When I was about eleven-years-old I went through a religious stage. Growing up in an atheist family, I was introduced to God by my childhood best friend. Big gatherings, youth activities and free food—I was hooked. As well as church, I attended a worship group for young people at a community hall where the afternoons were spent playing games and discussing God. Unfortunately I’ve always had a tendency to annoy people with questions and I found out pretty fast that the questions I was asking weren’t that popular with the adults of the church. I remember coming home and telling dad that I didn’t want to go to church anymore. His reply was, ‘I thought they had brainwashed you’.
The idea of the church brainwashing youth is not new, although I believe a better term is ‘converting’. But the latest tactic used by youth branches of the Australian Christian Churches has raised some concern. Hillsong, a peak body for the Pentecostal branch of the Australian Christian Churches is being accused of, according to
ABC News, ‘secretly making a push to convert public school students in New South Wales’. This is being done through ‘Exo Days’—free barbeques and concerts held in public schools, aimed at recruiting youth to the church. According to the Exo Day NSW website, Exo Days are ‘a great way to attract…your schoolmates…for a free lunch, to be entertained and hear that life with God is excellent!’. They are student run events that involve a ‘fun and exciting lunchtime festival’ designed to promote the ‘Big Exo Day’, an annual Christian youth celebration filled with concerts, rides and attractions.
Youth Alive, the movement responsible for the Exo Days is only an associate of Hillsong—they’ve collaborated on CDs and conferences. However, it’s the influence that Hillsong has over Christian youth organisations, like Youth Alive, and its political influence, which has caused public criticism. Considering inside reports of Hillsong’s fundamentalism in Tanya Levin’s book
People in Glass Houses, it is easy to see why there is concern. Levin’s book, as described by the
Sydney Morning Herald, delves into ‘the mass hypnosis of worship; the Jesus-centric remedies offered in Hillsong's outreach programs…the ideological submission of women; and the bleeding of money from the faithful’. And currently, the faithful number over 30,000 and increasing.
Brian Houston, part creator and pastor of the Hillsong Church, states on the Hillsong website his vision for the church: ‘The church I see is a church of influence, a church so large in size that the city and nation cannot ignore it’. It seems that in a capitalist world even the church worries more about numbers. What better way to grow a church ‘so quickly that buildings struggle to contain the increase’ than converting Australia’s future: the youth. Each member of the congregation, young or old, is expected to ‘tithe’ or donate 10 percent of their income for the benefit of the Church. Not so easy for a young student with little or no income, who enjoys the free concerts and free food at Exo Days but might not realise there could be greater costs to pay down the track.
Youth Alive explains that Exo Days are simply public school events run by Christian students. However, they expose non-Christian students to a belief system that they may feel pressured into joining. Exo Days are not compulsory for students, which is a positive thing, but schools are high peer pressure areas. Like the Australian government, public schooling should be free from religious bias. Public schools in Australia are only allowed to teach ‘special religious education’ for one hour a week. Any other religious education is the choice of the individual student. In year 12, I enrolled myself in a religion class, curious and looking for a safe place to learn. This is the way students should be exposed to religion, with transparent information and choice, not with the lure of sausages and concerts.
You cannot simply say that the Exo Days are gifts to the students with no ulterior motive. That would mean that the days would have to be carried out without any mention of Christianity or God by the organiser. While I am not a practicing Christian (although baptised) I believe that faith is a journey, whether it is a journey you are born into, something you reach at the end of your life or somewhere in between. A choice of faith or no faith is not something that anyone should feel pressured into, especially at a neutral environment such as school.
How I know this?
Hillsong Church
http://www2.hillsong.com/
Marr, David ‘Hillsong - the church with no answers’
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hillsong--the-church-with-no-answers/2007/08/03/1185648145760.html
Levin, Tanya ‘Hillsong success no miracle’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22114749-25132,00.html
Bibby, Paul., Josephine Tovey ‘Hillsong's schools recruitment drive
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hillsongs-schools-recruitment-drive/2008/09/08/1220857456708.html
Australian educational digest Volume 2 Number 32, 9 September 2008
http://www.acsso.org.au/AED080909.pdf
ABC News ‘Hillsong ‘using schools for recruitment’’
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2359449.htm
Livenews ‘Hillsong’s mental illness link no surprise to me’
http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/03/17/
Hillsong_A_Cult_or_just_plain_kooky
Cannon, Gillian ‘'Highly deceptive': Hillsong running school recruitment drives’
http://www.livenews.com.au/articles/2008/09/09/
Hillsong_trying_to_recruit_children_while_at_school_
Exoday NSW
http://www.exoday.com/about.php
Youth Alive
http://www.youthalivensw.org.au/index.php
