Gateway Church is seeing collapsing attendance in light of child sexual abuse allegations against founder Robert Morris, who left the multistate temple in June.
The church, which draws about 100,000 to weekend services across nine locations in Texas, Missouri and Wyoming, has seen a 17% to 19% drop in attendance in the months since accusations against Mr. Morris were made public, a church spokesperson told CNN.
On June 14, Cindy Clemishire, 54, told The Wartburg Watch, a blog dedicated to documenting sexual abuse in evangelical churches, that Mr. Morris had abused her on Christmas Day 1982, when she was 12. She said he had her come to his room at night while he was staying with her family. Mr. Morris, who was 21, then touched her in intimate areas, she alleged.
Ms. Clemishire also asserted that the abuse continued similarly until 1987 as Mr. Morris remained a family friend and that he tried to have sex with her after she turned 16.
Ms. Clemishire eventually told her family on the advice of a friend. Her father confronted Mr. Morris, and the pastor stepped away from ministering for two years. By 2000, however, he had founded Gateway Church, based in Southland, Texas.
Mr. Morris, now 63, told The Christian Post in a statement that “when I was in my early 20s 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.” He added that he received Ms. Clemishire’s father’s blessing to return to ministry.
Ms. Clemishire told The Christian Post that she was “appalled” by Mr. Morris’ description of events.
She added: “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!”
In 2005, Ms. Clemishire tried to file a lawsuit against Mr. Morris, she told The Wartburg Watch, asking for money to but for counseling she received to recover from the alleged abuse. Mr. Morris’ lawyers asked her to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and she refused.
A week after the allegations were made public, Gateway Church announced that Mr. Morris had resigned. Church elders hired an independent law firm to investigate the matter, and that led to three church elders to step away temporarily.
Ethan Fisher, Mr. Morris’ son-in-law, rebranded his Gateway Church Houston as Newlands Church.
“We want to publicly apologize to Cindy on behalf of the entire church for the pain she has endured. … Additionally, two weeks ago, Gateway released a comment referring to the abuse as ‘an inappropriate relationship.’ … We want to clarify that we believe the incident was in fact sexual abuse of a child, and any description falling short of that does not reflect our or Gateway Church’s position,” Gateway Church wrote in an updated statement to its congregation in late July.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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