Hillsong Church founder Brian C. Houston has come under fire after a controversial sermon he delivered in December.
The Australian megachurch pastor has denied allegations that he promotes “Chrislam,” which blends the ideas of Christianity and Islam together.
“Do you know—take it all the way back into the Old Testament and the Muslim—and you, we actually serve the same God,” he said in the sermon. “Allah to a Muslim; to us, Abba Father God.”
Hillsong Church on Thursday tweeted the link to a statement by the pastor responding to the claims.
“Recently there have been false claims on social media that I believe Muslims and Christians worship the same God. This is incorrect,” Houston said in the statement entitled “Correction of Misinformation.”
He went on to say that critics have taken his statement out of context.
“I realize that some critics WANT to believe their interpretation, but my prayer is that reasonable people will take my comment in context, accept my acknowledgment that I did not explain this sentence as I intended, and judge me on 40 years of pointing people to Jesus—not one sentence,” Houston said.
He then explained the context of his message.
“The spirit of the message was exactly the opposite of what some critics are claiming. If you listened to the message in its entirety, my point was that; who a Muslim extremist believes God is, determines what they believe God does, and what they believe God loves,” he said.
Houston admitted to a “clumsy” delivery and clarified that Allah and God “are very DIFFERENT ‘entities’ or ‘deities’ in both nature and action.”
He concluded his statement by saying, “I have always believed and will always believe that there is only one Way to God and that is through His Son, Christ Jesus. I also believe that anyone—irrespective of their religious upbringing, culture or background—can find grace, peace, freedom and eternal life through Christ.”
Houston and his wife, Bobbie, are the co-pastors of Hillsong Australia, which is affiliated with Australian Christian Churches (the Assemblies of God in Australia) and hosts about 30,000 worshippers every weekend. There are currently 12 Hillsong campuses around the world.
