Why You Should Stop Singing Bethel Redding and Hillsong Songs in Your Church

At 34 years old, I’ve lived roughly half my life with the Internet and half without.  I’m old enough to remember a time when pornography wasn’t a mouse click away.  20 years ago Playboy was the most well-known name in porn.  I remember people joking about having Playboy or other pornographic magazines so they could read the articles.  It was absurd, of course.  No one who possessed a Playboy magazine was interested in reading the articles.

But can you imagine parents buying a Playboy magazine, cutting out all the pictures of naked women or any references to anything sexual and then giving their child a Playboy to read the articles?  No.  There are thousands of other books, magazines, or newspapers that a child could read.  Giving a child a Playboy, even with the nudity removed, would be exposing that child to something harmful to his or her soul while giving an endorsement that the magazine was okay.  

What do the preceding two paragraphs have to do with the title of this post, you ask?  My answer: singing the music of Bethel Redding or Hillsong in your church is akin to giving your child a Playboy magazine with the nudity removed.  

How?  Let me explain.

Bethel Redding is a cult.  By any definition of a cult, Bethel Redding qualifies.  Bill Johnson, lead pastor of Bethel Redding, teaches that Jesus was not God when he performed miracles, teaches that Jesus was born again, and teaches that anyone who interprets Paul’s thorn in the flesh as a sickness or illness is guilty of preaching a different gospel.  It is, in fact, Bill Johnson who is preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel.  That is not a charge I make recklessly.  It is also not a charge I make alone.    

Tony Miano has recently started a blog to catalogue some of the false teaching that is coming out of Bethel Redding.  You can read and see more here if you’d like to.

Bethel Redding is dangerous, and thousands of people from around the world are traveling to Bethel to be a part of what is taking place there.  

Hillsong is a little more difficult to pin down, but I believe Hillsong should also be classified as a cult.  Discernment with Hillsong is a little more difficult than with Bethel Redding because the leaders of Hillsong don’t really teach anything doctrinal.  Every time I listen to a sermon by Brian Houston, Carl Lentz, Christine Caine, or anyone else associated with Hillsong, the phrase that comes to mind is “empty words.”  A lot of words are being spoken, but they are empty words, devoid of any real Biblical truth.  

You will not hear anyone from Hillsong confront people with the reality of their sinfulness.  You will not hear anyone from Hillsong call people to repentance and belief in the gospel, the very message that Jesus preached.  

Hillsong absolutely teaches a form of the prosperity gospel.  The Hillsong teaching is that Jesus will make every aspect of your temporal, earthly life better, if only you’ll let him.  

If you read the words of Jesus and the Apostles recorded in the New Testament, if you read the earliest writings of the church fathers, and then listen to or read what Bill Johnson and the leadership of Bethel Redding are teaching, and listen to or read what Brian Houston and other leaders of Hillsong are teaching, it should be obvious that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are both in their own ways teaching an entirely different religion than the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

And here’s the thing, both Bethel Redding, through their music team Jesus Culture, and Hillsong have intentionally used their music teams to build their global empires.  It is through their music that most people are first exposed to Bethel Redding and Hillsong. 

When we sing their songs in our churches, and give credit to Bethel or Hillsong for the song, we are giving our people a silent though full endorsement of those churches and their teachings.  Though the songs themselves may be theologically sound, we are exposing our people to spiritual poison, and telling them to drink it down.  

Once we’ve given that endorsement, how do you think our people are going to respond when a Bill Johnson video or article shows up on their social media feeds?  How do you think they’re going to respond when Hillsong or Jesus Culture come to your town for a money-making concert worship experience? 

When I bring up these thoughts in conversation I’m often met with resistance.  I hear things like, “Chew the meat and spit out the bones,” or, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Those cliches don’t mesh with the Biblical teaching.  

The Biblical teaching is to avoid such men as Bill Johnson and Brian Houston (2 Timothy 3:5).  The Biblical teaching is that an elder (pastor) in a church must both teach sound doctrine and rebuke those who contradict it, to silence them (Titus 1:9-11).  

People will often say we just need to trust our people to exercise discernment.  In a sense that’s true.  Spiritual maturity is like physical maturity, we raise a person from newborn to maturity and trust them to make the right decisions.  In any church there are going to be mature, theologically sound saints, and there are going to be baby saints who don’t yet have a grasp of sound doctrine.  Do you want to tell your new believers that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are okay, and then have them believe Bill Johnson when he teaches that Jesus was not God when he performed miracles?  Do you want to tell them that Bethel Redding and Hillsong are okay, and then have that believer thinking it’s their own fault or their own lack of faith when they find out they have cancer and healing doesn’t come?

No.  

Pastors are called to shepherd their sheep, which involves feeding their sheep the nutrition they need and protecting them from danger.  Singing songs by Bethel Redding and Hillsong in your church is opening your sheep pen to the wolves and offering them a buffet.  You’re essentially handing your children a pornographic magazine with the pornographic images removed, and trusting that he or she will grow up to recognize pornography as something evil and soul-destroying.