The head of Pentecostal mega-church Hillsong has dropped US preacher Mark Driscoll from the lineup of the church’s 2015 Australian and UK conferences, saying furore around his controversial sermons – including some describing women as “penis houses” – would be an “unnecessary distraction”.

Brian Houston said on Sunday after “personal interaction” with Driscoll he had decided to rescind his invitation to the events, the Australian version of which is expected to draw 30,000 this month.

Driscoll resigned from Seattle’s Mars Hill church in October after its board found him “guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner”.

But uproar in recent days has focused on the content of his so-called “testosterone gospel”, including one sermon in which he told churchgoers: “Ultimately, God created you and it is His penis. You are simply borrowing it for a while.

“Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife. And when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home,” he said.



In pseudonymous posts on an online forum in 2000 Driscoll also wrote the US had become a “pussified nation” where boys were being raised by “bitter penis-envying burned feministed single mothers”.

A petition against his appearance at the church’s conferences in Australia and the UK had drawn nearly 3,000 signatures, and an online activist group in Australia had suggested Driscoll be barred entry into the country, as was serial domestic abuser and boxer Floyd Mayweather.

Houston said Driscoll “held some views and made some statements that cannot be defended” and that his 30-minute scheduled appearance “had the potential to divert attention from the real purpose” of the five-day event.

“It is my hope that Mark and I will be able to speak in person in the coming weeks to discuss some of the issues that have been raised, what – if anything – he has learned, and for me to understand better how he is progressing in both his personal and professional life,” he said.

“The teachings of Christ are based on love and forgiveness, and I will not write off Mark as a person simply because of the things that people have said about him, a small minority of people signing a petition or statements he has made many years ago for which he has since repeatedly apologised.



“However, I do not want unnecessary distractions during our conference,” he said.