A parable in the Hills

Proverbs 3:9 “Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.”

Image credit: Hillsong Worship

Norwest Business Park is a strange location for a spiritual centre. The streets are wide, wide open in fact — traffic seems to move a bit slower in that part of the world, though not for lack of flashy cars. Suburbia has always had a grey tinge to it: the roads stretch wide across the landscape, connecting driveways to freeways to motorways.

The Hills Christian Life Centre is not out of place in the Business Park: it’s a large building with a car park like a compound. The congregation empties out at the metro station, a lucky coincidence as the most dedicated of worshippers might find themselves at the centre multiple times a week. After driving past the first volunteer at the entrance to the car park — a young woman whose only job seemed to be waving and smiling — we found a cosy parking spot between a white BMW and a black Mercedes. The BMW had, predictably, parked over the line, so after a quick check for any scratches we headed towards the next set of greeters.

It was completely unlike any church I’d ever seen before. Instead of the typical white walls and stained glass windows, it resembled a concert hall with black walls and dim overhead lighting. In all honesty, the place reminded me of a casino: a place where people, unaware of the time passing, trying to give their lives meaning.

We processed in, late, and were directed to seats by a number of ushers. Once settled, we were able to keep an eye on the actions of the 10-strong choir thanks to enormous screens that framed the stage. 

One of Hillsong’s most successful ventures is its music. Both Hillsong Worship and Hillsong UNITED have over 5 million monthly listeners each on Spotify, topping Christian music charts internationally and even winning a Grammy. The church is, without a doubt, Australia’s most lucrative and globally successful music acts ever, yet has had a significantly muted impact on Australian culture as a whole.

Hillsong has often been hailed as Australia’s greatest marketing success: what began in school halls in the 70s is now an international religion with a music publishing division, numerous properties across Australia and scandals fit for any organised religion.

In 2021, the founder’s son, Brian Houston, was convicted of failing to disclose the sexual misconduct of his father, and subsequently resigned from church leadership. Other Pentecostal churches have stepped in to fill the void left by Hillsong, many of which are aimed at young people.

Pentecostalism is most commonly referred to as an experiential religion: it takes its name from the Biblical recount of the Jewish feast of Pentecost. It explains that during the festival, the Holy Spirit descended upon believers and gave them the ability to speak in tongues. Today, speaking in tongues is seen as a sign that the Holy Spirit has baptised a believer, and there is plenty of unsettling footage of individuals speaking in tongues at worship centres. When you’re worshipping a figure you won’t ever meet, at least in this life, devoting all your actions towards him and expecting eternal love in return, it can be empowering to believe that this love may descend upon you in the form of the Holy Spirit.

The modern-day religion has its roots in rejecting traditional Christian practice. Charismatic practices took over such as enthusiastic singing, testimonies, and sermons by laymen, rejecting the highly regimented forms of Christian leadership and practice that came before. Attending a service on a gloomy Sunday, I was surprised to learn that the majority of the service consisted of a man retelling a biblical story and applying the principles to modern life. He rarely quoted the actual text, in direct contrast to other churches where a passage is read in its entirety, then analysed by the priest. There was no communion, where congregants share in the body and blood of Christ, all of the typical prayers were skipped, and within 20 minutes they were asking for donations and passionately proclaiming that we should give whatever we are capable of giving to the church.

At the heart of Hillsong lies a desire for power. It’s not love, the founding tenant of Christianity, and it’s not hatred, despite the extremely fundamentalist and conservative beliefs. At Hillsong, as at many other Christian denominations, it’s believed that Priests have received a call from God to be His mouthpiece; this sets them apart from other members of the congregation. As a result, it is expected that others make sacrifices for them. In the SBS documentary, The Kingdom (2023), volunteers reported carrying out basic household chores such as babysitting and lawn mowing for senior church leadership. These volunteers report extreme distress at living for the church and gaining nothing in return — instead, they are told that they must be grateful for the opportunity to serve. Visiting pastors are paid exorbitant amounts of money for their sermons, and the church became mired in money troubles as it was accused of money laundering and tax evasion by a whistleblower earlier this year.

The prosperity gospel is one of Hillsong’s most controversial beliefs. Despite the many Bible verses that reject materialism such as “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”, from Timothy 6:10, it claims that God wants his believers to be rich. More than that, it claims that riches are a reward for those who have dutifully followed the word of God. What naturally follows from this is the belief that those who are poor have not been blessed with riches, and nothing can be done to save them bar conversion.

These two beliefs, when paired, are extremely dangerous. They proclaim that those in power are blessed, and explain that congregants should donate as much as they can to share the blessings, but only with those in charge. It’s an insidious power dynamic that sees an extremely hierarchical religion get away with a lot.