hillsongs - the next installment
As the comments in two weeks have gone beyond 500 comments - here is the new thread..
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Recent entries
April 14th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
PS: Charli… your posts are like a breath of fresh air for this old cynic!!
April 14th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Now lance tell me your story - how much have you suffered pretty boy
April 14th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Or maybe Lance you can tell my family how much we haven’t suffered.
How my parents distraught with grief because my brother aimed a shotgun at a tellers face.
So tell me pretty boy - who actually have you ministered to
April 14th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
lance
Would you like to meet my brother - how long would a pretty boy like you last????????????????????????
April 14th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Steve, another comment you made -
But I think it is naive to view the world in such black and white terms. You are not your brothers judge.
On the contrary Steve my good man.
I am exhorted by scripture to ‘try the spirits’.
I do not judge the content of Pringle or Houstons character but I am certainly free to judge their heresy and name if for what it is - DECEPTION!
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world”
1 John 4.1
WIGGY
April 14th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Nice to hear another Christian anarchist. Good posts Wiggy.
the rev
April 14th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
“pretty boy”
…I wish….
Didn’t realise this was a pissing competition but….
“I have been to jail many many many many times to visit - a lot more than you pretty boy.”
So all those times I visited Dad in Geelong Regional Prison must have been dream……phew…that’s a relief….
“I once took delight in putting people in hospital especially ignoramuses like yourself.”
Well, you’re a dickhead….what do you expect you’d do?
“I have helped druggies, solo mums, bank robbers, aboriginals, drunks etc.”
Gotta love the people you lump together…..kind of like the Christians who say …’well homosexuality is no worse than murder or adultery…’
“The same applies to every other whinging “christian” on this board.
Answer me this ” How many people have YOU visited in prison????”
Well, come on, everybody feel free to take a piss with Ned.
“Would you like to meet my brother - how long would a pretty boy like you last????????????????????????”
Threating actual bodily harm is against the law in Western Australia, Ned.
Your self-proclaimed ‘repentence’ is a story you tell yourself and others, but has little basis in reality.
April 14th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Depression - it might be worth starting a new thread on the topic . I am trying to wean myself off the blog post Lent but I think I am an addict ..
I have suffered from depression during a couple of times in my life and yes I know there are degrees of depression - mine was probably at the lower scale . But I actually started becoming very depressed when I was a child and that was the time of my life when it was the most severe .
I would be interested in people’s experiences because I know there are some churches which handle it well and some not . Notice that I haven’t mentioned Hillsong .
April 14th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
You are full of it - you sook like the little girl you are
A more pathetic person I have not encountered
April 14th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
I think you’re more like your brother than you want to admit to yourself and others.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Ned - don’t judge us on our works (or apparent lack there of)… some people prefer to be obedient to the Lord and not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing - lest we recieve our reward now in full.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Dan could you strat a thread on Depression plaese.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
It would appear ned flanders that you are not making ‘right choices’ today.
How can this be, when you’re such a believer in people making ‘right choices’ in how they act?
April 14th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
You are a coward of the highest order. You abuse, curse and villify others and no one called your bluff.
You are a bully and I have always despised bullies.
Difference with me pretty boy is I dont get scared - I’m not afraid of bullies
I called your bluff and exposed you for the pathetic whinging person you are.
You tried to intimidate me and make out I dont know about the ‘real’ world.
I know more than you will ever know.
Dealing with druggies and bank robbers is more profitable than talking with you -
Go back to your little journalistic world where you can feel important and leave the sinners with me - at least I know how to help them
April 14th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
lionfish
Its amazing how you can spot HS error and yet lance the hypocrite continually flies under your radar.
The guy is a disgrace. BH has far more integrity than lance.
Lance talks about helping people but does stuff all.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
lances modus operandi is plain to see.
First he abuses me because I am a happy clappy christian who has never
been through the hard times
When I finally reveal my background , he looks like a fool.
So he changes tack and insinuates bodily harm due to my brothers violent past.
Lance is a hypocrite aand a wilful deceiver. He will twist and spin things
just like he accuses HS
The sad thing is “christians” on this board have been turning a blind eye to his hypocrisy because he attacks HS which they also want to do.
Truly pathetic
April 14th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Oh you’re still a happy clappy Christian……a poser who’s in total denial about yourself, and the true nature of the people around you….except for of course those ‘bad’ people.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Too bad it’s just the ‘bad criminals’ who get locked up..and the ‘good criminals’ in charge of churches get to roam free.
April 14th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Thanks Geoff… Katherine, I hear ya.. Childhood depression is awful… and untreated for a lot of us.. interpreted as laziness, boredom etc.. and whats the remedy? Hey! lets do something fun! Lets take the Victory that is ours! and if we still feel bad, remember, Perseverance produces a crop.. then your called ungrateful for not being interested in anything… What the hell is wrong with you? Dont you apreciate what Christ has done for you? perhaps your not “saved”
Rev: If you see my folks on sunday, tell em your a Christian anarchist… Id like to hear about their responses…
April 14th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Lance has clear issues, but it is not really of benefit to point them out, they are quite obvious. ned, i sympathise with your frustration. I was brought down recently by frustration here. But you actually denigrate yourself when you ‘lose it’ against some one.
May God keep you Ned. May he restore you.
And guys, I feel this thread is getting very unhealthy.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Well, yes, Steve is channeling the voice of Neil from The Young Ones….(’oohh….this is really creeping me out…..’)
But Steve the bottom line is you’re STILL supportive of a cult that you’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into finally acknowledging that it has cultic tendencies; that you’ve seen repeated evidence from former senior Hillsong people that it’s dodgy……and yet you keep dragging your arse into the cult temple to worship at the alter of Brian and Bobbie’s excess.
The cherry on top being added just in the past few hours……with a former CCC pastor declaring emphatically how fruit-batty and fraudulent the whole thing is.
I posted a long time ago about how Christians HATE FACTS with a passion, and now we’ve seen someone actually get to the point of accepting the facts…..but at the same time…. not accepting the facts…which I just find totally bizarre…and something I can’t get my head around..
I’m just glad I don’t have your issues Steve.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Steve writes: “And guys, I feel this thread is getting very unhealthy.”
I agree. A deep breathe seems to be in order. Keep talking and dicussing but lets stop the personal attacks.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Wow, the thread is lengthening by severals posts an hour, suggesting some correspondents are here all the time. That being the case, a heads up if you’re in WA: Compass at 7:30 tonight was a story about a prominent Christian leader in Sydney, who was a better advertisement for Christ and the church than those discussed here.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
The cherry on top being added just in the past few hours……with a former CCC pastor declaring emphatically how fruit-batty and fraudulent the whole thing is
No actually I am not a pastor Lance…
I am however a former staff member of CCC.
That is all I will say for now in regards to the position of office I held.
What is important is that I have come out of this movement with my eyes wide open and my heart soft (at least now it is anyway).
I know that many here are hurting due to the abuse of Church leadership and the manipulation of the mega church structure.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities” Revelation 18.4-5
This is the chapter concerning the judgment of Babylon.
Babylon is “the mother of harlots and of abominations of the earth.” Babylon is the seven churches of the first three chapters of Revelation. Babylon has lost her first love, has the Nicolaitans, has the synagogue of Satan and the very throne (KJV - ‘Satan’s seat’) of Satan in her midst; suffers that woman Jezebel, which calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols; Hast a name that thou livest, and art dead; Have defiled their garments; Are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, [and] will [therefore be] spued thee out of my mouth; They say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Every thing mentioned in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 is covered in God’s church, which in Revelation 17 and 18 is called “Babylon the great the mother of harlots and of abominations of the world.”
When Christ spoke to His disciples about being hated of the world, He was never speaking of being hated of the uncalled or Pagan world. Look at some of the final words our Lord spoke to his disciples about “the world.”
Ask your self Who is He speaking of here?
“If the world hate you, ye know that it [the world] hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they [the world] have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause” John 15.18-25
Christ uses the words “the world,” 7 times in two verses.
In the next six verses He refers to this same people with the plural pronouns ‘they,’ ‘them,’ and ‘their,’ 13 times.
Is He ever referring to the uncalled, pagan Romans? No, not once!
Who then is “the world?”
It is “the world,” that “hated me before it hated you.”
It is “the world,” of which Christ tells His Disciples: “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
It is “the world,” that ” persecuted me.”
It is “the world,” which has “their law,” in which it is written, “They hated me without a cause.”
“The world,” is the people of God, who have no use for the words of Christ.
It is the orthodox Christian world who have no intention of ‘loving their enemies.’
They will instead “Kill you thinking that they do God service.”
“They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. John 16.2
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” Revelation 18.4
WIGGY
April 14th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
“No actually I am not a pastor Lance…
I am however a former staff member of CCC.”
Thank you for correcting that Wiggy, because it’s a favourite tactic of Hillsongists and other cult members to say something along the lines of…….’Wiggy wasn’t a pastor….he was a staff member….so if you can’t get that right…everything you say about our church is wrong’.
Anyways, was in discussion with a Hillsongist named ‘Mike’ in yahoo chat…..and yet again, this defence of Brian Houston was brought up…….that he’s a ‘typical alpha male’.
It seems to be the excuse-all reason behind everything dodgy that Brian says or does at Hillsong …..
Here’s another take on the ‘typical alpha male’..and why it’s inappropriate for them to be pastoring a ‘contemporary’ church.
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i9males.htm
“We’ve all heard the term “Alpha Male,” used ad nauseum at this point. Throughout the last election cycle, we heard how Al Gore had hired someone to make him seem more of an “Alpha Male.” In our daily lives, we hear the people who talk over others, act without thinking deeply, and embrace things like cars that pollute a lot and war referred to as, “Alpha Males.”
The phrase is supposed to draw from anthropological research in which a certain ape within a group was found to be the dominant male, and, for scientific purposes, was labeled the Alpha Male. This is nice, useful, and accurate if we are anthropologists who are talking about apes.
However, unfortunately for those who would like to use this phrase in relation to people, humans are not apes.
For apes, intelligent discourse consists of, “Oooo ooo oo, aaaa aaaah aaaa aaa.” Apes tend to spend less time in school educating themselves than would be desirable for us humans. The Alpha Male ape form of government is an exclamation of, “Ooo ooo ooo, aaa aaa aaaah,” followed by a comical bout of chasing one of his friends around, before the grand finale of standing on a rock, fondling his own private parts without shame.
Alpha Males are perfect for making such decisions as whether to throw poop at a man watching them with a camera or to jump and swing from a tree while screaming, “Ooo ooo oooo, aaa aaaah aaa aaa.” They are not so good at determining whether a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal of 7 million fibers of asbestos per liter of drinking water is an adequate protection, too high a concentration, or unduly, needlessly low.
Alpha Males are wonderful for jumping on a friend’s head and pounding his skull without cause or useful reason, entertaining people who paid several dollars to watch them in their cages. They are not so good at contemplating how sending $400 million dollars to one side of a civil war in Columbia to kill the other side can breed anti-Americanism and terrorism.
The greatest achievements of Alpha Males to date consist of having gotten to sleep with other apes of their choice for a brief period until another ape took over as Alpha Male, having gained the respect and deference of an entire six other apes, and having masturbated while standing atop the same rock over 100 times. The greatest achievements of humans include having walked on the moon and the invention of an artificial heart.
You see, being the best leader - if you can imagine - is somewhat different when you are talking about ape societies or human societies. And while big-mouthed, uneducated, overly aggressive masturbators without doubt are the dominant force in ape life, ape business, and ape politics, it doesn’t necessarily work that way with us people. Because in the end the reality is, that if you gave a monkey a brain, he’d probably throw it to the ground and squawk, “Ooo ooo ooo, aaa aah aaa aaa,” at the top of his lungs, and then masturbate publicly.”
April 15th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Bobbie Houston has said, “We need to be good at sex ourselves so that if the world happens to come knocking we can tell the story of God in our lives.” I guess public masturbation is the pentecostal way of demonstrating this. Call me old-fashioned, but the thought of Brian Houston publicly masturbating whilst conducting a church service is repulsive.
April 15th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Is the rumour true, that Brian Houston worships satan?
April 15th, 2006 at 1:47 am
I have to say, that this thread has become pretty nasty now… what was once an informative thread has become nothing but a slap fest… Not that many will take notice, but I will be spending more time getting on with my studies and teaching my classes, and less time on the forums…
To the wiser more informed posters on the thread, thanks for making me think a lot more. I have learned to look into things a lot more for myself, and have been able to see issues with my church… Not enough to leave it, but definately enough to know its not the bees knees, and enough to keep watching and measuring it against the word.
Im not going to leave the church, but will watch and see. No one here is responsible for changing hillsongs ways, we are all responsible for ourselves, and I think im in pretty good hands if I keep my eyes open. There are a lot of things and people that in that church, so simply walking away isn’t an option that I will take.
Anyways, in summation, thanks everyone here for opening my eyes a little wider to some truths I’ve missed along the way. I’ll prolly pop around and read up again at some stage…
Cheers
Will.
April 15th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Happy Easter everyone
Charli was asking about the early Hillsongs albums…”Spirit & Truth” (1988) and “Show Your Glory” (1990)
It would appear that “Spirit & Truth” has been ‘out of print’ for some years now. Couldn’t find it on any back catalogues etc…and I can’t find my copy of the cassette at home. “Show Your Glory” is also proving impossible to find.
But I did find a photocopy of the “Spirit & Truth” album cover in an old scrapbook.
Here’s a list of the songs and the writers:
Side One:
1. Heaven Suffers Violence…Brian Houston
2. With Your Love…Geoff Bullock
3. We’re Not Looking Back…Geoff B
4. I Will Lift My Voice…Geoff B
5. We’ve Come To Worship The Lord…Geoff B
6. Lift High His Name…Geoff B
Side Two:
1.The Power Of God…Brian Houston/Geoff Bullock
2. He Is The King…Geoff B
3. We Will Not Bow To The World…Geoff B/Brian H
4. The Heavens Shall Declare…Geoff B
5. The Lord’s Prayer…Rob Eastwood
Probably the most controversial song on the album was ‘Heaven Suffers Violence’
The lyrics will give you an idea as to why.
Heaven suffers violence
And the violent take it by force
The enemy storms the kingdom
But God’s given us a plan
We’ve got the word, we’ve got the truth
We’ve got the sword to take him down
We’ve got the word, we’ve got the truth
We’ve got the sword
We’ve got the word, we’ve got the truth
We’ve got the sword to take him down
We can take him by force
We can take him by force
Heaven suffers violence
And the violent take it by force
The kingdom is advancing
For God’s given us a plan
I think Geoff ‘helped’ with the music for this one, but didn’t want to put his name to it….Have I got that right Geoff?
I know this song raised a lot of eyebrows among some senior leaders I knew at the time. It was sung for a while in church but was soon dropped from the ‘top 10′ favourites and never sung again.
April 15th, 2006 at 11:53 am
I need a break too.
It is affecting me unhealthily that some people are making it a personal slapfest and are not engaging in proper discussion.
Here’s a refresher:
Proper discussion involves making points, listening to the other views, responding from your place, making concessions and acknowledging the strengths of others views and the weaknesses of your own.
It does not involve character assassination or personal attacks. I would like to acknowledge that Geoff Bullock has never made me feel disrespected and I wish to honour him for that. I wish to apologise where I have failed to respect others.
God bless you all, and may you grow stronger in the truth. For now, it is unhealthy for me to be here. All the best.