The Christian Post's top 10 news stories of 2021 (part 1)
6. Prominent religious leaders and organizations fall from grace
Controversy plagued two prominent Christian organizations in 2021.
While Ravi Zacharias International Ministries dealt with the fallout of allegations that the late apologist committed sexual abuse, the global church network Hillsong has dealt with several different controversies spanning its many global campuses.
Hillsong
Allegations of sexual and financial abuse at campuses of Hillsong Church and their Australia-based headquarters worsened in 2021 after former lead pastor Carl Lentz of New York City's Hillsong Church was fired in November 2020 over “leadership issues” and moral failures.
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In January 2021, Former members of Hillsong Church revealed that pastors at Hillsong NYC frequently used tithe money loaded on debit-like pre-paid expense cards on things like expensive restaurant meals, designer clothes and weekly manicures while living in a high-priced building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Former Hillsong Los Angeles Service Pastor Nicole Herman, who left the church about three years ago after helping found Hillsong’s California branch in 2013, told The New York Post that she personally loaded the funds onto the PEX cards as directed by leaders.
“I was instructed to fill them,” said Herman. “We had a team count the tithes after every service and they would allocate X amount of money for the PEX cards.”
Hillsong Church later announced an investigation of these reports, arguing that "inaccurate accounts in these stories have been reported as if they are true."
In March, Hillsong Global Senior Pastor Brian Houston apologized for “failings” that triggered multiple scandals at Hillsong East Coast. He offered “sweeping changes” to fix “the issues and misalignment of the culture and practices."
“We know that Hillsong East Coast has failed to be the kind of church it should be. On behalf of the Global Board and as Global Senior Pastor, I accept responsibility for these failings and apologize unreservedly,” Houston wrote.
In April, Houston announced a pause in the operation of Hillsong's Dallas campus, formerly led by Pastor Reed Bogard and his wife, Jess, who were under investigation for leadership failures when they resigned in January. The couple helped launch Hillsong NYC along with Lentz and were alleged to have misused church funds.
Reed Bogard had previously been suspended from "pastoral duties."
“Early in our process, the Bogards decided to resign from Hillsong Church. We accepted their resignations and acknowledged the time that the Bogards spent establishing our Dallas location,” Houston and his wife, Bobbie, said in a statement.
“It was very disappointing to learn that, while some of you experienced the Bogards as dedicated pastors, many others have experienced leadership that failed to meet the commitments and standards of Hillsong Church,” they continued. “I want to be the first to apologize to those who felt disappointed or hurt, and I pray that God does a swift work in bringing peace and healing.”
In announcing his resignation, Bogard said he and his wife: “[j]ust really feel that it’s time to transition off of our staff and take some time to remain healthy, get healthy and to really see what this next season holds for us.”
After it was reported that Hillsong Church received complaints about inappropriate sexual relations between staff and volunteers at Hillsong NYC, it was revealed that Hillsong Church had already investigated the alleged sexual touching of a Philadelphia pastor’s daughter at its headquarters shortly after her arrival in Australia in 2016.
Twenty-three-year-old Anna Crenshaw, who went to Hillsong College, told The Christian Post in April how Jason Mays — a married Hillsong staff administrator, volunteer singer and the son of the church’s head of human resources — inappropriately touched her at a social gathering.
“Jason grabbed me, putting his hand between my legs and his head on my stomach and began kissing my stomach. I felt his arms and hands wrapped around my legs making contact with my inner thigh, butt and crotch,” she wrote in a 2018 statement reviewed by The Christian Post.
“When Jason was first confronted, he challenged my story. Hillsong Church had spoken to two others who were present the night Jason Mays assaulted me and both of them corroborated my story,” Crenshaw said.
In April, the creative director of Hillsong Church Montclair in New Jersey resigned from his position, citing “infidelity” in his marriage.
“We thought it was best for me to move on," Darnell Barrett said in a statement at the time. "I don't want to get into the details."
Leona Kimes, a married co-pastor at Hillsong Boston, who formerly served as a nanny for Lentz, accused the former pastor of “repeated sexual touching” in a post in late March.
Though Lentz denied the allegations through a legal representative, Kimes said she was left so scarred by the experience that she needed “intense therapy” after it ended.
“While there were joyful moments during that time, no one knew that I also experienced a great deal of pain," Kimes wrote. "During the years I spent serving them, I was subjected to manipulation, control, bullying, abuse of power, and sexual abuse. Having told almost no one before this, I am just now able to share what I experienced in their home as the result of intense therapy."
In August, Australian police charged Brian Houston with concealing child sex offenses. Houston was accused of having known about the sexual abuse of a young boy by his father, Pastor Frank Houston, during the 1970s, but not reporting it to authorities.
Frank Houston, who died in 2004, served as the head of the Assemblies of God in New Zealand until 1971. Brian Houston, who founded Hillsong in 1983, was the head of the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God from 1997 to 2009.
In 2015, a royal commission found that Houston failed to inform the police of allegations of abuse committed by his father when they were revealed to him by the victim in 1999.
In a statement emailed to The Christian Post at the time, Houston called the charge “a shock to me given how transparent I’ve always been about this matter.”
“I vehemently profess my innocence and will defend these charges, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight,” stated Houston.
In September, Houston resigned from his position on the Hillsong leadership boards. He maintains his title as Hillsong global senior pastor. Houston's criminal case has been postponed until 2022.
Leonardo Blair contributed to this report.
Ravi Zacharias
Another scandal that dominated headlines in 2021 was the tragic, posthumous downfall of world-famous Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias, head of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
In February 2021, an independent investigation uncovered allegations of rape, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse and numerous extramarital relationships carried out by Zacharias, who died of cancer at the age of 74 in May 2020.
More than 50 people were interviewed, including more than a dozen massage therapists, for the 12-page report commissioned by RZIM from the law firm Miller & Martin.
Investigators uncovered "text- and email-based relationships" with women who were not Zacharias' wife, along with more than 200 photos of women on his devices.
One woman told the investigators that "after he arranged for the ministry to provide her with financial support, he required sex from her.”
The investigation came three years after Canadian Lori Anne Thompson accused Zacharias of engaging in a sexually inappropriate online relationship. The apologist denied the claims, accusing her and her husband of extortion.
In the fall of 2020, additional allegations surfaced against Zacharias. Several massage therapists at day spas co-owned by the apologist alleged that during his treatment for back pain, he would expose himself, masturbate, ask for explicit photos and proposition them.
The severity of the allegations prompted RZIM to hire Miller & Martin to investigate the claims.
Zacharias had been one of the most recognizable and respected figures in American Christianity for decades. Former college football star Tim Tebow spoke at his funeral, as did then-Vice President Mike Pence, rapper Lecrae and megachurch Pastor Louie Giglio.
But the fallout from the investigation was swift, with the global apologetics ministry as it downsized and restructured into a grant-making organization.
Sarah Davis, Zacharias’ daughter and then-CEO of RZIM, announced in March that the organization intended to change its name and remove all content featuring her father from the RZIM website. She also said the ministry would stop doing apologetics.
RZIM’s board, whose members remain anonymous, decided to stop accepting donations and hired Guidepost Solutions to investigate RZIM’s culture and practice. However, the RZIM board of directors has since moved to limit the scope of the investigation and keep any findings from becoming public.
In October, Davis stepped down from her role as CEO to launch a new ministry. She apologized for her initial reaction to her father’s sexual misconduct allegations, admitting that she erred by ignoring allegations against her father and defending his innocence.
Zacharias’ son, Nathan, has maintained his father’s innocence and runs a blog dedicated to defending his father.
In an op-ed for CP, Carson Weitnauer, a former member of the RZIM ministry team, lamented what he said was a “catastrophic betrayal” from a man once known as the “world’s greatest apologist.”
“It is a shock for anyone who loved and admired Ravi Zacharias to accept the news that he was a sexual predator,” he wrote. “Now unmasked as a uniquely charismatic manipulator, his deceptions were altogether convincing. We can still thank God for how His truth changed our lives, despite the hypocrisy of the one who preached it.”
Leah Klett contributed to this report.
