AUSTRALIA
7 News
ANNETTE BLACKWELL
October 10, 2014
Should the sins of the father be visited on the son?
There is a certain biblical resonance to the current case before the child sex abuse royal commission.
It is looking at how the Pentecostal movement and its then leader, Hillsong founder Brian Houston, responded to his father Frank Houston’s admission that he molested children.
Brian Houston has spoken of his humiliation at having to face the cameras and answer questions about his father’s “indefensible” crimes.
He stresses how deeply he feels for the victims.
Apart from Brian Houston’s suffering, what is certainly clear after the first week of evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is while some evangelists might be good at spreading the word of God they’re not so hot at spreading the word one of their own is a pedophile.
Not doing so in a timely and clear fashion robbed churches of the power to keep Frank Houston at bay, not to mention leaving possible victims to cope alone, never knowing that their pastors could and would have helped.
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