Morris, a Donald Trump ally, admitted to "inappropriate sexual behavior" with a "young lady"

Jun 16, 2024

Robert Morris, a megachurch pastor who used his reputation to help Donald Trump get elected, admitted to sexually abusing a child for a “few years” beginning when she was only 12. He was in his twenties at the time of the attacks. Morris is now downplaying the severity of what he did by referring to it merely as “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.”

Before going into the details of the allegations, it’s important to understand Morris’ standing in the evangelical world.

When Trump was trying to convince conservative Christians to support him in the summer of 2016, he released a list of his “evangelical executive advisory board,” a collection of mostly white, mostly male Christians who would be guiding him in the months ahead. That list included the likes of James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Ralph Reed.

It also included Robert Morris, the senior pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas.

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Morris is the sort of person who claims his prayers can cure women’s infertility and that it’s “scientifically impossible to be an atheist.” He even prayed over Trump in the White House in 2019.

In 2020, Trump visited Gateway Church for an event on race relations and the economy. During the event, he thanked Morris and other church leaders by saying they were “Great people with a great reputation.”

The reason Morris amassed the sort of power that allowed him to be that close to the president is because he was able to hide his own actions for decades.

According to the Wartburg Watch, which first broke this story, Morris was a traveling evangelist in 1981 when he visited Tulsa, Oklahoma and met a family with an 11-year-old daughter named Cindy Clemishire. (Because she’s gone public with her story, I’m naming her here.)

Morris, along with his wife and son, stayed with Cindy’s family frequently. They all became very close.

On Christmas Day, 1982, he allegedly invited Cindy to come to his bedroom where he proceeded to touch her beneath her clothing. He then told her, “Never tell anyone about this because it will ruin everything.”

As a little girl, she didn’t know any better.

Part of the reason Morris was able to get away with it, and the way he was able to get so much alone time with the child, was by telling his wife he was “counseling” the little girl.

This sort of behavior continued for years, through 1987.

At one point, Cindy told a friend what had happened and the news came back to her own father, who “demanded that Morris get out of ministry.” Morris stepped down for two years. When he finally returned to preaching, he began the church that would later become Gateway Church.

It wasn’t until Cindy was much older that she realized the extent to which she had been abused and just how inappropriate (and criminal) it was.

In 2005, she obtained an attorney to file a civil lawsuit. Robert Morris’s attorney responded by implying that they believed it was her fault because she was “flirtatious.” She asked for $50,000 (which was not much in my estimation.) They responded that they would give her $25,000 if she signed an NDA. She refused, so she can now tell her side of the story.

If that story is true, it’s appalling (but not surprising) that the attorney blamed the child for what Morris did to her. No 12-year-old girl can legally consent to sex with an adult. She was not flirting with him.

(Interestingly enough, in one of Morris’ books, he writes about how he stepped down from ministry in his mid-20s—a time period that coincides with when Cindy’s father demanded he get out. The book, however, says God told Morris to take time away from the pulpit to deal with his “pride.&rdquo

When reporter Leonardo Blair of the Christian Post asked Morris for comment about these allegations, the church responded with a confession of sorts. But they’re all acting like it’s not that big of a deal.

“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,” Morris said in a statement to The Christian Post after Gateway Church was asked about the allegations.

“In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area,” Morris added.

He explained that he returned to ministry in March of 1989, two years after his abuse was exposed with the blessing of the survivor’s father and the elders of his church. He further noted that he and his wife met with the survivor and her family in October 1989.

“I asked their forgiveness, and they graciously forgave me,” Morris said.

She was not a “young lady.” She was a 12-year-old girl.

It wasn’t merely “inappropriate.” It was criminal.

It wasn’t just “kissing and petting.” According to Cindy, Morris “touch[ed] every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me.”

And Cindy’s father did not give Morris his blessings.

"My father never ever gave his blessing on Robert returning to ministry! My father told him he’s lucky he didn’t kill him. I am mortified that he is telling the world my dad gave his blessing! Of course, we forgive because we are called to biblically forgive those who sin against us. But that does not mean he is supposed to go on without repercussions," she said. 

The statement from Gateway Church also included comment from the church’s elders, but it’s no better than anything Morris said.

“Pastor Robert has been open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago when he was in his twenties and prior to him starting Gateway Church. He has shared publicly from the pulpit the proper biblical steps he took in his lengthy restoration process,” they said. 

“The two-year restoration process was closely administered by the Elders at Shady Grove Church and included him stepping out of the ministry during that period while receiving professional counseling and freedom ministry counseling,” they said. “Since the resolution of this 35-year-old matter, there have been no other moral failures. Pastor Robert has walked in purity, and he has placed accountability measures and people in his life. The matter has been properly disclosed to church leadership.”

It wasn’t a “moral failure.” It was criminal sexual assault.

He didn’t share publicly from the pulpit why he needed any kind of “restoration.”

The fact that it happened 35 years ago is irrelevant largely because this was never made public until the survivor told her side of the story. (The Catholic Church learned the hard way that people won’t forgive them for clergy abuse that occurred decades ago.)

And no one should simply accept that Morris has had “no other moral failures” since that time because we already have evidence of this particular crime being covered up.

If “church leadership” knew all about what he did, what does it say about them that the congregation was never told Morris was a child sex predator? (In an internal Slack channel for Gateway, church staffers were given the same statement with no further details about how Morris sexually assaulted a child for many years.)

There’s simply no accountability of any kind happening here.

Morris is still, as of this writing, the senior pastor of Gateway. He’s not facing any punishments from his church, much less criminal charges. Hell, there’s a good chance he’ll downplay this story whenever he talks about it and receive a warm embrace from the people in the pews who he’s been lying to for all these years.

That’s what conservative Christians have a habit of doing whenever their pastors are forced to admit an incident of sexual assault that they thought they had swept under the rug. They do it so often that pastors have developed a playbook for these things. All they have to do is say they did something immoral, but it happened in the past, and they prayed on it, and God forgave them, and they’ve been doing great ever since. Rinse, lather, repeat.

There’s never any mention of all the people they hurt. There are never any details offered about the exact nature of their “immorality.” There are never any serious consequences for their actions.

The Dallas Morning News says that Morris wasn’t around on Saturday as this story began to spread:

Morris did not preach at the Southlake campus’ Saturday afternoon service, and the allegations were not addressed by pastors during the service. Several attendees either declined to comment or said they were unaware of the allegations.

It’s unclear if he’ll be in the pulpit today.

Morris has spent years preaching about sexual ethics and sin and consequences for one’s actions. During that time, he promoted a presidential candidate (and later president) who did all the things Morris urged people not to do because Christians like him love hypocrisy.

And all those years, he’s been hiding his own troubling secret. If the church’s initial response is any indication, they’re all still trying to bury the story.