Brian Houston. Photo: Getty Images
Hillsong founder Brian Houston has told a court he was not trying to "fool" the congregation by referring to his father's sexual abuse of a child as only a "very serious moral accusation".
Houston told the Downing Centre Local Court he "never tried to conceal" Frank Houston's molestation of a young boy in Sydney's east during the 1970s.
The younger Houston, 68, has pleaded not guilty to concealing his late father's crime, and is this week giving evidence before a special fixture hearing.
On Wednesday, he was pressed on a sermon given to 1500 worshippers at Hillsong in March 2002, in which Houston referenced issues surrounding Frank Houston.
It was delivered more than two years after Houston senior confessed to his son that he abused a boy and was stood down by the church in late 1999, the court has heard.
The confession was never reported to police, Houston claims, at the request of the victim, identified in court as Brett Sengstock.
Crown prosecutor Gareth Harrison put to Brian Houston he was toeing the line of church executives when telling the crowd his father was the subject of a "very serious moral accusation".
"You were covering up as best you could," he suggested to Houston.
"No, that's not right," the evangelist replied.
Harrison suggested he was "trying to fool" the congregation and chose words to downplay the true nature of his father's crime.
"I was telling the congregation that I thought it was very serious," Houston said.
He denied being deliberately vague in saying his father "made certain confessions about issues", and that he was defending him by declaring his dad "still loves God".
"I gave the announcement I thought, at the time, I needed to give," Houston said.
Houston refuted that he lied when telling the crowd the offence "didn't come to light until after my father had resigned".
He said Frank Houston passed on leadership of the Sydney Christian Life Centre to him in May 1999, before the allegations were known to church leaders.
His father was stripped of pastor credentials after confessing in November 1999, and died in 2004.
It was also put to Brian Houston he had attempted to convince people the incident took place in the family's homeland of New Zealand, in part to distance Hillsong from the abuse.
An article published in the early 2000s, after an interview with Houston, said he was dealing with his father's abuse of "a child in New Zealand".
He told the court the journalist had jumped to conclusions after he had said the incident happened "while my father was a pastor in New Zealand".
The court has heard Frank Houston abused Sengstock during a trip to Australia, and later moved to Sydney.
Harrison put to the former Hillsong boss that he made a number of public statements aimed to "minimise the seriousness of what your father had done" over the years.
"You were not telling ... the truth about [what] your father had done?
Houston replied: "I disagree".
After three days on the stand, Houston finished giving evidence on Wednesday afternoon.
The hearing has been adjourned to 15 June, 2023, for closing submissions.
- ABC