FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C3
BY EMILY YAHRThe guiding principle in coun-
try music is that the fans are the
No. 1 priority. Country singers are
taught that the country fans have
the most loyalty of any listeners in
any genre, and if you remain ac-
cessible and treat them like your
peers and friends, they will stick
with you for life.
Looking across the Nashville
landscape, it’s hard to find a sing-
er who has embodied that philos-
ophy more than Eric Church, a
superstar who has obsessively
talked about (and demonstrated)
how his fans — known as the
“Church Choir” — matter to him
more than anything. So that’s why
it was especially surprising when
Church announced Tuesday that
he was canceling his upcoming
sold-out arena show Saturday
night at the AT&T Center in San
Antonio — so he can attend North
Carolina’s Final Four basketball
game against Duke.
“This Saturday, my family and I
are going to stand together to
cheer on the Tar Heels as the team
has made it to the Final Four,” he
wrote in an email to his fans via
Ticketmaster. “As a lifelong Caro-
lina basketball fan, I’ve watched
Carolina and Duke battle over the
years but to have them matchup
in the Final Four for the first time
in history of the NCAA Tourna-
ment is any sports enthusiast’s
dream.”
“This is also the most selfish
thing I’ve ever asked the Choir to
do: to give up your Saturday night
plans with us so that I can have
this moment with my family and
sports community,” Church add-
ed. “However, it’s that same type
of passion felt by the people who
fill the seats at our concerts that
makes us want to be part of a
crowd at a game of this signifi-
cance.” He ended with a quote
from famed UNC announcer
Woody Durham: “Go where you
go and do what you do,” and
added, “Thanks for letting me go
here and be with the Tar Heels.”
It is, admittedly, one of the
highest-stakes games in recent
college basketball history: Not
only is Duke-North Carolina the
most storied rivalry in the sport,
but if North Carolina wins, that
makes it the last game for Duke’s
legendary coach, Mike Krzyzews-
ki — and this is all after North
Carolina defeated Duke a few
weeks ago at Coach K’s final home
game.
However, that probably does
not matter to the thousands of
people who bought tickets to
Church’s show on Saturday, many
of whom spent time on Twitter
and Instagram on Tuesday and
Wednesday slamming the singer
for his decision:
“The hoops we have jumped
through to secure childcare, to
drive 4+ hours to see you. To have
a night of fun, to see an artist that
we have literally bought every
record from. This is bull.”
“An entire weekend’s travel
plans up in smoke. Keep treating
your fans this way and you won’t
have any left.”
“I appreciate you wanting to
experience the basketball game
with your family but how about
those of us who were coming to
the concert with OUR family?”
And many more.
Some were also appreciative of
his candor, which is rare — other
celebrities could have simply lied
or come up with another excuse,perhaps cleverly hiding their at-
tendance at the game. (A publicist
for Church said he knew he wasn’t
able to reschedule right away, so
he wanted to let fans know as
soon as possible about the cancel-
lation.) But Church’s blunt and
detailed explanation shows his
unusual relationship with his fans
and is probably the only reason he
won’t suffer much, if any, damage
to his reputation from this move.
Church made waves early in his
career when he was fired as an
opener from the Rascal Flatts tour
in 2006 for going over the allotted
time limit for his set. Yet he ulti-mately blamed his dedication to
the fans: “We played a little bit too
loud, a little bit longer than we
were supposed to,” he explained
in an interview in 2011. “I was a
new act and I came out there and
people paid a lot of money for a
ticket and I was going to give
them a show.”
And the fans loved it. Church
focused more on building a fierce-
ly loyal following than adhering
to standard Nashville traditions:
He argued with his record label
over everything from releasing
the controversial “Smoke a Little
Smoke” as a single (“It’s your fu-neral,” he said his label head told
him) to wearing a hat and his
famous sunglasses on the cover of
his third album, “Chief.” (The
marketing told him that “you
can’t wear a hat because you have
hair and you can’t wear sunglass-
es because you have pretty eyes,”
he said.)
But “Smoke a Little Smoke”
became a huge hit and “Chief”
went triple platinum, and even-
tually his handlers relented: He
knew his audience well enough
that he was able to tell exactly
what it wanted from them. He
launched a passionate fightagainst ticket scalpers so his fans
could afford tickets to his shows.
In 2015, he mailed copies of his
album “Mr. Misunderstood” to his
fan club before it was officially
released. Last year, he released a
three-part album, “Heart & Soul,”
and sent the middle record — just
titled "&” — to the club as well.
“When we’re going to put out
an album, the people we’re trying
to get it in the hands of are the
fans, but the fans are also the last
people [who] have a chance at it,”
Church said. “It goes to a label,
then the press, then radio and
critics — all these people weigh in
and get a copy and then it’s the
fans.”
A couple of years later, he was
becoming famous for playing 3^12 -
hour concerts, and his die-hard
listeners were ecstatic.
“They would probably stay for
five hours, because they’re not
like other fans — especially coun-
try fans,” journalist Marissa R.
Moss wrote in Nashville Scene on
the eve of two sold-out concerts in
Nashville at the time. “The cama-
raderie in the crowd, the fervent
dedication, the way people in the
audience respond to each song ...
are more like the rituals of the
traveling rock cults associated
with Phish or the Grateful Dead.”
So it has been fans, fans, fans all
the time, including recent years,
when he posed for a 2021 cover of
Billboard receiving a coronavirus
vaccine to encourage his audience
to get shots too, so touring could
resume safely. If there’s anyone
who could get away with making a
whole lot of them angry, it’s
Church — and although it has the
makings of a public relations
mess, he’s built up enough good-
will that he’s likely to escape it.Eric Church canceled a show to see a Final Four game. Will fans forgive him?
KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES
Eric Church a t the Country Music Awards last month. He’ll be at the UNC-Duke game on Saturday.point at the ministers to move so
they could set up lines for ticket-
holders. And fans arriving were
confronted by reporters. Many
were interested in getting into
the theater. They had to abide by
the covid protocol Rock required
— either a vaccine card or a
negative test — and also the
comedian’s policy of having
phones locked in pouches during
the performance. (During the
show, security also told reporters
inside they could not write in
their notebooks.)
Some fans outside complained
about the media. Others thought
it made the scene more exciting.
Nobody talked about selling their
tickets, even though they were
going for 10 times what many of
them had paid.
“I wouldn’t sell them,” said
Danielle Maragus, who drove
down from Portland, Maine. “I
really enjoy him, and I think this
will be exciting.”
Opener Rick Ingraham made
the resale prices part of his act.
He looked up at the balcony and
asked, “Ever think you’d pay
$1,000 for the worst seats in the
house?”
One man, who paid more than
$500 to sit up there, said he didn’t
need Rock to talk about the slap.
He just wanted to be present.
“This is comedy history,” said
the man, who declined to give his
name. “I don’t care if he referenc-
es it or not. I just want to be in the
room when this happens.”within 72 hours. On Wednesday,
in the first of six shows in Boston,
Rock darted through a range of
subjects, tackling racism, the roy-
al family, the problem with both
political parties and the reason
he had his daughter kicked out of
high school.
And he used one of his best
formulas, introducing each seg-
ment with a shocking premise
that makes perfect sense as he
unpacks it.
So, when Rock says, “In some
ways, the Ukraine’s better off
than us,” it’s because “at least
they’re together,” he posits, as he
details the countless ways “Amer-
ica’s done.” When he slams
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, it’s in
part the absurdity of being
shocked to find racism at Buck-
ingham Palace. “Didn’t they cre-
ate colonialism?” he said. “That’s
like marrying into the Budweiser
family and saying, ‘I can’t believe
how much they drink.’ ”
And when he talks about
pleading with the head of his
daughter’s school to expel her for
bad behavior, it’s because of the
lesson he thinks it will teach her
— a lesson the other rich parents,
who hired “some good lawyers,
some NFL-rape lawyers” to keep
their children from being disci-
ROCK FROM C1 plined, should have considered.
He also makes sure to let us know
that Lola is now in college.
For at least one set in a dark
theater, it was easy to forget the
surreal week that started when
Oscar presenter Rock made a joke
about Jada Pinkett Smith’s
shaved head, even though the
actress has been public about her
struggles with alopecia. Will
Smith, her husband, walked on-
stage, slapped Rock across the
face and returned to his front-
row seat and yelled, “Keep my
wife’s name out your f---ing
mouth.” (On Wednesday evening,
the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences revealed that
Smith had been asked to leave the
Oscars ceremony after the slap,
but refused.)
Smith later apologized, but
Rock has said nothing publicly.
So, when he arrived in Boston on
Tuesday, international press were
waiting to report that the comedi-
an, “head down under a ball cap,”
got into a van, and a local news
camera crew captured him check-
ing into his hotel. O.J. Simpson,
the former football star accused
and later acquitted of killing his
ex-wife, made a video in which he
talked about identifying with
Smith’s frustration at being tar-
geted by comedians.
Outside the Wilbur on
Still ‘processing’ the slap
Wednesday afternoon, news vans
crowded the street.
Stevenson Pierre, working the
front desk at the Marriott across
from the theater, admitted he
wanted to see Rock perform. He’s
already seen Katt Williams, Trev-
or Noah and Michael Blackson.
But when he checked, tickets
were going for $436. That would
look like a bargain as showtimeapproached.
On the sidewalk, Randy Mu-
hammad, minister at Mosque
No. 11 in nearby Dorchester, gath-
ered reporters along with the Rev.
Kevin Peterson of the Metropoli-
tan Baptist Church to call for
“peace and atonement.” Muham-
mad praised Smith for apologiz-
ing but complained about his
being allowed to remain at theOscars.
“This is what the whole world
is talking about, right?” he said.
“We’re concerned that others who
see that, our young people in
particular, will think that’s a way
to resolve conflicts. It’s an unfor-
tunate message the Academy
sent.”
The Wilbur’s security team
seemed flustered, yelling at oneJOSEPH PREZIOSO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
People attend Chris Rock’s show in Boston. “I’m still kind of processing what happened,” he said.acknowledges his father’s sexual
abuse of a minor but denies hav-
ing tried to cover up the payment.
A year later, the commission
found he had failed to report
knowledge of child sex abuse to
the authorities. (The documen-
tary includes the following ex-
cerpt from Hillsong’s 2015 re-
sponse to the commission’s find-
ings: “The victim was a 36-year-
old adult when this abuse became
known and could have taken the
matter to the police himself at any
time.”)
Earlier this year, Brian Hous-
ton stepped down as head pastor
of Hillsong “for the rest of the
year” to focus on fighting the
formal charge of concealing sex
abuse. Last week, after an inter-
nal investigation of two com-
plaints that he had acted inappro-
priately toward women, Brian
Houston resigned.
The documentary presents an
impressive array of former em-
ployees, volunteers and members
who readily condemn both Hill-
song’s common megachurch
problems and its devastating spe-
cific ones. But a quietly striking
aspect is that few if any seem to
have soured on Christianity.
Some discuss the more favorable
qualities of the other congrega-
tions they’ve joined since leaving.
A less thoughtful documentary
on the subject might miss such a
nuance, but “A Megachurch Ex-
posed” doesn’t. Memorably, one
former volunteer says, “If Jesus
were to walk into a Hillsong
church today, I don’t know if He
would be welcomed.” And with a
slow smile, she adds, “He would
probably flip the tables there,
too.”So when I watched Discovery
Plus’s new three-part documen-
tary “Hillsong: A Megachurch Ex-
posed,” some of what it uncovered
felt wholly, sadly familiar. Other
revelations, though, were unique-
ly horrifying.
“A Megachurch Exposed” aims
to spotlight the many alleged
wrongdoings of Hillsong, which
now has locations in 30 countries.
It airs allegations that Hillsong’s
leadership got rich off donations
while heavily exploiting volun-
teer labor. And it argues that
pastors have engaged in extra-
marital affairs and mishandled
accusations of sexual misconduct
by church staffers, despite teach-
ing the evils of impurity and lying.
Arguably Hillsong’s most fa-
mous scandal stateside involved
the downfall of Carl Lentz, the
young, attractive pastor (dubbed
a “hypepriest” by GQ) often spot-
ted wearing luxury streetwear
and hanging out with the celebri-
ties among his congregation —
including Justin and Hailey Bie-
ber, Kourtney Kardashian and
Kevin Durant. In 2020, Lentz ad-
mitted to having a months-long
extramarital affair and was fired
from his position as head of Hill-
song’s only American church, lo-
cated in New York City. “A Mega-
church Exposed” delves into that
saga, while also featuring testi-
monies from former staffers, vol-
unteers and congregation mem-
bers — plus students at the
church-adjacent Hillsong College
MEMO FROM C1 — who allege that they’ve been
worked to exhaustion for no pay
or that at least one report of
inappropriate behavior toward a
young woman by a male staffer
was under-investigated. (On the
latter, the church has claimed it
reported it to Australian authori-
ties shortly after leadership found
out. Hillsong has not responded
to The Washington Post’s request
for comment on the documen-
tary’s various allegations.)
This specific brand of leader-
ship hypocrisy in church settings
is, unfortunately, not specific to
Hillsong. It’s practically a trope
by now, the hyper-successful
church leader who quite literally
fails to practice what he preaches.
Famed televangelist Jim Bakker
went to prison in 1989 for fraud
related to church fundraising.
Jimmy Swaggart, whose televised
sermons and Bible studies were
broadcast all over the nation in
the early 1980s, was suspended by
the Assemblies of God Fellowship
and eventually defrocked after he
was caught hiring sex workers.
Pastors at more than one church I
attended with my family have
resigned or been removed from
ministry after being exposed as
adulterers and even abusers; one
had even stood in front of my
friends and me, at youth-group
gatherings and in church-camp
firepits, imparting to us what
seemed like a heartfelt message
on the importance of maintaining
sexual purity.
Even works of fiction have late-
ly been dealing with hypocrisy in
Familiar, then shocking
megachurch settings. HBO’s “The
Righteous Gemstones” follows
the high jinks of a blithely hypo-
critical family at the head of a
Southern church empire. Kelsey
McKinney’s popular 2021 novel
“God Spare the Girls” tells the
story of two sisters raised in a
purity-minded faith tradition
struggling to forgive their father
for his infidelity even as the Texas
church he leads every Sunday lets
him off easy. The first two-thirds
of “A Megachurch Exposed,” in
other words, reveals the misdeeds
of more than just its one titular
megachurch.
The series’s final episode, how-
ever, is where “A Megachurch
Exposed” takes a turn for the trulyshocking, depicting an institu-
tion so profoundly compromised
that its leaders won’t even fully
confront the rot. It digs into a
scandal that those who know Hill-
song solely through its Bieber
association may never have heard
of: the child sex abuse saga in-
volving Frank Houston, founder
of the church out of which Hill-
song eventually grew, and the
alleged coverup by his son Brian,
who officially founded Hillsong
in 1983.
According to the documentary,
Frank Houston repeatedly sexu-
ally abused at least one young boy
in the late 1960s and paid him
10,000 Australian dollars as
“compensation” in the late 1990s— when the abuse had been re-
ported to the church but not yet to
the authorities. The documentary
then cites the minutes from a
1999 meeting of church elders
that details their plans to keep the
abuse quiet and reinstate Hous-
ton as head pastor after a tempo-
rary suspension. According to the
documentary, at least seven other
men have since come forward to
allege sexual abuse by Houston
between 1965 and 1977.
In 2014, Brian Houston was
summoned by the Australian
Royal Commission into Institu-
tional Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse for questioning. The docu-
mentary includes footage of his
official testimony, in which heANDRES KUDACKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York’s Hillsong Church in 2017. “Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed” is on Discovery Plus.