Hillsong is Worse than You Thought | Justin Peters, Voddie Baucham

Hillsong is the celebrity church, right? They've had over 3 billion views on YouTube.

Hillsong’s Public Image and the Documentary’s Focus

It was the most toxic thing I ever had to deal with. Uh, hey girl.

Hi. Hillsong, a megachurch exposed, is a documentary that was recently released by Discovery Plus. Dive into the alleged exploitation, abuse, and cover-ups at the star-studded Hillsong megachurch founded by Brian Houston.

Hear from insiders, megachurch experts, and a woman whose affair with senior pastor Carl Lentz led to his downfall. The documentary does a good job of covering exactly that. Exploitation, abuse, and cover-ups were indeed present at Hillsong Church.

And the documentary interviews the woman Carl Lentz had an affair with, which led to his exiting Hillsong Church.

It was the most toxic thing I ever had to deal with. Uh, hey girl.

Hi. We hear from Hillsong insiders about their experience at Hillsong.

How could you shame me when I was so young, but you did this.

The documentary reveals many things about Hillsong that are indeed problematic and dangerous. However, there is at least one major problem with this documentary. It does not focus on the biggest problem with Hillsong, which involves the theology it teaches and promotes.

Even if there was absolutely no scandal or controversy at Hillsong, Hillsong would still be an extremely problematic and dangerous church. But this documentary examines Hillsong from a worldly and secular perspective, not a Christian theological perspective.

Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation Theology

Justin Peters reveals that the real danger with Hillsong is its close ties with the heretical Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation movements.

When you're dealing with Bethel and Hillsong, you need to understand that Bethel and Hillsong come from a Word-Faith, New Apostolic Reformation theological background.

The Word of Faith movement teaches that God is like a Santa Claus who blesses those who give abundantly with health and wealth.

When you help those in need, you are lending to the Lord and He will repay you.

For those of you who were not here last night, Word-Faith is basically the doctrine that teaches that it's always God's will for a Christian to be wealthy, it's always God's will for a Christian to be physically healed, we should never be sick.

Or if you do get sick, physical healing is guaranteed as long as you have enough faith, as long as you make the right positive confessions, as long as you sow enough seed, in other words, give enough money to a particular minister, then you will reap a harvest.

And if you are not healed, or if you are having financial problems, it's your fault. It's your lack of faith. It's your lack of giving.

So this is the Word-Faith movement. Brian Houston is essentially a Word-of-Faith teacher, or at least extremely close to being one. He wrote a book titled, You Need More Money.

There's not one person in this building who doesn't need more money. And if you say, well I don't need more money, then I would say, you have a very poor outlook on life.

And Houston claims he does not teach the prosperity gospel, but his defense is that he teaches prosperity with a purpose. Which means that ultimately, he still does teach that it's always God's will for Christians to be prosperous.

The New Apostolic Reformation movement is basically Word-of-Faith on steroids.

New Apostolic Reformation movement, this is a twin movement to Word-of-Faith. It's everything that Word-Faith is, even worse. They have even more emphasis on modern day miracles, signs and wonders, modern day apostles.

Hey, this is Michael.

Yeah, the real Michael. If you like these videos, would you consider subscribing? It helps YouTube spread this message to more people. I'm giving away a beautiful handcrafted leather Bible every week, and I'm trying to pass Kenneth Copeland in subscribers to show that truth wins over false teaching.

Thank you so much for your eyeballs and support.

Although Hillsong probably isn't fully within the NAR movement, Word-of-Faith and NAR have become so similar to one another that it's difficult to distinguish them.

The Blending of Word of Faith and NAR

What we're seeing today is that Word-Faith and New Apostolic Reformation are just basically melding together into one big heretical theological stream.

Although Bethel would more rightly be considered part of the NAR movement, Hillsong fully endorses Bill Johnson of Bethel, and Johnson has spoken at Hillsong's conferences.

It's so fun to be here. This is like the largest family reunion on the planet.

Bethel is more New Apostolic Reformation, whereas Hillsong is Word-of-Faith. And what you're seeing today is a lot of cross-pollination between Word-Faith and New Apostolic Reformation. For example, Bill Johnson, New Apostolic Reformation, Bethel Music, is speaking at Hillsong conferences, which is Word-Faith.

So they're basically one and the same.

Speaking Things into Existence and the Power of the Tongue

The Word-of-Faith movement teaches that we are able to speak things into existence in the same way that God spoke things into existence in creation. Of course, this is not at all what the Bible teaches.

Levi Lusko, who has spoken at Hillsong before, watched this from Levi Lusko, pastor of Fresh Life Church in Kalispell, Montana.

I want you to know that when God made you, He made you in His image. The image of a creator who created by speaking. He said, let there be light, and there was. He said, let there be an earth. Let there be dolphins, and there were, because He spoke them.

He's a creative God who spoke these things into existence, and then He made you in His image. So you were created by a creator to create. And one of the chief ways you create is by participating with God in creation through speaking.

The Bible echoes from the Old to the New Testament that life and death are caught up in the power of the tongue. So every single time you speak, there's an act of creation.

So we speak things into existence just like God did.

Why Hillsong’s Real Problem Is Its Theology

So the biggest problem with Hillsong Church actually has nothing to do with exploitation, abuse, or adultery. It has to do with the heretical and man-centered theology Hillsong teaches, or at the very least promotes, which has nothing to do with scandals.

So when you sing Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation, please know that when you're singing that, you're singing music that comes from a cult. It comes from a cult. But this little God's doctrine is why they hold so tenaciously to health and wealth, because we're gods.

And a god cannot be poor, and a god certainly cannot be sick. This movement appeals to two of the most basic and universal of all human desires. The desire to be wealthy, and the desire to be healed. Almost everybody on the planet would like to be wealthy.

Of course, if everybody was wealthy, then no one would be wealthy. Almost everybody on the planet wants that, and almost everybody on the planet wants to be physically healed. And this message, this Word, Faith, NAR theology says that if you'll just come to Jesus, if you'll become a Christian, God will make you rich, and He'll heal your body.

Well, sign me up, man. I mean, I like that, Jesus. You got two of them, I'll take them both.

The true gospel of Jesus Christ, which talks about sin, hell, repentance, salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ, and lifelong submission to the Word of God, won't draw nearly as many people. So Hillsong doesn't focus on it.

And you'll hear people say, you don't preach enough about sin, you don't preach enough about repentance. But you know, I actually think what they're saying is, you don't beat people up enough. You don't have to remind people they're sinners, they know.

You don't have to remind people they fall short, not only of God, but of who they would want to be themselves.

You don't have to beat people up. Votie Bauckham points out that the biggest red flag for a ministry is when it cares more about numbers and success, rather than about the faithfulness to all the Bible teaches.

If we no longer have hymnody, we no longer have liturgy. We gather together to entertain people. We gather together in order to make sure that the crowd continues to grow and that people remain happy.

Now we have the next generation growing up in the church, watching us do what we do. What is everything about? Everything is about entertainment. Everything is about numbers. What is the ministry? Well, this is about continuing this process of entertaining and attracting more and more people.

The Loss of Biblical Faithfulness in Hillsong’s Moral Teaching

Hillsong avoided controversial issues the Bible clearly addressed, like homosexuality. But do you feel like, you know, you have a moral imperative to speak publicly about some of these more controversial issues?

No, because we try to be like Jesus. Very rarely did Jesus ever talk about morality or social issues. And abortion. Yeah, I mean, God's the judge. People have to live to their own convictions. And I think if I have to tell you...

To maintain their popularity and attractiveness to the world. False theology is more dangerous than scandal because a church can be free from scandal and still not teach the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

But the Hillsong documentary completely misses this because it's not examining Hillsong from a biblical, Christian perspective.