker 1: and some of the most explicit details. At the center
Speaker 1: is a hills passer called Read Bogarde, and a junior
Speaker 1: staff member at Hillsong New York. Let's rewind to two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen Hillsong leadership in Australia. It's told about what's
Speaker 1: called misconducts between Read Bogarde, who's married, and an unmarried
Speaker 1: junior staff member. They heard the pair had an affair
Speaker 1: from fall two thousand and thirteen till early two thousand
Speaker 1: and fourteen. Let's hear how Hillsong's own lawyer described what happened.
Speaker 1: Hillsong did not conduct any meaningful inquiry into the details
Speaker 1: or circumstances of the affair, and no one with appropriate
Speaker 1: training was assigned to look into matters. No one at
Speaker 1: any time ever probed for more information or tried to
Speaker 1: discern how one of the most powerful men in the
Speaker 1: New York church could have found himself in a sexual
Speaker 1: relationship with a young, vulnerable junior staff member, and no
Speaker 1: one appears to have questioned whether meaningful consent was possible,
Speaker 1: let alone given the obvious power dynamic. So what action
Speaker 1: did Hillsong take over these reports of an affair? Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what happened. Read Bogard stood down publicly from
Speaker 1: his platform for up to twelve months. Then he returned
Speaker 1: to full pastoral duties, and later he got promoted to
Speaker 1: the job of lead pastor at a new Hillsong church
Speaker 1: in Dallas. Six years later, the same woman came forward
Speaker 1: and said her sexual experience with read Bogard initially had
Speaker 1: not been consensual. She said Mr Bogard had reaped her.
Speaker 1: That's when Hillsong lawyers were brought in and they interviewed
Speaker 1: thirteen witnesses about the case. But the lawyers say because
Speaker 1: of the passage of time and the lack of any
Speaker 1: prior investigation, their own investigation was hampered. They also described
Speaker 1: read Bogard as less than entirely reliable in his interviews,
Speaker 1: and because there are no records or eyewitness accounts from
Speaker 1: the time, it's difficult to find definitive conclusions about the truth.
Speaker 1: Read Bogarde told investigators he had no recollection of the woman,
Speaker 1: saying no, let's hear what the lawyers had to say
Speaker 1: there can be no doubt that given the extreme power
Speaker 1: imbalance between the two, as well as the don't say
Speaker 1: no culture which permeated the New York Church, there was
Speaker 1: ample opportunity for Mr Bogard to take advantage of a
Speaker 1: systemic inability for the woman to have meaningfully consented at
Speaker 1: the time in question, and to pick up on some
Speaker 1: other issues the lawyers raise. They say read Bogarde put
Speaker 1: pressure on the woman to sign a non disclosure agreement
Speaker 1: as a condition of her employment, and he also urged
Speaker 1: her to get a matching tattoo, even though she didn't
Speaker 1: want one. We asked Ashley Easter to look at the case,
Speaker 1: and she has a strong personal reaction to what she heard.
Speaker 1: So when I read this case about this pasture, really
Speaker 1: it was described as him initially raping the woman, sexually
Speaker 1: assaulting her, and then drawing her into this relationship that
Speaker 1: was long term. Personally, I would say that all of
Speaker 1: that is sexual sault if it began with a power
Speaker 1: differentiation and if there was a rape at the beginning.
Speaker 1: But other things that I noticed about this case was
Speaker 1: that it had such similar lines to what you would
Speaker 1: see in a traditional sex slavery situation because not only
Speaker 1: was there the sexual thought there, not only was there
Speaker 1: the abuse of power, but it was then tied to
Speaker 1: the woman's job. It was like, sign these papers or
Speaker 1: you don't have a job, in the middle of him
Speaker 1: having this sexualized power and control dynamic relationship with this woman.
Speaker 1: So that is definitely something that you would see a
Speaker 1: lot of times in sex trafficking and sexual slavery situations.
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, he took it a
Speaker 1: step farther and he did this, He encouraged this woman
Speaker 1: to getting matching tattoo, and it was something that she
Speaker 1: really didn't want to do it. It really is a
Speaker 1: sign of ownership. Read Bogard left hill Song. No criminal
Speaker 1: charges have been brought against him. We'll be asking Hill
Speaker 1: Song to explain what action they've taken, whether they've introduced
Speaker 1: new safeguards and reporting systems recommended by their lawyers, and
Speaker 1: we'll be asking them to respond to another set of allegations,
Speaker 1: this time about the exploitation of volunteers. I could probably
Speaker 1: pull up the numbers right now, so on a Sunday,
Speaker 1: every Sunday, I would collect numbers from all the teams
Speaker 1: of who volunteered and what uh October one for the
Speaker 1: ten am service, there were in the audience three hundred
Speaker 1: and people and a total of four hundred and forty people,
Speaker 1: and we had a hundred and one volunteers. This culture
Speaker 1: of submission at Hillsong led to another type of abuse
Speaker 1: as well, exploitation of volunteers and staff. The mega productions
Speaker 1: like the one I helped run at Royale in Boston
Speaker 1: rely on thousands of volunteers, and that's okay up to
Speaker 1: a point. Every week they would do Captain of the week,
Speaker 1: that's what they would call it. So it's just like
Speaker 1: the volunteer who had stood out. They would give out
Speaker 1: antela to whoever like got it, and they would give
Speaker 1: you like a soccer band for team captain and it
Speaker 1: said captain on it. So that was like your little
Speaker 1: prize for being Captain of the week or volunteer of
Speaker 1: the week. Josh comes did like a thank you for
Speaker 1: volunteering with us small It's there's no calories. It felt
Speaker 1: nice to be recognized for the work I was doing.
Speaker 1: When I look at it now, um, when I look
Speaker 1: at that video and watch it, it's it's really it
Speaker 1: frustrates me because The words that Josh Comes was saying
Speaker 1: in that video were very generic. He didn't really know me.
Speaker 1: This happened September. I came out to my leader probably
Speaker 1: like two months later, and I was never on stage
Speaker 1: and never recognized again for anything. And I was there
Speaker 1: every Sunday and not saying that like I'm bitter about
Speaker 1: not having received recognition. I feel like during that time
Speaker 1: of starting to question some thing's theologically, and so it
Speaker 1: felt like a way to keep me in of like
Speaker 1: where we're recognizing you, like stay. The investigators that New
Speaker 1: York picked up on how this hierarchy really benefited the
Speaker 1: church because it motivated people to give more time and
Speaker 1: more effort to heal song and that could include some
Speaker 1: pretty extreme expectations. Megan Fallon was one of the volunteers.
Speaker 1: She showed her experience at the New York church with
Speaker 1: the investigators and with us. I felt like I was
Speaker 1: building God's church and I felt included and it felt
Speaker 1: like a family. I made myself available all the time,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was welcoming people home like
Speaker 1: that was what we were supposed to be doing. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize it when you're in it. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean, or you don't realize it until you're
Speaker 1: too far in it. Looking back on it, they really
Speaker 1: manipulate you into, you know, wanting to do different things.
Speaker 1: And I look back at the things that I was
Speaker 1: doing back then, like volunteering from six am to midnight,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to be a part of City Care,
Speaker 1: which was painted as the outreach that they were going
Speaker 1: to be doing to the community, and that's like what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do for a career, and so I
Speaker 1: really wanted to get involved with that, but it was
Speaker 1: really slow coming off the ground. So as a part
Speaker 1: of the Connections team, I would volunteer for like different things,
Speaker 1: and it was like working a full time job, you know,
Speaker 1: but for free. But it was made to be like, well,
Speaker 1: this is an honor and like, you know, when city
Speaker 1: Care starts, you know, you'll get to be the main volunteer.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but they paint this picture that it's
Speaker 1: adding up to something. And I remember the first Christmas again,
Speaker 1: there was no city Care, there was nothing going on,
Speaker 1: but they were taking donations at church for some nonprofit
Speaker 1: organization to donate presents to children, and so I volunteered
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, great, so you can bring
Speaker 1: them from church to your house and then bring them
Speaker 1: to the place in the morning. But I lived on
Speaker 1: like a sixth floor walk up on the upper east side,
Speaker 1: and I had to bring hundreds of presents up all
Speaker 1: of these stairs by myself, no help. But they were
Speaker 1: all over the living room. Like I still have a
Speaker 1: picture of me sitting in the middle of all these pictures,
Speaker 1: like smiling looking back on that. Now, that's insane. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that for my full time job, now, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. But back then it was for
Speaker 1: free and it was awesome and it was an honor
Speaker 1: that they considered me to help with this project. And
Speaker 1: it's crazy thinking about that now. I'm just really curious,
Speaker 1: where do you think that this culture came from, of
Speaker 1: manipulation and of taking advantage of really well intentioned people.
Speaker 1: Did it come from the top? Did it come from
Speaker 1: Carl Was it just so deeply ingrained within the church?
Speaker 1: You know, the folks that I was helping out they
Speaker 1: learned that from someone. And so I think American culture
Speaker 1: is a little bit different, right, and so I think
Speaker 1: it probably was more so here. But you know, as
Speaker 1: I continued to volunteer. And the more you got to
Speaker 1: see that this was across the board. So when we
Speaker 1: did conferences, when we had special guests come to speak,
Speaker 1: they all had super outlandish requests and needs that we're
Speaker 1: all required, right, and so um, it came from the topic,
Speaker 1: came from Sydney, and this was just a norm. And
Speaker 1: the pastors in New York are fairly young, and so
Speaker 1: they were just following what was modeled to them. And
Speaker 1: then it probably got a little bit out of control,
Speaker 1: just because America's a little bit out of control. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering, if you have a talied up, how many
Speaker 1: hours you actually did as a volunteer. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I could never do that because it's a number that
Speaker 1: I mean because even when I was technically working for them,
Speaker 1: I was getting paid so little. It was basically volunteering too.
Speaker 1: So you know, four years straight, doesn't it sound crazy?
Speaker 1: But not so crazy if you in it. And joannicely
Speaker 1: gotta picks up on a Christianese things happening here, You've
Speaker 1: got to remember this really played into our sense of
Speaker 1: duty and obligation. The word sacrifice. We don't walk around
Speaker 1: talking about sacrificing all the time. But in Christianity you do,
Speaker 1: and so your life is not your own. And the
Speaker 1: deal is Jesus did for you. He gave his life
Speaker 1: for you, and the least you can do is give
Speaker 1: your life back. And so whatever part of your life
Speaker 1: is needed, that's your money, If that's your time, that's
Speaker 1: your energy, that's your your gifts and your talents. You're
Speaker 1: giving it. And it seems crazy on this side of things,
Speaker 1: because you are doing all this work and being encouraged
Speaker 1: to give and keep giving by people who are getting
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't have an issue with volunteerism, but
Speaker 1: I think whatever the mode, whatever the model you're using is,
Speaker 1: then everyone should be subject to that. So if you
Speaker 1: want an all volunteer church, then the pastors need to
Speaker 1: be volunteers too. But if you can't afford to pay
Speaker 1: the pastor for the work that they're doing, then you
Speaker 1: can afford to pay everyone for the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: And so it's just right right for abuse and for
Speaker 1: robbing people's system when you are just drawing these arbitrary
Speaker 1: lines about whose time is worth money and whose isn't.
Speaker 1: Some people were giving a lot and others were getting
Speaker 1: a lot, while volunteers and staff were giving hours of
Speaker 1: unpaid work, even when some were struggling financially. It was
Speaker 1: a different story for some pastors. For example, the lawyers
Speaker 1: highlighted how a senior pastor would spend lavishly on the
Speaker 1: church credit card for personal expenses, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: juniorrself were held to a standard of perfection that the
Speaker 1: lads didn't follow and if they complained, they were shamed.
Speaker 1: And it really pisces me off to read this part
Speaker 1: of the report, how volunteers were working their asses off
Speaker 1: while Carl Lens spent like five thousand dollars on a
Speaker 1: dinner with celebrities, and there are so many examples of
Speaker 1: these ridiculous demands. Staff were on call seven. One of
Speaker 1: the staff said he was called out at one fifteen
Speaker 1: in the morning to set up a drum set for
Speaker 1: Carl's son. Collins told the lawyers he had no recollection
Speaker 1: of that, but he was very frank about his sexual
Speaker 1: encounters with people inside and outside of Hillsong, giving very
Speaker 1: detailed and explicit accounts of what happened. Of course, he
Speaker 1: got fired for that and for what Hillsong called failures
Speaker 1: of leadership. And you might be thinking, why didn't people
Speaker 1: call out this stuff? Well, some did, but you've got
Speaker 1: to understand this was a culture where staff and volunteers
Speaker 1: were encouraged to be invisible in the presence of senior pastors.
Speaker 1: They were taught to maintain a wall of silence about
Speaker 1: the private lives of pastors. And in my experience in Boston,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons they got away with this behavior
Speaker 1: was by pinning us against each other. This is how
Speaker 1: it operated between the volunteers during the stage operations, the
Speaker 1: creative team and the rest of us. Creative team had
Speaker 1: a green room where before service, during and after they
Speaker 1: could use this room to go and rest and and eat,
Speaker 1: and they would have their meetings in there, and no
Speaker 1: one else was allowed, and they would have someone from
Speaker 1: venue safety standing at the door. And if you didn't
Speaker 1: have the credentials to go in there, you were not
Speaker 1: allowed in. Inside of creative room, they would give them breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and sometimes even dinner, and they would I remember, they
Speaker 1: would have things like pulled pork, salads, um sandwiches. They
Speaker 1: would bring cake and fruit and muffins and doughnuts and
Speaker 1: so much like a big table full of food and
Speaker 1: and that was all paid for. But on the front
Speaker 1: of house to eat, we created our own little corner
Speaker 1: where we needed to have some water, and there wasn't
Speaker 1: a budget for us, and we would put two little
Speaker 1: couches in there and we would just go in there
Speaker 1: and rest. Some people would go in there and just
Speaker 1: cry or have an anxiety attack and like recover from it.
Speaker 1: And and to think back, now, we kind of like
Speaker 1: we're pinned against each other so that we didn't realize
Speaker 1: that the system of hierarchy was created by them, by
Speaker 1: the pastors, and we could retaliate and be like, I'm
Speaker 1: no longer going to volunteer. If this is how you're
Speaker 1: going to be treating people, for some to have more
Speaker 1: privileged than others, it should be the same. And it
Speaker 1: was getting to the point where this system of hierarchy
Speaker 1: that they had created UM was causing people to to
Speaker 1: have a lot of frustration and anger UM, and so
Speaker 1: they would have to create lingos for people to cling
Speaker 1: onto that. But I remember one year the lingo was
Speaker 1: can you believe we get to do this? And often
Speaker 1: people would be running around serving or volunteering however you
Speaker 1: want to call it, and we would be getting anxiety
Speaker 1: attacks and running into a room to drink some water
Speaker 1: and calm down and have like a breathing exercise, and
Speaker 1: I would sometimes do it with them because I was
Speaker 1: also crying. And at the end of it, it it was
Speaker 1: so bizarre because someone would be like, Wow, can you
Speaker 1: believe we get to do this? And to think back
Speaker 1: on the irony And that's how we were accepting all
Speaker 1: of this abuse, because we were being brainwashed by saying
Speaker 1: and repeating these lingos and thinking that us having an
Speaker 1: anxiety attack and us being in this position of allowing
Speaker 1: and accepting this amount of abuse was okay because we
Speaker 1: were being honored with having the opportunity to volunteer for them. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Alodara. I am a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: almost an author of Self Care for Black Woman. Should
Speaker 1: I share about like my history with Hill Songarader was
Speaker 1: part of hill Song for many years in New York
Speaker 1: during the Lentz era, but also in New Jersey and
Speaker 1: later in Los Angeles. She was a volunteer kids Pasta
Speaker 1: and she left Hill Song in I'm okay with sharing.
Speaker 1: It's part of the healing process, I would say. In
Speaker 1: New York it felt very like like high school. I
Speaker 1: think that might be the best way to put it,
Speaker 1: in the sense of everyone's influenced by a Regina George.
Speaker 1: I was ay, So if Carl Lenz was wearing jeans
Speaker 1: and skinny pants and certain boots and had the eyes
Speaker 1: of his head shaved, then there are a bunch of
Speaker 1: men wearing skinny jeans and jean jacket and the side
Speaker 1: of their head shaved. People changed the way they dressed
Speaker 1: once they started joining Hillsong. They all dressed a certain
Speaker 1: way and looked a certain way. That sounds pretty funny,
Speaker 1: a bit dumb, but harmless, but buying the hip image
Speaker 1: was a power structure with pastors at the top could
Speaker 1: shut down descent and shame critics. It was a culture
Speaker 1: that I felt like you weren't really allowed to speak
Speaker 1: out against things that you didn't agree with. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of keeping people in their place. Yes, you have
Speaker 1: all these ideas of how things could be better, but
Speaker 1: we're not going to take it into consideration because basically,
Speaker 1: who were you for me? Whether you were exploited as
Speaker 1: a volunteer, abused as a staffer, harmed by bulling and subjugation,
Speaker 1: or discriminated against, you were spiritually abused. Remember this was church.
Speaker 1: I'm going to define spiritual abuse as using someone's spirituality
Speaker 1: and vulnerability to kind of manipulate them into maybe doing
Speaker 1: something they wouldn't want to do, in the sense disguised
Speaker 1: as this is the culture. With cults. I hate to
Speaker 1: say the C word, but I will say, in my
Speaker 1: own perspective, I do believe that I was part of
Speaker 1: a cult. That's just my own view. I know others
Speaker 1: will disagree, but cults, you know, they tend to manipulate
Speaker 1: the way you view yourself, the way you view the world,
Speaker 1: the way you may view your finances, the way you
Speaker 1: may speak, talk, etcetera. So I definitely feel like because
Speaker 1: Hillsong had such a strong influence on the way people
Speaker 1: would start living their lives after they joined the church,
Speaker 1: I would say that there was definitely some spiritual abuse.
Speaker 1: And most people who enter these spaces are vulnerable, are feeling,
Speaker 1: are also genuinely just nice people, and so obviously you're
Speaker 1: going to want to try to please your church. You're
Speaker 1: gonna want to try to please your community because you
Speaker 1: don't want to lose your community. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: I would say, yes, there was definitely some spiritual abuse
Speaker 1: at Hillsong, whether it was on purpose or just by accident.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you're in an abusive relationship, you
Speaker 1: actually don't realize you're in the abusive relationship. So I
Speaker 1: would watch my friends leave and I wouldn't really understand why,
Speaker 1: and I would make up excuses for the things they experienced.
Speaker 1: So then when the scandal came out with Carl, it
Speaker 1: basically shattered the core of my Christianity, which was very
Speaker 1: action driven. Then you begin to rethink everything. You're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so while I was working my ass off at this church,
Speaker 1: while I was volunteering twelve hour days, and you were
Speaker 1: just coming in as like a rock star every now
Speaker 1: and then, I definitely was like, wait a minute, I
Speaker 1: was operating in this really wholesome spirituality. And then it
Speaker 1: turns out that this whole time, some of the pastors
Speaker 1: and the people who we looked up to word I
Speaker 1: think the big question Hillsong needs to answer is what's changed?
Speaker 1: What have you done to stop it happening across your
Speaker 1: other churches all over the world. And my question is
Speaker 1: when are you going to listen to people like Megan,
Speaker 1: Janice Oludhara and me it's easy to say move on,
Speaker 1: it's a few bad actors, it's just one branch of
Speaker 1: a huge church. But is there something more at play,
Speaker 1: something about Hillsong's model. Here's bos to vician again. We
Speaker 1: heard from him in episode one. Boss represents victims of
Speaker 1: abused and he believes there's a problem with the system
Speaker 1: that turns pastors into stars. Let's just pick on the
Speaker 1: Baptist church. You go to Baptist church, you go to
Speaker 1: church every week, you sing some hymns, here's some announcements,
Speaker 1: you provide money in the offering plate, and then the
Speaker 1: whole service culminates in what the whole service culminates in
Speaker 1: a pastor getting up in front of the group and
Speaker 1: for thirty minutes if you're lucky, forty five or fifty
Speaker 1: if you're not so lucky, speaking uninterrupted, weekend and week out. Now,
Speaker 1: if we don't think that that in and of itself,
Speaker 1: that structure is fueling narcissism and thus fueling the abuse
Speaker 1: of those very members of that community, we're lying to ourselves.
Speaker 1: We have made so much about the pastor and the preaching,
Speaker 1: where that pastor ultimately ends up having complete control over
Speaker 1: the congregation and also complete control over the other leaders
Speaker 1: within the church because ultimate I saw this at Willow Creek,
Speaker 1: a huge mega church up in Illinois, where the pastor
Speaker 1: was engaged in misconduct, but nobody wanted to confront him
Speaker 1: about it, because he was why everybody was coming to
Speaker 1: this church. He was why people were putting hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars in the offering plate every week to
Speaker 1: keep this big machine running. And so if you get
Speaker 1: rid of him, now, you can't pay your bills, you
Speaker 1: can't pay your employees. And so it's very easy to
Speaker 1: rationalize why we put up with and even sometimes embrace
Speaker 1: this type of toxic and abusive leader for the greater
Speaker 1: good of ministry, when an actuality, it's destroying the ministry
Speaker 1: because it's destroying lives. Perhaps Hillsong learned its lesson from
Speaker 1: what happened in New York, where the pastor's egos went
Speaker 1: and checked and power was abused. We'll see as we
Speaker 1: dig deeper in the series. I guess it's worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that one reason we can read about these alleged
Speaker 1: abieases in black and white is because Hillsong commissioned an
Speaker 1: investigation and the results were lated. So what about the
Speaker 1: report's own recommendations on this issue of passes who misuse
Speaker 1: their power. The lawyers advised hill Song to introduce better
Speaker 1: oversight of pastas and more robust complaints systems, But that
Speaker 1: feels like a minimum to me, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people believe the recommendations fell short. Ashley Easter,
Speaker 1: who's looked at failings in many churches, is one of them.
Speaker 1: There's some baseline things in there that could be useful,
Speaker 1: but one of the big ones was writing a policy
Speaker 1: to address abuse. And yes, write a policy, I'm not
Speaker 1: knocking that, but when you write the policy, you need
Speaker 1: to make sure that this policy is actually in favor
Speaker 1: of the victims and people who are vulnerable and not
Speaker 1: the church. The policies and procedures shouldn't first and foremost
Speaker 1: be about how can I reduce liability for myself? It's
Speaker 1: how can I make sure people you show up here
Speaker 1: are safe and God forbid if something does happen, that
Speaker 1: they are completely a supported. But then on top of that,
Speaker 1: I didn't see anywhere in the report where they said, hey,
Speaker 1: you should recommend as soon as the victim comes forward
Speaker 1: for them to go talk to the police for you
Speaker 1: to offer to pay for them to choose their own
Speaker 1: license therapist so they can get the healing. You should
Speaker 1: encourage them to seek their own legal support if that's
Speaker 1: something that they want to do. Another thing to realize
Speaker 1: about this report and the recommendations is, whenever you're getting
Speaker 1: a report or having an investigation that is paid for
Speaker 1: by the organization, victims are not going to be at
Speaker 1: the forefront of their recommendations because the victims aren't paying
Speaker 1: the check. The church is writing the check. Internal investigations
Speaker 1: will sometimes highlight small areas, but they're not going to
Speaker 1: really address the whole thing, and their focus is going
Speaker 1: to be reducing liability. And one section that I read
Speaker 1: that really screamed that this was the the ultimate goal
Speaker 1: of this internal investigation by an attorney firm was this.
Speaker 1: It said, at the same time that pr is important,
Speaker 1: it is not necessary and not desirable to throw open
Speaker 1: the doors of the investigation to bear all of the
Speaker 1: church's dirty laundry, some matters from the past could cause
Speaker 1: liability or embarrassment from the church. And then it goes
Speaker 1: on and it says, instead, tell a new story of renewal.
Speaker 1: In the next episode of False Profits, the revelations keep coming.
Speaker 1: We're looking into the lifestyle of Hillsong pastors. The lawyers
Speaker 1: start asking awkward questions about staff and money, and we
Speaker 1: start unpacking the complex world of church finances with investigator
Speaker 1: Barry Bowen. One of my favorite Bible verses is found
Speaker 1: in Second Peter two, verse three, and the King James
Speaker 1: version of the Bible. It talks about these false teachers
Speaker 1: making merchandise of people, basically the ideas they've turned the
Speaker 1: church into a marketplace. When you read that same verse
Speaker 1: in the New Living Translation, it says, in their greed,
Speaker 1: they will make up clever lives to get hold of
Speaker 1: your money. I just love that verse.