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You may recall a lot of superstar pastor Carl Lentz’s logos—the tats, the thin denims, the mentor relationship with Justin Bieber and different massive names—earlier than his late-2020 ouster from Hillsong Church and information of his marital infidelity. Otherwise you may not bear in mind a lot about Lentz, or Hillsong, or that Carl’s expulsion as one of many lead pastors of Hillsong’s New York Metropolis department was solely the primary seen crack in a dam holding again allegations of abuse, corruption, and cover-ups towards the worldwide megachurch and its Sydney-based energy elite, as a result of two-plus years can really feel like 10 in post-COVID time. Fortuitously, The Secrets and techniques of Hillsong has you coated.
Directed by Stacey Lee (Underplayed), based mostly on Alex French and Dan Adler’s reporting for Self-importance Truthful in “Carl Lentz and the Hassle at Hillsong,” and coproduced by Scout Productions and Self-importance Truthful Studios, The Secrets and techniques of Hillsong traces the church’s beginnings, its rise and growth, its troubling tradition of alleged abuse and cover-ups, and Lentz’s speedy rise and fall. French and Adler’s February 2021 report is a superb place to begin for background, and the reporters are on digital camera to assist set the scene, together with former Hillsong congregants, specialists on spirituality in tradition, Australian senators—and the once-ubiquitous Lentz himself. Secrets and techniques sees Carl—and his spouse of 20 years, Laura—sitting for his or her first interviews for the reason that scandal despatched them into useful exile.
The Lentzes breaking their silence isn’t the one purpose to make room for Secrets and techniques in your weekend-viewing schedule. Is it the foremost purpose? Let’s run down the most important attracts in The Secrets and techniques of Hillsong’s first two episodes.
Carl goes on the report. The Lentzes’ interviews for Secrets and techniques are the couple’s first since their exit from Hillsong pastorship within the autumn of 2020, and that prodigal-son-tinged exclusivity is a giant a part of the docuseries’ attract. What is going to Carl say? What may Carl say?
Properly, he says lots, and I’ll have a look at the substance in a second, however Secrets and techniques has a strong deal with on one other main part of its personal enchantment, specifically Carl himself—whether or not he’s giving a present-day interview or showing in older footage. Within the aughts and 2010s, Lentz was in every single place, and the collection’ first two episodes unpacks how that got here to be. Multiple former Hillsong congregant interviewed for Secrets and techniques describes Lentz’s irresistible charisma, remembering his megawatt attraction in generally regretful tones, and the actual fact is, whether or not you purchase into Carl’s hipster gospel otherwise you assume it’s shtick, your eye goes proper to the man.
The Secrets and techniques of Hillsong understands that its temporary isn’t solely seeing what Carl has to say, or updating French and Adler’s investigative file. It’s additionally to acknowledge, and even invite, the schadenfreude the Carl Lentz/Hillsong scandal—and all of the celebrity-church scandals prefer it, going again not less than so far as the disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson virtually 100 years in the past—evokes within the tradition at massive. Carl baptized Bieber in NBA participant Tyson Chandler’s XXL bathtub; this isn’t a man who doesn’t need individuals to concentrate to him. At one level in his interviews with director Lee, Carl adapts the serenity prayer to ask for the energy to get by means of the documentary. Whether or not a viewer sees such a second as goofily profound or profoundly goofy will, in fact, range by individual. However no matter one thinks of Lentz, as regular, he’s eminently watchable.
Carl will get particular about his previous. I’ll keep away from spoilers, however Carl tries to unpack the explanations—not excuses—for a few of his unhealthy acts, together with the extramarital affair that introduced his home down, in addition to the “compromising place” his spouse Laura had earlier discovered him in with the household’s nanny, Leona Kimes. Carl factors to unhealed trauma from his childhood as a catalyst for his appearing out. (He additionally faults, to a lesser extent, getting married too younger, not precisely an endorsement of Hillsong’s “purity-forward” method to intimate relationships.)
And there’s the truth that there nonetheless is a Carl and Laura. Laura Lentz’s presence is notable by itself, however the fuller portrait of the Lentzes’ marriage offered within the collection is stuffed with subtext—particularly by way of the background Secrets and techniques outlines on Hillsong’s earlier years, and Laura’s mother and father’ shut friendship with Hillsong founders Brian and Bobbie Houston. Secrets and techniques illuminates the methods Laura’s upbringing could have led her into marriage/super-couple standing with Carl. Laura’s personal exhausted “I misplaced every thing” as she remembers the final months of 2020 makes it clear that she didn’t see any roads main out of that setup. As with all different marriage, a lot of the decision-making stays private.
The Lentzes’ secrets and techniques are the least of Hillsong’s points. Carl Lentz is a captivating determine, however he’s the tip of the mess-berg at Hillsong (although testimony from former New York department congregants, corresponding to Ashley and Mary Jones, Janice Lagata, Abby Fitzsimmons, and Ajanet Roundtree, paint an in depth image of the tradition throughout Lentz’s time on the church). Secrets and techniques places Carl’s scandal in context with descriptions of Hillsong’s bigger historical past of sexist cronyism, to not point out allegations of sexual abuse (together with assaults Brian Houston’s father, Frank, confessed to a long time in the past, although he was by no means charged with a criminal offense) and cover-ups (by Brian, awaiting his destiny in his native Australia in a prison case surrounding his alleged concealment of his father’s predatory habits).
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