The Pentecostal Prime Minister: Inside Scott Morrison’s church
Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Scott Morrison is Australia’s first Pentecostal prime minister, a branch of Christianity famous for stadium-sized gatherings and energetic sermons.
For more than a decade he and his family have been members of the Sutherland Shire’s Horizon Church in Sydney’s south, housed in a 1200-seat auditorium.
Horizon is a Pentecostal Christian church where pastors give rousing sermons, and followers can sometimes speak in tongues and engage in “divine healing”.
Horizon Church senior pastor Brad Bonhomme says Mr Morrison and his wife Jenny and daughters Lily and Abigail are regulars at the church on a Sunday, when more than 2000 people attend services.
More recently work has thwarted Mr Morrison’s regular attendance, however, his wife and daughters are heavily involved in the church’s children’s program.
The Morrisons met through church as teenagers and married at the age of 21.
Mr Bonhomme said the church would play no part in the running of the country or Liberal Party policy.
“Unfortunately there will be some that assume whatever policy direction the Liberal Party might choose to take, some would assume I or our church will be involved in that,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.
“As far as growth of the church is concerned there may be some people who may like what they see and what is happening, as far as the Liberal Party is concerned, we have no involvement in their policy making and their decision making.”
Mr Bonhomme said he and his wife Alison Bonhomme, also a senior pastor at Horizon, had a good relationship with the Morrisons.
Mr Bonhomme, a South African who “knows a good curry when he sees one”, said Mr Morrison was famous for the ones he whipped up for friends at home.
“I don’t delve too much into it as far as Scott’s political world goes, my role in his life is more on a faith base,” he said.
“Yes, our PM is a Christian, he regularly goes to a church and with that my job is to provide a place for him to express his faith.”
The pastor said he and his congregation were delighted about having one of their own in the nation’s top job.
“We are thrilled, we are just so excited and thankful and humbled all at the same time. There is a measure of responsibility too and we want to do our best. From our perspective we do all we can to represent our prime minister well,” he said.
“We are a bit more upbeat, a bit more up-tempo than a traditional church. The message is the same — love, justice, care — however the presentation is probably a bit louder, a bit more up tempo and a lot more musicians. I would say we are passionate in the way we share our beliefs.”
Mr Morrison, a former treasurer and minister for social services, immigration and border protection minister, has been open about his faith.
He was an opponent of same-sex marriage (same-sex unions do not occur in the Horizon Church) and has been roundly criticised for his tough stance on asylum seekers.
In his maiden speech to parliament in 2008 Mr Morrison thanked Hillsong pastors Brian Houston and Leigh Cameron for their “great assistance”. Hillsong, like Horizon, is a Pentecostal mega-church. It was founded by Houston and his wife Bobbie in Sydney in 1983 and claims to attract 100,000 people around the world every week.
“Growing up in a Christian home, I made a commitment to my faith at an early age,” Mr Morrison said in his maiden speech. “My personal faith in Jesus Christ is not a political agenda.
“In recent times it has become fashionable to negatively stereotype those who profess their Christian faith in public life as ‘extreme’ and to suggest that such faith has no place in the political debate of this country.
“Australia is not a secular country — it is a free country. This is a nation where you have the freedom to follow any belief system you choose. Secularism is just one. It has no greater claim than any other on our society.”
Hillsong, and therefore Pentecostal Christianity, has long been on the radar of the Liberal Party.
In 2005 the then NSW Premier Bob Carr, Treasurer Peter Costello and federal ministers Kevin Andrews, Alexander Downer and Peter Dutton attended Hillsong’s annual conference at the Sydney Superdome, along with another 20,000 people.
Coercion Code - "Dark Times are upon us" 
Bard and his wife started at Paradise AOG aka Influencers or as we say it influenzers, as it’s a satanic virus that kills the True Word of God, and allows satan’s gospel to flourish. Yes the very home of Ashley and Jane Evans who have allowed all sorts of abominations into the church since it began to go seriously apostate, such as Ben 10, Pagan easter egg hunts, and all the pagan trimmings of christmas, Yep getting your piccie taken with santa is big there . They love to put on & gloat about their yearly fashion shows, with the one eyed satanic theme, Alice in Wonderland theme, and clothes that the bible itself does not approve of. They have given away such things as wiis, ipods, phones, and other electronic goods to entice the younger generation there. They had no prob in allowing one of their flock Guy Sebastian to go on Australian Idol , and did all they could to help him win by getting christians Aussie wide to vote for him. All done in the hope he would help bring people into their church by the thousands. Because to them success is all about the numbers and the millions of dollars flowing in to the church, and not about the true Word of God. Guy winning idol took him into they very heart of satan’s den via the music industry, where bit by bit in order for him to become famous and wealthy he had to shed his christian image and values, like any singer who comes out of the church and into the industry does. Satan aint stupid. He will always offer a person fame and fortune,but he will demand their allegiance in return. Paradise AOG yrs ago, took away the Cross at the front of the church, saying it detracted from the message they were preaching. If the Cross detracted away from the message they were trying to convey, then it goes to show their message did not line up with the bible, because the very essence of the bible is the MESSAGE OF THE CROSS. Ashley Evans said his sermons were scratching the ITCH people had, fulfilling the very scripture from 2 Timothy 4:3.. They no longer preach about sin, because they don’t want to offend anyone. This is the same church though who crucified us for every sin we did ,and every sin they perceived we did. They hold annual conferences where all the world wide apostate preachers come to share their apostasy, to help make carnal minded christians. Their social media is an ode to themselves, boasting about what their right and left hand are doing,and they lap up all the praise given to them by their loyal band of followers, like a dog lapping up his water on a hot day. They brag about how many people get saved through them, completely forgetting its a race to be run, and that many who say the so called sinners prayer, never go on with their walk in God. Their entertainment is very much like Hillsongs, in how they dance, what they sing, and the lights and set designs etc etc. So the above is all about Paradise AOG, the very church that Brad and his wife Alison began at. in Aust. They are friends with all the movers and shakers of the apostate church in Aust and world wide. Now this is a conference about to be undertaken at Horizon church. https://horizonchurchsydney.com/conference/. Notice the boasting of the credentials of the speakers. Guess in this day of relevance these type of churches think its more important to give themselves the glory for what they do. Look at what they are allowing in the children’s conference. Disney dress ups. Never mind that Walt Disney was an illuminati pedo. Never mind that his movies are full of witchcraft and characters are heavily into it,, and the amount of occultic symbolism is rife in his movies. Never mind that his movies have long been used for mind control programming. Yes God certainly wants little children to be dressing up as their fav occultic Disney character.. Then there is the rest of the activities they have planned for little children,because it’s all about entertaining them these days, than instilling the Word of God. So having looked at Horizon churches website,it’s obvious their brand of christianity is the same as Paradise’s AOG and Hillsong and other churches like these.
No wonder an Aussie pollie and his family would find these sorts of churches to their liking.
This line of our comment Yes God certainly wants little children to be dressing up as their fav occultic Disney character. Should of had a big NOT at the end of it. Because God would most certainly NOT want children to be dressing up as their fav Disney character, as he knows full well what Disney is really all about.