OP-ED: From Complicit Wife to Guilty Elders, Robert Morris’ Church Covers Up Predations of Pervy Pastor
Robert Morris has permanently resigned from the pastorate at Gateway Church, the Texas multisite and 100,000-member behemoth, after news broke that he molested a 12-year-old child for years.
While this behavior alone is worthy of having his hands and his member permanently separated from his body and his body from his head, multiple parties have been complicit in covering up the molestation over the last 35 years. Rather than representing Christ amid this great sin, they have instead draped themselves in the devil’s cloak, abusing her further by ensuring her skin would cry out long after Morris laid his last hand on her.
Resignation?
The fact that Morris was allowed to resign rather than be publicly terminated is prophetically pathetic- the direct consequence of weak-willed men and women. If there was ever a fireable offense, this is it, and it is only the act of cowards that allowed him to part on his own terms. Rather than the elders accept his letter of resignation, they should have burned it on livestream.
We await to see what sort of severance package Morris will be bestowed with, and whether or not it will be seven figures or eight.
The wife is guilty?
According to Wartburg Watch, following Morris’ growing pressure and insistence that he and Cindy Clemishire take their pedophilic “relationship” to the next level, Cindy told a friend about the years of molestation, which resulted in both families knowing what had transpired between them:
Her father was angry and called the head pastor of Shady Grove Church (which eventually became Gateway’s Grand Prairie Campus) to report Morris. He demanded that Morris get out of ministry, or he would call the sheriff. Morris reportedly stepped down from ministry for two years. Cindy received a call from Debbie Morris, who told Cindy that she “forgave her.” ….Cindy believes that Robert Morris might have told Debbie it was “Cindy’s fault!'”
Debbie Morris knew about the sexual molestation of a child and said nothing about it for 35 years. Rather than bring her husband to justice by being a Good Samaritan, Debbie instead chose the role of Bad Enabler, concealing his crimes and giving the beaten-up traveler on the side of the road a good kick further into the brush, keeping the body hidden from any who might seek to rescue her.
Pastor Debbie needs to be removed from the church and put to public scrutiny. Her culpability is sickening, her actions are nauseating, and she is without excuse.
Disqualified a long time ago
In the church’s revised statement they state, “The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’ extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with a ‘young lady’ and not an abuse of a 12-year-old child.”
Even if it was true that he *only* had an extramarital affair with an adult woman (though so far, it looks like his proclivities run much younger), he still should never have been restored to the pastorate. This is a one and done thing. He should have been excised years ago, not going “to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.”
Church leadership knew
Wartburch Watch reports Cindy sought a financial settlement to help reimburse her for her counseling but Gateway refused because she wouldn’t sign an NDA. In a letter shared with the TRR, Cindy further explains:
I have been seeking this for years. My family and I have gone to leaders of very prominent churches and well-known ministries with this information, hoping that someone would hold him accountable and remove him from ministry leadership.
The leadership at Gateway received actual notice of this crime in 2005 when I sent an email directly to Robert Morris’ Gateway email address. Former Gateway elder Tom Lane received and responded to my email, acknowledging that the sexual abuse began on December 25, 1982, when I was 12 years old.
Again in 2007, my then attorney Gentner Drummond (the current Attorney General of Oklahoma) sent a letter to Robert Morris with the hope that he would help reimburse me for the thousands of dollars I had expended in counseling as a result of this abuse.
His attorney acknowledged the dates as well and then attempted to blame me for the abuse. At the very least, both the Gateway pastor and at least one elder had specific notice that I was sexually abused beginning when I was 12 years old. Gateway had the information but intentionally decided to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wanted them to believe.
Stupidity or incompetence?
The initial letter from Gateway states that “the elders of Shady Grove Church (again, which became Gateway’s Grand Prairie Campus) closely administered the two-year restoration process.” Put another way, these elders knew he molested and abused a child.
They must have known who the victim was. Are we are to believe that the church elders spent two years restoring Morris, giving him mentorship and “Freedom Ministry Counseling’ and no one knew the name and identity of his paramour? That they knew no details about who he was fondling?
Unless these are literally the stupidest and most out-of-touch elders in the history of Christendom, they could have adequately responded to this matter by doing a modicum of diligence to discover whose pants he had his hands in, so either they’re liars or incompetent.
Gateway Church limits scope of investigation
In their recent statement, Gateway Church writes: “The Board has retained the law firm of Haynes & Boone, LLP, to conduct an independent, thorough, and professional review of the report of past abuse to ensure we have a complete understanding of the events from 1982-1987.”
Why only those years? Morris has already shown himself to be an inveterate liar, so why is this investigation limited in scope? The elders previously wrote, “Since the resolution of the 35-year-old matter, there have been no other moral failures,” but they clearly don’t know that. A week before this story broke they would’ve insisted he’s pure as the driven snow, so why wouldn’t the investigation span 35 years of his tenure?
Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose that there is only one victim. While we can at least understand that a pastor might have a sexual dalliance with another adult, and can see how a one night stand or brief affair with an adult can happen- two consenting adults feeling a way about each other and then acting upon those feelings once the tantalizing pressure gets too much- we can’t say the same for sex crimes against kids.
Grooming and luring a child for sexual activity over a period of years, touching them over and over while pathetically begging for sex, is evidence of a wholly seared conscience. It signifies a black heart filled with bile and demon droppings. It is a soul that is not too far gone for Christ to reach, but they are truly unreachable by any other means.
Why this firm?
Cindy Clemishire has a similar concern that we do about the firm hired by Gateway, writing:
Also, why have they retained a law firm that specializes in “crisis management?” Their own website states, “…it is critical to have a highly skilled and experienced legal team able to quickly assemble and focus on the immediate and long-term strategies necessary to mitigate financial and reputational loss and stabilize in a crisis situation and to coordinate the efforts of specialized consultants to mitigate harm. This does not appear to be an independent investigation, and this deeply concerns me.”
Yea and amen!
Given this level of satanic mimicry and well-documented ability to boldly lie and cover up his evil deeds, Gateway Church needs the mother of all investigations, possibly by an organization like GRACE (disclosure, which we are financial donors to). The investigation needs to cover his entire tenure and clean house from the attic to the cellar to 14 feet below the cistern.
Morris abused Clemishire, but she has also been abused by those seeking to act in Jesus’ name, who should have sought justice and healing for her rather than their desire for self-preservation and the demands of their unregenerate and impure hearts.
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That this took 35 years is unbelievable.
This is why nondenominational/Baptist churches should be avoided at all costs because all too often there is a distinct lack of accountability and the pastor wind up becoming a protestant pope. What’s funny to me is most or all have elders yet they don’t know what that word means in Greek so they borrowed part of the Presbyterian system but don’t apply directly and have nobody above them the way Presbyterian Church does.
Clearly the Presbyterian model one offers the best protection to congregants among the three forms of church governance.
Why should we be surprised as the truth is probably worse and there are probably other girls who will come forward. There’s also a lot of other megachurch pastors doing the same thing as this happened right after Tony Evans and I’ll bet it’s worse than we know about him on top of his heretical teachings.
Hey Mr Protestia writer, your op-od is one of the most vile things I’ve ever read.
You’re mouth is dripping with venom.
We all know what’s happened now, we know what the victim has gone through now.
You sir wrote this piece with zero hope of any healing or restoration. It made me sick to the stomach as you found any adjective to embellish and heap more guilt upon guilt.
Many need to repent of what happened in this sorry situation. You sir also need to repent and find forgiveness for this toxic vile letter you call an op ed.
Greg Tilley
I agree with you..