DALLAS (TX)
Chron [Houston TX]
March 14, 2025
By Eric Killelea
“I am grateful for the unmerited grace of God in the gospel to extend His full forgiveness to me.”
In September 2024, Steven J. Lawson, the once prominent pastor at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas, was fired after he admitted to an “inappropriate relationship” with a younger woman. The 73-year-old husband, father and prolific author of books on Calvinism and religious icons had an alleged five-year relationship with a woman in her twenties, shocking his Reformed Baptist followers in North Texas and across the country.
Then Lawson went quiet.
After six months of silence, Lawson took to X on Wednesday to “beg for your forgiveness.” He said he “sinned grievously” against God, his family and supporters by “having a sinful relationship with a woman not my wife.” By Thursday afternoon, about 1 million people had viewed the nearly 500-word message (though the post was disabled for comments).
“I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon His church, and harm to many ministries,” Lawson said, later adding: “I alone am responsible for my sin. I have confessed my sin to the Lord, to my wife, and my family, and have repented of it. I have spent the past months searching my heart to discover the roots of my sin and mortifying them by the grace of God. I hate my sin, weep over my sin, and have turned from it.”
The remarks come as an increasing number of churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro continue to grapple with sexual scandals. Texas is among a number of states that have laws criminalizing sexual misconduct by clergy, which can include “any sexualized behavior (verbal or physical) on the part of a religious leader toward a person under his or her spiritual care.” In the last year, at least a dozen churches or pastors in the North Texas region have been accused of “committing or concealing” sexual misconduct, per reporting by the Texas Tribune.
Hours after the post, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office announced that Robert Morris, the founder of Gateway Church in the DFW suburb of Southlake, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he molested a girl in the 1980s. Morris resigned in June 2024 after an adult woman, Cindy Clemishire, said Morris sexually assaulted her while she was a child in Oklahoma and he was a traveling pastor.
Lawson and his wife, Anne, have been married since 1981, and they have four children. Lawson preached for about three decades in Arkansas and Alabama before becoming a teaching pastor at Trinity Bible Church in the DFW in 2018. Over the years, Lawson’s Reformed theology gained support from religious conservatives in Texas and across the country. He wrote dozens of books, including “The Expository Genius of John Calvin.”
Lawson had more than 425,000 followers between his personal Facebook, Instagram and X accounts last year. In January 2024, Lawson notably discouraged Christians from attending the wedding of LGBTQ couples. “It is a blasphemy. It is an abomination. It is not to be supported,” Lawson said in a sermon, per the Churchleaders.com news outlet. He noted that “there is a sanctity of marriage entering into a holy union, and those who are unholy are to be reproved for entering into that which God has made holy.”
The anti-LGBTQ sermon and most of his social media accounts have since been removed from the internet. Lawson has also been removed from his post as the Dean of D.Min. studies at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles. Lawson was also a teaching fellow and board member at Ligonier Ministries headquartered in Florida; the international Christian organization hasn’t made a public statement on Lawson, but it recently removed his content from its website.
The identity of the woman Lawson was involved with remains unknown, and it’s unclear whether she ever attended Trinity Bible Church. However, Phil Johnson, an elder at MacArthur’s Grace Community Church in California, told the Roys Report that the woman was a student at The Master’s University when the relationship started.
This week, Lawson didn’t mention the age of the woman in the relationship in his new social media post. Instead, he said that he’s been “undergoing extensive counseling” for months and “submitted myself in weekly accountability” to pastors and elders at a local congregation. He said that he’s also “under the oversight of an accountability team who monitor my progress” and provide him counsel with his decisions. Lawson also said he’s participating in prayer meetings, Sunday school, worship services and taking communion weekly. The social media post didn’t name the church he now apparently attends.
Lawson’s message has been circulated by Christian pastors, influencers and church members across the country. While some individuals have supported his repentance, many more question why it took months for the former pastor to admit his so-called “sinful relationship.”
“You may wonder why I have been silent and largely invisible since the news of my sin became known,” Lawson said in his post, offering an answer. “I have needed the time to search my own soul to determine that my repentance is real.”
“I am grateful for the unmerited grace of God in the gospel to extend His full forgiveness to me. Again, I ask for your forgiveness as well,” Lawson continued. “While I continue to do the hard work of soul-searching repentance, I do not intend to make further public comments for the foreseeable future.”
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