People in Glass Houses Page 17

  We all know about Catholic girls and their unique gift to the world of dating. Well, so far Protestant girls have made absolutely no contribution. With none of the raciness of those who leap from convent to coven, these girls have generally stayed unsexy, unappealing and, if you did get to fulfil the fantasy of sleeping with one, you usually had to marry them, and then the sex was bitterly, painfully disappointing. But not any more. Now we’ve got Hillsong girls. Fundamentalist Christian girls with sex appeal.

  So here’s the best part, if you’re a boy.

  Fundamentalist Christians take the bible literally, so these girls are more than happy to believe that as women, they stay blamed for eating an apple and were created from a man’s side, a rib, an afterthought, a helper and companion. Like someone who’ll pass you the wrench when you’re working on your car.

  Most of the New Testament is actually written by the apostle Paul who, in his lack of time for women, explicitly wanted them to shut up and be grateful they got forgiven at all. His letter to Timothy said:

  A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

  But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

  Hillsong girls love this approach. They are A-OK with submitting to a husband’s authority. They just hope that when they find the one God intends, they will be acceptable to him.

  Their leader in this operation is Bobbie Houston. How to explain the High Pastoress of Hillsong, the Hostess with the Mostest, the Jewel in Brian’s Crown? She has to be seen and heard to be believed.

  Before I left Hills, Bobbie was the pastor’s wife, a sweet, ditzy girl. I remember when she was pregnant with Laura, vaguely. No one knows how she got a pastor’s licence. She qualified by nabbing Brian, anyway. That’s how it works in the AoG. That’s why you want to marry well.

  Luckily, Hillsong’s female crew know all about it. One of my initial visits doing my early investigations was to a women’s morning meeting where one of Bobbie’s ‘best friends’, Wendy

  Treat was speaking. One of the first things that came out in Wendy’s warm-up was: ‘I tell all my single girlfriends: don’t keep your head low and walk slow, keep your head high and walk by.’

  My heart sank. I remembered then why I left.

  Just this year, American pastor Holly Wagner, creator of God Chicks, recounted to the congregation a vision she had of going to heaven, after she had become intolerant of her husband of twenty-one years. ‘But, Lord,’ she reported saying, ‘I was such a great counsellor and I was a pastor, and I wrote all these books for you.’

  ‘Bummer,’ God said to Holly. ‘You were supposed to love and support Philip.’

  That’s it. It’s your job, and your eternal responsibility. Your life dreams are cute, but at the end of the day it’s all about making his dreams come true.

  Bobbie insists that all her ‘cheersquad’ girls concentrate on Proverbs 31, a highly elitist proverb about a wife of a noble character who is worth far more than rubies. The Proverb 31 woman gets up before dawn and serves her husband, a respected man of the city, by doing her chores appropriately. She has maidservants, which quickly narrows down the amount of women who can realistically fulfil the proverb. But not, from what we see, the number of women who are encouraged and determined to try.

  Hillsong girls are well aware of how important being a good wife is. It determines what kind of rib you get to be.

  Chapter 16

  SAVING ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU

  If the entire plot of the Old Testament were made into a movie, it could only be screened in Amsterdam. With storylines so violent and obscene, even to preach against them would require an Adults-Only timeslot. The children of Israel make twenty-first century pornographers look infantile and highly unimaginative.

  Given the sordid behaviour of the kings and commoners that preceded them spiritually, fundamentalist Christian sexuality is a curious thing. To witness it in its natural environment is Atten-boroughesque: an environment where purity and pathos thrive and reproduce with the most startling of results.

  Curiously, though, given this rich history, the sexuality of the fundamentalist is simple and totalitarian. There is no diversity or choice. Your mission, and you must accept it, is to refrain from any sex outside traditional marriage. One member only of the opposite sex, forever. Like the Baptist bumper-sticker about the bible: nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

  There are two exceptions. If your spouse dies, you’re allowed to marry again. If they don’t, you are with them until death, unless they ‘commit adultery’. These days, physical violence is also being considered as a possible third exception, even though Jesus only ever gave the two get-out-of-jail-free cards. No adultery, no divorce.

  This is a high standard to maintain, considering recent Christian research shows that American born-again Christians are just as likely to get divorced as non-Christians. Evangelist forefather Oral Roberts appeared on his glamorous colleague Benny Hinn’s

  TV show saying that since eighty-seven per cent of Americans were affected by divorce, he wasn’t going to hold this against them. Even considering that it’s near impossible to get eighty-seven per cent of Americans to agree on anything right now, I was still impressed by Oral’s generosity of spirit.

  Nobody would take me to the men’s conference. It only goes for two nights and one day, which makes all the Hillsong girls giggle. They know that men have short attention spans and don’t like girly stuff, so you’ve got to keep it short. The men’s conference costs thirty-five dollars as opposed to the women’s one hundred dollars, which is about the same difference as for a decent haircut, I guess.

  No one would accompany me to the men’s meetings on Thursday mornings either, despite my longing for the bacon and eggs they advertised as opposed to the raisin toast and coffee the girls were served in the building next door.

  The only insight I got into the secret men’s business of the Heterosexual Hillsong Hero was through a monthly email newsletter from the men’s group RealMen, at Phil Pringle’s Christian City Church. In one month, all my questions were answered.

  There, among advice about getting sleep and being a good servant, was this:

  Men & relationships Men regularly ask what is kosher for a Christian Man when it comes to sex. What is acceptable and what is not? I have read so many books that don’t answer that particular question. They either add to the confusion or create guilt. Let me answer this for you. Sex is about intimacy and men need to know what builds intimacy between a man and a woman.

  From a biblical point of view, the bible is silent about this subject.

  God created sex not only to procreate, but to be enjoyed (not endured).

  So what is in and what is out (pardon the pun). Anal sex is out because of medical reasons. It can damage the anus and the bowel. Otherwise everything else is acceptable, if both parties are in agreement and enjoy the experience.

  The subject is far too extensive for me to answer in a few paragraphs, so if you are wanting to build intimacy with your wife through practical and helpful advice, I recommend you purchase ‘A Celebration Of Sex’ by Dr Douglas E. Rosenau. The following link will get you to Nelson Ministry Services Creator site where this and other great books can be purchased.1As for women, they have not been neglected. Bobbie Houston released a set of three CDs called Kingdom Women Love Sex, but because the public took everything the wrong way again, she has renamed it She Loves and Values Her Sexuality. Bobbie created this series because she knows the topic is important, which is why she reports one newlywed listened to it eleven times.

  Being a Bride of Christ has a dizzying aspect for a Hillsong girl. Having a love affair with Jesus is an established expectation.

  As Darlene said, you may not have a ‘he’ tha
t brings out the best in you, but you have the Ultimate He in Jesus.

  I don’t want to date Jesus. I don’t think that was the idea. All that ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ music makes me nauseous. I’ve asked people about this continued urging to ‘C’mon, fall in love with Jesus,’ and they refer me to the Song of Solomon, a book in the bible depicting the dialogue of two lovers but mentioning nothing about romancing God. I continue to find the whole thing strange.

  Sex is never far away from this brand of Christianity. With stunning boldness, Bobbie says in I’ll Have What She’s Having:

  In that movie I made reference to at the beginning [When Harry Met Sally], Sally fakes an orgasm. I looked up orgasm in the dictionary. Now relax, I do know what an orgasm is. I just needed a dictionary definition. Interestingly, it means, height, zenith, summit. Now, forget the bedroom for the moment. Shouldn’t we who are ‘in God’ reach the summit, zenith, uttermost heights in life? I think so! Shouldn’t we who are ‘in God’ have the genuine experience? When it comes to life, let’s not settle for a fake experience, let’s go for the genuine article.2But what if being genuine and being yourself is an abomination to God? What do you do then? What if you’re an impossible princess?

  Fundamentalists know that gay men are everywhere. They know what they look like now. They have earrings, a lisp and wear pink. Most of them either have ‘full-blown’ AIDS or will get it soon, so it’s best not to touch them.

  The ‘church’ cannot accept the gay man. This is not because he should be stoned to death like the bible says. It’s because he’s the ultimate rule breaker. What about women, though? They don’t actually register as human beings, if the truth be known. It’s all about men in the Christian hierarchy, and a real man is defined by his income and his family. What if the only use a man has for a pretty wife is to go shopping with her?

  Fortunately, there are no homos at Hillsong. There weren’t in the Garden of Eden and there sure won’t be any in heaven. This raises some obvious concerns. Heaven is going to be full of monogamous heterosexuals with no interior design sense. The venue will be lit with fluorescent lighting and the catering will be homestyle rather than gourmet.

  Truly, it’s good to know that there are no homosexuals actually standing next to you in church. The way you can tell is that almost everyone is married. Or wants to be. And has children.

  Anyone who isn’t married hasn’t found the right girl, but in God’s time they will.

  These ideas underpin the huge rate of suicide and attempted suicide in fundamentalist churches all around the world. There is no coming out. Ever.

  There was only one gay boy at Powerhouse Youth that I can remember, but he says he wasn’t gay then. My god he was camp.

  He maintains he was straight, telling me he ‘dated the most beautiful girl in the church’. I only ever saw him hang out with one girl, and they were inseparable best friends.

  He wasn’t gay back then; he was just doing Hills’ artwork for a while. ‘I’m the one,’ he shrieked at me later, ‘who took them from typed newsletters to glossy magazines. I told them, “We can look professional, but it’s going to take work!”’ The years were long and eventually he realised that he wasn’t getting anywhere in Hillsong.

  He had made confessions about indiscretions along the way which ruined his career chances in the church. He left Hillsong and the closet and is happy in his new Christian gay identity.

  ‘That stuff they said about Frank Houston isn’t true,’ he told me. ‘It couldn’t have been. He was the only one who was nice to me. He would come into my office and sit down with me and ask me how I was. He was the only one who took an interest in me.’

  ‘That’s because you were gay,’ I said. He didn’t like that.

  He had done his time in one of the ex-gay ministries that Hill-song used to run, Living Waters. He failed, and is among several who claim that they were the one that led to the program’s closure. During those confessional group therapy hours with the sexually deviant—lesbians, gay men, frequent masturbators and the like—he said he’d learnt all he needed to know about the ‘lifestyle’ he was working so hard to ignore. By the time he came screaming out, he was already well educated in what gay men do.

  Homosexuality is a lifestyle. It is something one is constantly doing. Evangelicals are well aware that homosexuals live, sleep and breathe homosexuality, they drink gay tea, think gay thoughts, sleep on gay sheets and spend their whole time plotting to sneak up behind good Christian folk and win them over. They won’t be satisfied until everyone is leading the same depraved, perverse, decadent, lust-driven lives they are. They know God can’t stand what it is they do, but they just don’t care.

  To make it worse, as Paul says in Romans, ‘even the women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones’. There are some very ungrateful ribs out there. Some girls are not impressed by the size of your church or your car. Some of them don’t care whether you were dux of the bible college. They don’t care how many people you got saved or how good-looking you are. Yes, there are girls out there in the congregation who don’t care if you are descended from Brian Houston himself.

  Queen Victoria and Pentecostals both plead ignorance when it comes to lesbians. They’ve never heard of such a thing. They could never imagine how any rib would be able to extricate itself from masculinity’s greatness. Lesbians are witches so any gay girl, particularly the pretty ones, must be under a spell to resist the charms of a good Christian man.

  Born agains know that gay men are real. They’ve seen them on the news. They can’t believe that these people would carry on with their lifestyle after what clearly took place in both Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Gay men are strange monsters who are obsessed with perversity. But in the end gay men are men, which means they still get to be people and not ribs. They can repent and get wives and children.

  But the lesbian, on the other hand, does not exist. For if a woman is not actively searching for or serving her husband, she ceases to be. There is no Proverbs 31 lesbian.

  Yet, when I went to those girl meetings, I didn’t know where to look. Hillsong is a breast church. The uniform consists of manicured hair, nails and face, and a very low-cut top. Interestingly, the girls also tended to wear long skirts or pants, which made every body’s implants really leap out. There is a cosmetic surgeon somewhere in that Hillsong business directory who is laughing all the way to the AoG credit union.

  And as Bobbie says, we love to hug and kiss here at women’s meetings, you’ll never go home from Colour Your World starved for affection. And with all those beautiful girls and hot lights, I found more girl-on-girl action overall than on any given Friday night jelly-wrestling in a red-light public bar.

  I never made it to a youth meeting, but the lesbians who did told me they didn’t know where to look either. The girls in miniskirts and thigh-high boots are all touchy-feely with each other since everyone’s just girlfriends, right? All that music, all that prayer and intimacy and laying on of hands, all that love, all those dreams, all that sisterhood, and so few clothes.

  The strange thing about all this puritanical morality and homophobia is that the organisation is damn sexy. The music is sexy, the people are good-looking and the energy is intense. Intimacy runs high with emotion when people are vulnerable and sincerely looking for love. It’s like a nightclub where they charge you the door fee after you’re already in and sipping a drink.

  That’s not the only disturbing part. In this community of pure heterosexuality, there are many members who are gay or once were. More homos than you can poke a stick at. Even the stories I verified added up to a disproportionate number. Glamorous people, bright lights, special shows, love, joy and pride in being the well-dressed you God made. There’s no way the Sydney Mardi Gras was as high camp as Hillsong conference 2005. Plus the Hill-song party goes for five nights, not one.

  Frank Houston loved the company of young men. Over-age, but young. He had his golden boys, his disciples, the men he had stay
in his home for years at a time, the men he travelled closely with, always young, always good-looking. Some of them became pastors. Some of them he groomed sexually, some he held their hand. Some of them he disciplined. Some of them needed their deviant sexuality purged, taking years, with extreme results. This may appear shocking to some people, but in an organisation whose values are submission and obedience, it’s no wonder the sexualities are so perverse.

  VERONICA

  Weekly movies are $1.10 on Thursdays at my video store. Sam and I go every week. To make things fair, we get seven: three for me, three for him and one ‘together’ movie. I’ve already seen everything I want to in this video store. It’s not very big and I was still wandering around one Thursday when I met the assistant, Veronica. It was getting cold and I didn’t want to be there at all, to be honest. The video store, as I like to call it even in this age, is an adventure for any family, and this Thursday I was exhausted and not looking for new friends.

  Veronica was trying to be helpful. At eighteen, she was involuntarily effervescent with youthful energy.

  ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ she asked.

  I sighed. She was standing right there. Who knows, she might even be helpful. ‘I’m writing a book,’ I started. ‘Do you know the Hillsong Church?’ ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Do you go to the Hill-song Church?’ These are my two standard questions.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but my parents are total Hillsongers.’

  It turned out to be a strange coincidence. She recommended the movie Saved and told me the story of her family.

  Her parents had been attending Hillsong for a year and a half and had recently donated their life savings of $100,000 to one of Hillsong’s projects. They loved Hillsong and wished Veronica would go with them.