Hillsong Announces ‘Financial Review’ After Accusations of Tax Fraud and Hiding $80M + Attack Critics
Days after a blockbuster report alleging that Hillsong Paid Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to T.D Jakes and Joyce Meyer for ‘Honorariums,’ that they Charged Child-Sponsor Group’ Compassion’ $1,000,000 To Be At Their Events, and that Brian Houston Billed Church $150k for Three Day Luxury Vacation+ Other Crazy Expenses, Hillsong leaders announced during their Sunday sermon that they intend to commission an independent group to do a financial audit of entire financial system and structure, while also attacking MP Andrew Wilkie for exercising his parliamentary privilege to gain access to 40,000 internal documents and then airing the allegations.
During the message, at no point does Hillsong Board Chairman Stephen Crouch or Global Senior Pastor Phil Dooley accept responsibility for any wrongdoing or apologize to congregants on behalf of Hillsong, but rather seek to turn any potential ire towards Wilke, who they accuse of dealing with them unfairly.
“Andrew Wilke, a member of the Australian Parliament used parliamentary privilege to make public thousands of Hillsong documents. This would have been undertaken knowing that Hillsong has no real opportunity of reply, a right which would be afforded to any other member in the Parliament. And it denied Hillsong ‘procedural justice’. Mr. Wilke did not contact our church to inform us that he was in possession of the documents, nor did heattempt to clarify any of the information that is in the documents that he had in his possession….What is disappointing is that we were unable to ask that he not produce documents that may have information about individual people, and we were denied an opportunity to provide any Clarity or context for information that had been made public.”
Dooley apologized for the hurt Wilke has caused the church, saying he’s sorry that members’ children have to suffer the blowback on account of false allegations. Throughout the message, Hillsong’s leadership frames the situation as a case of Wilke deliberately castigating the congregation out of malice, fanning the flames of resentment.
Despite Wilke attesting that he was only releasing the information so Hillsong congregants could know how their tithes were spent, Dooley flips it to get his congregation to feel personally attacked and persecuted by the news, creating a common enemy to rally around.
Though he scarcely answers any of the allegations, he does throw one bone to the audience. Dooley reveals some financial changes they’ve made, including that 153 Hillsong staff members voluntarily resigned from their roles and took a resignation package, a downsizing that would result in savings of $9.47M dollars.
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I continue to underestimate the amount of money to be made being on the staff of a para-church organization