PM and the pastor: how Morrison and Houston became Australia’s religious power couple

This story is part seven in a series. For the full series go here.

Scott Morrison has never hidden his admiration for Hillsong pastor Brian Houston. It is the most enduring of public relationships, ostensibly based on faith but now fully cemented in power. It appears unshaken by Houston being charged in New South Wales for concealing his late father Frank Houston’s history of sexual abuse. Brian Houston denies the allegations.

Morrison proudly acknowledged Houston as one of his significant friends in his first speech to Parliament in 2008. This year Morrison again paid public homage to Australia’s most influential pastor. From the stage of the Australian Christian Churches national conference on the Gold Coast, the prime minister, tired and under pressure from a pummelling by the secular world, singled out the globally recognised Houston as the one who had given a younger Morrison faith in his destiny to lead. 

“Just pay you honour, mate,” said the PM to the pastor, about a span of time which has seen both reach the pinnacle of religion and politics in Australia.

So what is it about Houston? Whatever else he stands for, the 67-year-old has worked assiduously to embed faith into the political process in a way that has become his signature achievement, especially in the United States.

How powerful has he become? 

US senators on Houston’s speed dial

Of all the tableaux that might capture Houston’s ascendant power, perhaps it’s best to start with an August morning in 2019 at Hillsong’s sprawling church complex in the north-western suburbs of Sydney.  

It was here, out in the ‘burbs, that a remarkable scene played out when five United States senators arrived as an official entourage, accompanied by their wives and officials for a Sunday morning service. 

On stage, pastor Donna Crouch offered the senators “our warmest welcome” on behalf of “our senior pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston”.

The senators who presented themselves to the house of Houston that morning were Republicans John Thune of South Dakota, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina, all staunch religious conservatives. They were among the most powerful political operators in Donald Trump’s Washington. 

Thune was Senate majority whip and deputy to Republican Senate then-majority leader Mitch McConnell. Moran was a former chair of the national Republican senatorial committee and chair of the Senate veterans’ affairs committee. Burr was chair of the Senate intelligence committee, which investigated claims of Russian interference in the 2016 US election, and was a national security adviser to the Trump campaign.

Crikey has confirmed from US Senate records that they were part of an official delegation visiting Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Canberra was on the itinerary. The Australian Federal Police has refused to confirm or deny whether it provided protection services for the senators to make their detour to Baulkham Hills, home of Hillsong.

Roots in The Family

The five senators are all the product of the decades-long enmeshment of conservative Christianity and US politics. 

Thune and Moran have been involved in the secretive organisation known as The Fellowship (or The Family), an organisation founded in the 1930s to promote theocratic capitalist power in Washington — a form of religious influence also known as “elite fundamentalism”. The Fellowship is known for its annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, which traditionally attracts the US president. (Morrison attended in 2011.)

Moran lived for a period with other congressmen in the Fellowship’s house in Washington, derisively known as the “Frat House for Jesus”. He was later found to be in breach of ethics rules by accepting the below-market rental rates offered to politicians. He described complaints about the arrangement as being rooted in “a national effort to exclude matters of faith by public servants”.

The Family’s influence has spread into the highest levels of the US government and into other countries where the US has political or economic interests. 

Links to The Promise Keepers

Lankford of Oklahoma was co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional prayer caucus and is on the board of the exclusively male Christian organisation known as The Promise Keepers. The movement believes America needs a revival of what it calls “godly men” who will fulfil seven promises. 

The Promise Keepers assert that “our nation faces problems that can only be overcome when men of integrity — promise-keeping men — fulfil their destinies as godly husbands, fathers, and leaders”. The organisation’s aim — “We’re calling on men everywhere to boldly rise up and stand up together as the men God intended us to be” — owes much to an idealised past.

Houston has a separate and close connection to The Promise Keepers through a pastor called Tommy Barnett, who is on its advisory board. Houston has described Barnett as “the man I consider to be ‘my pastor’ “.

Houston and politics have always mixed

The presence of senators at Hillsong shows the strength of Houston’s ties to politics and politicians. It’s a long way from the Hillsong church of 20 years ago, when Australian politicians — then-treasurer Peter Costello and former NSW premier Bob Carr among them — made very public appearances at Hillsong events.

Back then, Hillsong could also lay claim to one member of federal Parliament — former Liberal MP Louise Markus, who was a one-time social worker with Hillsong.

The man in charge of the NSW Liberal Party back then was an up-and-comer called Scott Morrison.

Next: Scott Morrison’s women problem has deep biblical roots