SOUTHLAKE (TX)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
June 16, 2024
By Sheila Stogsdill
A blog recounting the alleged sexual abuse of a woman when she was 12-years-old by Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris has prompted the Texas-based megachurch to acknowledge decades-old “moral failure.” However, in a statement to staff, the church did not note the age of the woman at the time of the “inappropriate sexual behavior,” referring to her simply as a “young lady.”
Gateway Church was founded in 2000 by Morris and has more than 100,000 people attending each weekend at their nine sites and online.
On Friday morning, The Wartburg Watch published a story, alleging that Pastor Morris had sexually abused Cindy Clemishire, a 54—year-old grandmother of three from Oklahoma, beginning in 1982, when she was 12.
Around 4 p.m. yesterday, Executive Lead Pastor Thomas Miller sent a statement from Gateway’s elders to church staff via the messaging platform Slack, according to sources close to the church. Those sources also provided The Roys Report (TRR) with a screenshot of the message from Miller and the elders’ statement.
In the statement, Morris admitted that “in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying.” Morris described the behavior as “petting and not intercourse” and said it happened “on several occasions over the next few years.”
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He added, “Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area.”
According to Clemishire, who spoke with TRR and gave us permission to use her name, Morris’ abuse began when she was 12 years old—on Christmas night 1982.
A young and charismatic traveling evangelist, Morris was invited to host a youth revival in her hometown in northeast Oklahoma and quickly became friends with Clemishire’s parents.
“He and his wife, Debbie, were family friends and often stayed in our home when he was preaching at my dad’s church,” Clemishire said, revealing how the alleged abuse continued until she was 16 years old. “We even went on trips together.”
Clemishire noted that she was “not a ‘young lady,’” as Gateway’s statement said. “I was a child. I was an innocent little girl.”
At the time of the alleged abuse, Morris was 21 to 25 years old. He also was a pastor of Shady Grove Church, which now is Gateway Church-Grand Prairie Campus.
Clemishire said she shared a bedroom with her older sister at the time. But when Morris visited, he allegedly slept in the girls’ room, while Clemishire and her sister slept in another room.
On Christmas night, Morris allegedly asked Clemishire to come into her bedroom and spend some time talking. During this visit, Clemishire said Morris sexually assaulted her.
“It was so innocent,” the woman said. “I was wearing pink pajamas with bloomer pants over my underwear, and I had on a snap up robe.”
The accuser described her childhood growing up in Oklahoma in the 1970s and 1980s as picture perfect with a loving family.
“He told me, ‘Never tell anyone because it will ruin everything,’” Clemishire said.
“It didn’t ruin anything for him, but it ruined everything for me,” she added. “This was always in the background.”
Clemishire said she was 17 years old when she told her parents of the years of abuse that had escalated from inappropriate touching to rape by instrumentation.
“Years later, when my father found out what happened, he told the lead pastor at Shady Grove Church that if Morris didn’t get out of the ministry, he would report him to the police,” Clemishire said.
After years of counseling, the woman reached out to a high-profile criminal defense attorney to file a civil lawsuit against Morris.
The statute of limitations for authorities to file criminal charges have long expired.
“I just wanted someone to pay for the years of counseling I went through,” she said.
Clemishire said Gateway offered her $25,000 if she would sign a non-disclosure agreement, which she refused.
“I wasn’t wanting money,” she told TRR. “I wanted him to pay for the counseling I had gone through.”
In Morris’ statement, he says he “confessed and repented of” his actions and stepped down from his ministry’s position for two years in March 1987. He said he also received counseling and returned to the ministry in two years later with the blessing of the “young lady’s” father.
However, Clemishire said her father did not “bless Morris returning to the ministry.”
“We are instructed to forgive – but that does not mean my father gave his blessing. He wanted to kill him,” Clemishire said.
TRR reached out to Gateway Spokesman Lawrence Swicegood for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
In his message to Gateway staff, Pastor Miller stated that he was sending the statement from the elders “to empower (staff) with a response if someone inquires, not as something to proactively sent out to people.”
The email further told staff to direct congregants who want “to talk further about anything” to a campus pastor, and to direct media to Lawrence Swicegood.
Gateway Church Statement – June 14, 2024
