The Global Senior Minister of Hillsong Church has spoken out on Twitter after the New South Wales government has issued a Covid alert on one of the church’s Sydney campuses.
The only issue is that the church was closed and empty when the time of the alert has been announced.
Brian Houston tweeted, “The NSW govt issued a health alert for people who visited our Hills campus between 8-8.45pm on 29 December. At that time the church was completely shut and the Christmas lights were switched off after Christmas night. The NSW govt had been made aware of that.”
The city of Sydney received a spike in Covid cases shortly before Christmas, causing new lockdowns to occur in parts of Australia’s largest city.
In a tweet to its 118,000 Twitter followers, the health department stated, “NSW Health has been notified of a number of new venues in Sydney’s west, which have been visited by confirmed cases of COVID-19.” Hillsong’s major Sydney campus of Baulkham Hills was identified as one of the locations.
The church was running a drive-past lights display, it is reported that the lights were not even on at that time and the building, located in an industrial area in north-western Sydney, and surrounding areas were empty.
While it would be accepted that Brian Houston’s Twitter account would have comments from supporters sympathetic to the church and ongoing attacks across the world, especially in America, that churches are ‘super spreaders’, it was the NSW government’s Twitter account where people have defended the church.
Danielle Jarvis
Soul Purpose
Matthias Browning
