Tony Cummings reports on the Nashville-based worship artist BENJAMIN WILLIAM HASTINGS

Benjamin William Hastings

With the dramatic fall in credibility and commerciality of Australia's Hillsong mega church and its youth culture offspring Hillsong United, worship artist Benjamin William Hastings has emerged from the post-Brian Houston rubble to deliver Cross Rhythms radio hits like "While I'm In The Wind", "A Father's Blessing" and "Feels Like A Blessing". Once one of the main men in Hillsong United, in 2022 the Irish-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter went solo and released a song-packed album. Talking to CBN news about the 25-song 'Benjamin William Hastings' he said, "Some of the songs have been in existence in some form for about 10 years, but I really started working on the record about three years ago. I guess I just wanted it to show all the sides of myself. As I wrote one song, I was like, 'Well, I can't write that and not write about this.' I was wrestling with God. It's almost like the whole album is almost oversharing because I was like, this is how I'm feeling. If I can just be entirely transparent about it, maybe it's going to help someone else."

'Benjamin William Hastings' is, the songsmith believes, a message of hope and resolve. "There's a line right at the start of it that says if faith is a fight, I'm going to win. And I remember writing that in kind of the worst sort of place. But I was like, I'm going to get there. I'm going to get through this. The resolve is, this valley's not going to kill me. Like, I'm going to get through the other side."

One of the first singles from the album was titled "So Help Me God". Hastings remembered, "I just sat at the piano and I started singing, 'I've got to get through this, I'm gonna get through this so help me God.' I've always been like, I'd love to write a song about God being the pilgrim in reverse," he continued. The "pilgrim in reverse" lyric comes from the "So Help Me God" song. Hastings went on, "As we spend our lives pilgrimaging towards and ascending the mountain, trying to be closer to what it is to be Christ-like, isn't it beautiful that while every other god puts themselves up on this high pedestal and said you could never be like me, our God, Jesus, came down the mountain like a pilgrim in reverse, and met us at the bottom and then helps us walk all the way back up."