On NBC Today, Hillsong founder Brian Houston admitted to Savannah Guthrie that the global religious organization has a celebrity culture.
During the segment Savannah questioned him about former Pastor Carl Lentz, who was fired for cheating on his wife. Lentz has a strong celebrity following and many felt that he wasn't being held accountable because of that...
"I think there's a lot of things I should've known earlier, and hopefully, moving forward, we'll make sure we have far better systems in place and better accountability," he shared with Savannah.
He also admitted to the celebrity culture seen at Hillsong, where A-list stars were given better treatment than regular churchgoers.
"I do think that we did allow a culture to develop where it was one rule for celebrities and a different rule for other people," Houston explained. "There's another side to it."
"One person who's obviously been well reported is Justin Bieber," he said. "If you think back several years now, when he was wrecking hotel rooms and basically on the edge of getting deported to Canada ... look at Justin Bieber today. Anyone who's being fair could see a radical change, and so not everything about it is bad."
Hillsong is known for having a lot of celebrity parishioners, most notably Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kevin Durant, Selena Gomez, and the Kardashian/Jenner crew.
On another note I'm still praying for healing and complete restoration for Carl and Laura Lentz and their children.
