The pastor of a Texas megachurch and former advisor to Donald Trump has resigned from his ministry after an admission to claims he sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
Robert Morris, 62, the founder and senior pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, which claims a weekly attendance of 100,000, faced the allegations from former family friend Cindy Clemishire.
Morris had previously admitted to ‘inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady’ without specifying the age of Clemishire, who says the abuse went from 1982 to 1987, when she was between the ages of 12 and 16.
Gateway Church’s Board of Elders sent out a statement confirming they accepted Morris’ resignation Tuesday. Morris has made no public statement.
The church had previously backed Morris, saying he had been ‘open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago’ but in their statement, now call the behavior unacceptable after discovering the age of the victim.
‘The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with ‘a young lady’ and not abuse of a 12-year-old child,’ they said.
‘Even though it occurred many years before Gateway was established, as leaders of the church, we regret that we did not have the information that we now have.’
As a response, the church is hiring an independent lawfirm to review the accusations, according to Fox 4.
‘We are heartbroken and appalled by what has come to light over the past few days, and we express our deep sympathy to the victim and her family. For the sake of the victim, we are thankful this situation has been exposed. We know many have been affected by this, we understand that you are hurting, and we are very sorry.’
Clemishire, who went public with her accusations and revealed her identity Friday, said that Morris was a traveling preacher when she met her and her family at their church in Oklahoma in 1981.
The two families – including Morris’ wife and son – became close, and Clemishire, now 54, alleged that Morris’ abuse began when he stayed at her family home in Tulsa on Christmas 1982.
She describes a scene in which Morris asked her to come to his room and speak with him, asking her to lay on his bed.
Morris began to touch her inappropriately, with Clemishire alleging he touched her stomach, then her breast and then under her pants.
‘I remember vividly everything I was wearing and how the pajamas felt. They were light pink, and it was a little top with bloomers, and I had on underwear and bloomers and the little top and a robe that snapped up over the top,’ she said.
Clemishire adds that after the alleged abuse occurs, Morris ‘told me I could never tell anyone, because it would ruin everything.’
She says that he would continue to isolate her and abuse her for the next four and a half years before she finally spoke out, first to a family friend and then her parents.
Clemishire’s father demanded Morris be removed from ministry and she claims he did for two years in order to undergo ‘restoration.’ He returned to preaching in 1989.
Morris, for his part, admitted to some wrongdoing, though he never admits to Clemishire being underage at the time in a statement to The Christian Post on Saturday.
‘When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,’ he said.
He claims to have ‘repented’ in March of 1987 when the accusations became public and said he received ‘counseling and freedom ministry.’
Morris says that he and his wife met with Clemishire and her family in October of 1989 and ‘asked their forgiveness, and they graciously forgave me.’
He also alleges that when he returned to the ministry, he did so with the ‘full blessing’ of Clemishire’s father.
Clemishire told the Dallas Morning News that this is not quite the truth.
‘Of course we want to forgive, we’re called to forgive. But he’s never had anyone’s blessing in my family to be back in the ministry,’ she said.
‘We don’t believe anyone that’s done anything like this should be an overseer to anyone in any industry, but especially in the church.’
She also doesn’t believe Morris has ever really repented for his abuse and his statement proves that.
‘I don’t think that it’s repentant when someone calls a 12-year-old a ‘young lady’ and tries to just dismiss what happened as just some heavy petting,’ Clemishire said.
‘I don’t believe that’s repentance. There’s no child on Earth that any person should ever do that to. It’s just unacceptable. There’s zero excuse.’
‘He didn’t come forward and confess. He was turned in,’ she said. ‘When someone is turned in, what are they sorry for? Are they sorry they got caught? Or are they truly repentant of what they did?’
The pair have tangled over this in court in the past, as in 2005 she sued him and wanted him to pay $50,000 to cover therapy costs.
Morris, through an attorney, accused her of ‘seeking out’ the pastor’s sexual advances and tried to get her to sign an NDA in exchange for $25,000. She did not take the deal.
The pastor was a part of Trump’s ‘evangelical advisory board’ for his 2016 presidential campaign and visited Gateway in 2020 for a panel discussion.
‘At this time we are not granting interviews or providing additional statements,’ Lawrence Swicegood, executive director of Gateway Media, said in a statement.
Clemishire has hired Boz Tchividjian to represent her in a new potential lawsuit, according to WFAA. Tchividjian is evangelist Billy Graham’s grandson.
‘My hope and prayer is for all of this to be good. For the church, for God’s glory, and for other victims to find freedom,’ she said.
Morris was never criminally charged and the statute of limitations on such a case has long since ran out.