Scott Morrison has assiduously cultivated his links to disgraced Hillsong leader Brian Houston and that corporation for years. It is a core part of his political identity. The prime minister was happy to boast of his links to the corporation when he thought it did him good. Now that Houston and his outfit have turned toxic, Morrison can’t dissociate himself.
He’s by no means the first Liberal — or politician — to cultivate Hillsong in the belief that its prosperity gospel and roots in suburban communities offered a path to political good fortune. In 2005, Peter Costello led — to a rapturous welcome — an array of Liberal luminaries to Hillsong; Costello was a repeat performer at Hillsong events, clearly thinking it would be a handy support in his inevitable ascent to the prime ministership.
It wasn’t just Liberals dancing to Hillsong’s cash register tune, either. As NSW premier, Bob Carr tried to cultivate Labor’s links with the corporation.
Now Hillsong, which extended its tentacles to the lucrative markets of the United States, stands revealed as founded by and riddled with admitted and alleged sexual predators and frauds; its most senior figure resigning in disgrace after revelations of his harassment of women, blamed, variously, on alcohol, sleeping pills and anxiety medication.
Plainly prayer and faith aren’t the psychological panacea Hillsong has long claimed them to be.
But Morrison went much further than any previous politician in boasting of his links to Hillsong and Houston, who is also awaiting trial for concealing the rape of children by his father.
Morrison famously acknowledged Houston, along with another controversial Hillsong figure Leigh Coleman, in his maiden speech in Parliament, claiming his own faith had been greatly assisted by their pastoral work.
Guess who was almost invited to dinner
Equally famously, Morrison tried to get Houston into a state dinner with Donald Trump, something even the corruption-ridden Trump White House baulked at. Morrison then tried to cover up his efforts, before being forced to confess. In retrospect, one wonders what the Trump White House was aware of about Houston and the potential for scandal he represented even to a president as scandal-plagued as Trump.
But Morrison was still “paying honour” to Houston last year, as Crikey’s David Hardaker revealed. His close relationship with “Brother Stuey” Robert, a church figure with ties to Hillsong, continues. And his experience with Houston, Coleman and other Hillsong and evangelical figures shapes his approach to policy. In 2018, discussing “Islamic fundamentalist radicalisation”, Morrison said this:
I’m a member of a religious community and my pastor knows what’s going on in our church community. He would know if there was someone, or his wife would know if there was someone, who was leading a local Bible study group or something like that who was teaching things that were not in accordance with what our faith believed. They’d be pointing that out and they’d be dealing with it because that’s the responsibility of a religious leader, to actually protect the integrity of your faith community.
As Houston’s actions show, the problem is not so much that the pastor knows what’s happening in his (always a him, for Morrison) community, as the community not being told what the pastor has been doing — especially to women.
So does the prime minister still “pay honour” to Houston? Does he still see his faith as having been shaped by the man? Does he still take his national security policy cues from Brian Houston and other evangelical pastors? Is Brian Houston still a “mentor”, as he’s been so often described?
This is not a consequence of Scott Morrison’s faith, to which he is entitled like anyone else. It’s a consequence of Morrison’s own deliberate political strategy — far beyond that of any previous politician — of aligning himself with a particular evangelical sect that has become a global corporation, and of linking himself publicly to key figures in that corporation.
He wanted to share their glory. Now he must share their shame.
