The current relationship isn’t explicitly spelled out, but based on the information we have available, it’s safe to assume they are closely aligned.įor some, the distance between these two churches is enough to not let the policies of Hillsong effect how they feel about Zoe. There’s also footage of Chad Veach speaking at a branch of Hillsong, so the two are still tied together in some way even if they have different names. Are Zoe and Hillsong The Same?Īccording to the pastor of Zoe Church, Chad Veach, the Zoe Church was modeled based on Hillsong. Until he refutes this, we’ll continue discussing the issue about his relationship with the church because that’s the information we have. If he doesn’t actually attend this church, he could end all this controversy by simply saying that. He is incredibly open about this and I’m not clear why we’re being told we’re incorrect. But no, he defends the church and doesn’t refute claims that he’s part of it, so it’s safe to assume he’s a member of the Zoe Church until he says otherwise. If he didn’t attend this church, I would think his argument would be to say that instead of defending it. He’s also directly responded to criticisms of Zoe Church, claiming it’s not homophobic. This is well documented in numerous places, including Vox, Refinery29, and People.
So let’s talk about it.īased on available information, Chris Pratt seems to attend the Zoe church in LA. One of James Gunn’s assertions is that fans don’t actually know what church Chris Pratt goes to. Now that we’ve got the accusations of generalizations about the community out of the way, let’s get down to the details of the controversy. Please don’t attempt to dismiss everyone’s concerns because you, personally, happen to be fine with it. You’re totally valid feeling how you do, but so are we. Your ability to look past these issues is not universal, however. If you’re a queer person and you’re totally fine with Chris Pratt, that’s great for you. There are very valid concerns coming from the a lot of us regarding Chris Pratt’s church, and when I discuss the ‘queer community,’ it’s those people I am specifically referring to. That’s a perfectly normal part of any large community of people. We can and we do disagree on many things. When I reference the ‘queer community’ in this article, it doesn’t include every single member. Disclaimer: Not All Queer People Are The Same I’m sure something new will pop up at some point that isn’t included here, but right now this is a general summary of how this controversy has unfolded the past few years and why we feel the way that we do. I’ve attempted to address all the common arguments that come up each time with sources. To save some time and energy, I’m dropping all of the information about it in one place for a quick and easy reference when this inevitably comes back around again. Everything we’ve discussed before gets sucked into a memory hole somewhere and we have to go through it again and again. We do so each and every time, but it’s getting incredibly repetitive. This is becoming a pattern and it’s putting the burden on the queer community to defend our position. It’s even more exhausting seeing tons of heterosexual celebrities jumping in to protect him while dismissing concerns from the queer community. It’s exhausting having all the Chris Pratt controversy brought up again and again every few months. The difficulties between Chris Pratt and the queer community are not new, but they’ve been brought to the forefront yet again by a viral post and James Gunn stepping in to insert himself into the controversy.