Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris resigns amid sex abuse allegations

“Regretfully, earlier than Friday, June 14, the elders didn’t have all of the information of the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the sufferer, together with her age on the time and the size of the abuse,” the board stated, including that the elders had identified about an extramarital relationship however thought it was with a “younger girl.”

“For the sake of the sufferer, we’re grateful this case has been uncovered,” it added.

Morris’s identify was faraway from the church’s webpage itemizing its management late Monday, and his son James is now listed because the church’s senior chief.

In a press release, Clemishire, 54, stated that whereas she is grateful that Morris is not a pastor at Gateway, she is upset that he was not terminated. She additionally disputed the board’s assertion that it had not been conscious of her age on the time of the alleged abuse, saying she had instructed a church official and a board member particulars of the occasions in 2005 and 2007.

“Gateway had the knowledge however deliberately determined to embrace the false narrative Robert Morris wished them to imagine,” Clemishire stated.

The board of elders didn’t reply to a request for remark Tuesday night time. The regulation agency employed by the board to analyze the alleged abuses, Haynes and Boone, confirmed it “has been engaged to conduct an unbiased investigation.”

Morris didn’t reply to a request for remark, however he has instructed the Christian Submit that in his early 20s, he was “concerned in inappropriate sexual habits with a younger girl in a house I used to be staying.” Morris stated there was “kissing and petting and never intercourse, nevertheless it was flawed.” Morris stated he confessed and repented in 1987, “submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the younger girl’s father” and was suggested to take a break from the ministry. He returned in 1989, he stated, with their blessing.

Clemishire’s allegations first emerged on the spiritual weblog Wartburg Watch on Friday. Afterward, she additionally described the alleged abuse to the Dallas Morning Information, saying that Morris was an in depth household buddy and a touring preacher when he stayed at her dwelling in 1982. On Christmas night time that yr, Morris invited her to his room, she instructed the paper. After asking her to lie down on her again, he allegedly touched her inappropriately, and warned her in opposition to reporting the occasion. She stated the abuse continued for 4½ years.

Morris would go on to discovered Gateway Church within the Dallas space in 2000, beginning with 30 members and rising the ministry to an evangelistic church with a couple of dozen places and greater than 100,000 attending every weekend, in keeping with the church’s web site.

Morris was amongst a bunch of evangelical pastors and leaders who served on an unofficial religion advisory group for the Trump administration. The group, whose members fluctuated, would come to the White Home for briefings and pose with Trump for photographs. Whereas their precise affect on coverage wasn’t clear, the general public photos have been highly effective for conservative Christians who had felt unseen by earlier presidents. Trump was amongst a roundtable of high White Home officers in 2020 at Gateway, the place he referred to as Morris and one other church chief “nice folks with an ideal popularity.”

Michelle Boorstein contributed to this report.