Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris' Sin Against Cindy Clemishire Shows the Church's Continued Failure in Dealing with Sexual Abuse
How many more victims and fallen ministries does it require?
I wrote in a RedState article about the Justin Timberlake DUI arrest that it was either a slow news week or the “powers” wanted to distract from Dementia Joe Biden and his freeze theater. The same can also be said of religious scandals suddenly coming to the fore, particularly if they think it will make a certain former president and candidate whose name rhymes with “Bump,” look bad.
But in the case of the latest church scandal involving Robert Morris, the pastor of Texas megachurch Gateway, it only serves to make the organized American church look negligent and criminal. Because to be perfectly clear about it, it has been and continues to be.
On a blog called The Wartburg Watch, a woman named Cindy Clemishire was finally able to tell her story of the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of Robert Morris, who at the time was an itinerant preach in his 20s. Clemishire was only 12-years-old, and Morris’ abuse of her went on for four and a half years.
In 1981, Cindy and her family met Robert Morris at a youth revival in Tulsa. He was a twenty-year-old traveling evangelist married to Debbie, his current wife. Cindy was eleven years old. Her family was involved in many evangelistic events, and they were active in church. Morris was invited to do a youth revival in her hometown of Hominy, Oklahoma. After that, he began to regularly preach at their church on Sundays. He would often stay at her home and sometimes bring his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh. Robert and Debbie Morris quickly became family friends, and Cindy viewed them as safe and friendly. Their families would often go on trips with each other.
All that changed for Cindy on 12/25/1982. Yes, Christmas night. The Morris family came to visit and spend some time there. Cindy sat in the back seat of the car with Robert. He asked her to visit him in his room that night. She shared a room with her sister. Cindy, an innocent twelve-year-old girl, movingly described what she was wearing. She was wearing pink pajamas with bloomer pants. She wore underwear underneath. She had a snap-up robe on. I laughed. I used to dress for bed similarly.
She thought nothing of visiting a family friend in their bedroom. He told her to lie down on her back and touched her stomach. He told her to close her eyes. Then he touched her breasts and felt under her panties. He warned her:
Never tell anyone about this because it will ruin everything.
She returned to her bedroom and didn’t tell her sister what happened.
Morris and Clemishire’s family remained close, and Morris continued to molest her until she was 17. Clemishire was able to confide the abuse to a friend, and finally disclosed to her family. By that time, Morris was pastor of Shady Grove Church, which ultimately became the first campus of Gateway Church.
In a statement released by Gateway Church over the weekend, Morris admitted to what he described as "inappropriate sexual behavior" with a "young lady" for several years in his twenties.
Clemishire said his words downplay what really happened.
No kidding. In their statements, Morris and the Gateway Church elders use the terms, “inappropriate relationship,” and “young lady” as though Clemishire was of the age of consent instead of a pre-teen child.
Clemishire said she's spoken about what happened for years, even having an attorney contact the church in 2005 to request reimbursement for counseling, but this was the first time the details have appeared publicly.
"For the first time, it felt a relief that the world was seeing the truth," she said.
In his statement, Morris described encounters that included "kissing and petting … not intercourse."
As if that makes this any less horrible. He molested a 12-year-old girl, then repeated the evil for almost five years. In her post, Clemishire said she eventually reported the abuse to her father who demanded Morris be removed from his pastoral position at Shady Grove. According to Morris, he did step down for two years and in 1989, made a return the pulpit with the blessing of the elders and Clemishire’s father. In a statement, Clemishire made it clear that her father did not give Morris his blessing. But somehow Morris still ended up as a lead pastor to a congregation where he manufactured a fake testimony and persona and spent almost 40 years building it into a megachurch ministry. Frankly, it turns my stomach.
Here’s why.
The late Reverend Jack Hayford was the Apostolic Elder for Gateway Church. In the late ‘80s through mid-90s, I was an active member of The Church on the Way under Jack Hayford’s teaching. Hayford was a man of integrity who rightly divided the truth of God’s word. I learned much about the power of worship under his teachings and glean from them to this day. Hayford went on to found The King’s College (now University), was the president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel denomination, and had international and eternal impact on the Body of Christ. I went to Hayford’s memorial service before I left California, and Robert Morris was one of the people offering statements. Morris was a spiritual son of Hayford’s and in video teachings that the two did together, Hayford acknowledged as much. So, it is disturbing that Morris was in close proximity to a man who I would consider in league with the Reverend Billy Graham yet it elicited no shame, guilt, or change in Morris. But Jesus himself said that even the very elect would be deceived in the last days, and we are seeing this play out not just with Morris and his grievous sins, but with Tony Evans, Ravi Zacharias, and too many others.
Morris and his Gateway Church is also one of the flagship churches and overseers of the Association of Related Churches (ARC). Reverend Chris Hodges, senior pastor at the Church of the Highlands, spearheads ARC, and Robert Morris was a named overseer for the Church of the Highlands—until he resigned after the allegations broke. My husband and I have attended the Church of the Highlands (COTH) for over a year now, and I saw the statement on one of their social feeds, but somehow cannot locate it again. Wade Burleson, who is a friend of Cindy Clemishire and has walked with her through this horrendous process, posted the statement as well as the former designation on the COTH website—now scrubbed:
I can appreciate the quick action of the people tasked with oversight of the church to where we feel called. But once again, the fact that Hodges and others at COTH had close proximity to Morris and did ministry with him, yet did not pinpoint his decades-long deception, is equally troubling. This type of fallout is one of the reasons I avoided the megachurch model after moving on from The Church on the Way.
Since the statement by the Gateway Church elders, they have lawyered up and become radio silent. Having knowledge of these type of things, this is SOP and smart. The elders’ enablement of Morris’ cover up and pretense for almost 40 years has already cost Clemishire greatly, not just spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally, but financially. I expect now it will cost Morris and Gateway Church, one way or another—as it should. God is a God of justice, and Cindy Clemishire has waited far too long for it.
But this is not a megachurch or a Catholic Church problem. It’s a church problem. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. Megachurches just have a bigger space to pile the dirt that ultimately gets exposed. When I was a pre-teen, I attended a little church of probably 50 people, with a pastor who was a pedophile. He targeted young girls around my age, lured them into his office, and molested them. His wife was so disgusted with him that she pulled an Al Green, and poured a boiling pot of water over him. I didn’t understand all that was going on at that time, but I knew something was wrong; which is why when I started high school, I stopped going. As far as I know, he continued in his evil ways until his death. That is the sadness: whether tiny church or megachurch, this type of sin is either swept under the rug or handled horribly; and the victims, and the cause of Christ, ends up carrying the damage.