(CP) Months after vowing to tell their story in the aftermath of a sex and leadership scandal that led to his firing from Hillsong Church NYC more than two years ago, Carl Lentz and his wife, Laura, are set to give their first public interview in a new docuseries set to premiere on FX in May called "The Secrets of Hillsong."
Scout Productions, an Emmy and Academy Award-winning multimedia company known for creating content such as "Queer Eye" for Netflix and a documentary called "Equal," about "early LGBTQ heroes" according to their website, first revealed in October 2021 that it was "currently producing a documentary on the Hillsong Church" but did not reveal any further details.
The name of the project was recently revealed in a Variety report which notes that it is being created in partnership with Vanity Fair Studios and will be based on Vanity Fair's reporting on Hillsong.
In 2021, Vanity Fair published a report featuring interviews with a number of Hillsong volunteers and former congregants. That report included a revelation by Anna Crenshaw, who is the daughter of Victory Church Senior Pastor Ed Crenshaw, that in 2018 Jason Mays, a Hillsong staff administrator, volunteer singer and the son of the church's head of human resources, sexually assaulted her at a social gathering while she attended Hillsong College in Australia. It took a serious fight by Anna and her father to hold Mays, who is still listed as creative director and head of sync at Hillsong Music, accountable.
"Along with unprecedented access to Carl and Laura Lentz, 'The Secrets of Hillsong' offers new insights into how decades of scandal and corruption went unchecked within the church, and more importantly, ... what it meant for the community left in their rubble," Joel Chiodi, an executive producer of the docuseries told Variety.
"Uncovering stories that contend with power and the people who hold it is core to Vanity Fair's mission," Agnes Chu, president of Condé Nast Entertainment told the publication.
"The Secrets of Hillsong" which is set to premiere on FX on May 19 at 10 p.m. ET with two episodes, followed by two more episodes on May 26, comes after another docuseries that features reporting by The Christian Post billed as "Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed" which premiered on Discovery+ on March 24, 2022, just a day after the megachurch's founder Brian Houston resigned over allegations of misconduct.
Lentz was among the most highly paid staffers at Hillsong Church, according to a trove of financial documents first made public on March 9 by Andrew Wilkie, an Independent member of the Australian Parliament.
In 2016 alone, according to the records, Lentz was collecting pay and benefits in excess of $330,000 annually including $110,000 in housing allowance. He also earned untold sums in speaking honorariums at Hillsong and non-Hillsong churches and book royalties.
Lentz, who recently joined Transformation Church led by Pastor Michael Todd in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a "strategist," was fired from his post at Hillsong NYC in November 2020 over "leadership issues" and moral failures, including being unfaithful to his wife.
© The Christian Post
