The truth comes out!
As we previously reported, pastor to the stars Carl Lentz was fired from his position at Hillsong Church for “leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures.” The mega-church’s statement didn’t elaborate on what exactly those moral failures were, so we were left to speculate… until now.
Lentz himself released a statement via Instagram, and he ‘fessed up big time. The man who led Justin Bieber down his current path of spirituality began by saying how much he and his family loved their time with HillsongNYC and what an “honor” it was to lead the congregation. The statement continued:
“When you accept the calling of being a pastor, you must live in such a way that it honors the mandate. That it honors the church, and that it honors God. When that does not happen, a change needs to be made and has been made in this case to ensure that standard is upheld. Laura and I and our amazing children have given all that we have to serve and build this church and over the years I did not do an adequate job of protecting my own spirit, refilling my own soul and reaching out for the readily available help that is available. When you lead out of an empty place, you make choices that have real and painful consequences.“
Pretty ominous, if you ask us! Then came the bombshell:
“I was unfaithful in my marriage, the most important relationship in my life and held accountable for that. This failure is on me, and me alone and I take full responsibility for my actions.”
Wow!
There are plenty of so-called Christians who commit infidelity and still retain their positions of power (ahem, Donald Trump), but we guess when you’re a pastor, it’s a little more important to practice what you preach! Bieber’s former BFF went on:
“I now begin a journey of rebuilding trust with my wife, Laura and my children and taking real time to work on and heal my own life and seek out the help that I need. I am deeply sorry for breaking the trust of many people who we have loved serving and understand that this news can be very hard and confusing for people to hear and process.”
He went on to say he “would have liked to say this with my voice … in person” but was apparently denied the opportunity to do so. He asked for prayers for forgiveness and that he will be able to “live a life where trust is earned again.” He concluded by thanking Brian and Bobbie Huston, the founders of Hillsong, and said:
“We, the Lentz family, don’t know what this next chapter will look like, but we will walk into it together very hopeful and grateful for the grace of God.”
Whew. Now we understand a bit more of Huston’s cryptic statement — makes sense how it mentioned their “personal sadness, as we have known Laura her entire life.”
(Though, BTW, Brian Huston’s father, also a former Evangelical pastor, confessed to Brian that he’d sexually abused children and Brian failed to report the abuse to the police so… maybe we can all stop pretending these guys making money off of religion are somehow free of “moral failures”?)
A powerful evangelical pastor cheating on his wife is about the oldest story in the book, so we can’t say we’re altogether too surprised about this. We’d suggest Carl circle back on what the Bible has to say about adultery before getting up on another notoriously homophobic pulpit and telling other people how to live their lives.
Ch-ch-check out his full statement (below):
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHONe5ODr9z/
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