It was a Goliath and Goliath story. Channel Nine's nightly current affairs program versus Australia's best known mega-church, head to head, in the Twitter arena.
A Current Affair last week aired a 16-minute special report detailing explosive revelations that the controversial Hillsong Church made a lot of money but, like every other church in Australia, paid no tax.
Hillsong was making a concert movie set to rake in millions of dollars tax free. Parishioners regularly gave up to 10 per cent of their income in a practice known as tithing. The church was making it so easy to collect tax free dollars through tithing that it was even developing a giving app.
ACA said the church had not responded to requests for comment, a claim denied by Hillsong in a statement the next day that called the segment "tabloid trash".
A day after that, Hillsong founder Brian Houston laid down a boldfaced challenge to ACA reporter Ben McCormack.
@benmccormack9 Hey.. How about coming to have a coffee with me one day? You got the guts to do that? Just you and me.— Brian Houston (@BrianCHouston) April 24, 2015
The proposed coffee date sounded more like the pastoral equivalent of "Do you wanna take this outside?"
McCormack wasn't backing down.
@BrianCHouston love to meet. Why not do an interview on camera & answer some questions too? You got the guts to do that?— Ben McCormack (@BenMcCormack9) April 24, 2015
Houston shot back:
@BenMcCormack9 The Q's are not the issue. It's your skewered editing & underhanded tactics that are the problem. So no..!— Brian Houston (@BrianCHouston) April 24, 2015
McCormack repeated his offer of an interview before Houston repeated his mano-e-mano cappuccino challenge. McCormack suggested that, like Hillsong followers, the ACA team "lived to give".
A bitter stalemate ensued.
On Monday, not content with having had the last word only once, McCormack tweeted:
@BrianCHouston "credibility"?? Hillsong issuing false hysterical misleading press statements. It's you with the credibility problem Brian.— Ben McCormack (@BenMcCormack9) April 27, 2015
Houston may be frantically trying to come up with his own put-down. But maybe he has taken another tack to win this stoush.
As he tweeted the day before it began:
Love is a very compelling argument!!— Brian Houston (@BrianCHouston) April 23, 2015