(OK)
Chron [Houston TX]
October 10, 2024
By Eric Killelea
As a child, Cindy Clemishire says she was abused in her family’s home. Decades later, her story led to the resignation of one of America’s most popular pastors.
Four months after Cindy Clemishire first offered damning details about sexual abuse she faced decades ago at the hands of former Gateway senior pastor Robert Morris, reverbations are still being felt across the North Texas religious community. Morris has stepped down in disgrace, many elders were removed from their positions, and thousands of members have left the Gateway family.
This week, Clemishire opened up to Dallas Morning News about her childhood in Oklahoma, describing the years she was abused by Morris, a family friend who her parents welcomed into their home and treated like another cousin, allowing him to crash there while leading youth revivals nearby.
Morris, then in his early 20s and married, first called Clemishire into his room on Christmas Day of 1982, when she was just 12 years old. Clemishire didn’t tell anyone about the abuse at the time, she said, because the pastor told her it would “ruin everything.” The abuse allegedly continued for four-and-a-half years. She was 17 when she first told another family friend about the abuse, who in turn told Clemishire’s parents.
“We were shocked, devastated, angry and extremely sad. But we were thankful to put an end to this horror for her and to begin the lifelong journey of healing,” Clemishire’s parents, Susan and Jerry, said in a letter to DMN. “Decades of suffering do not go away because her story of child sexual abuse is finally being heard. But it is a testimony to our determination as a family, and Cindy’s unbreakable spirit to heal and live a life of joy and purpose.”
“Decades of suffering do not go away because her story of child sexual abuse is finally being heard.”
The family shared their story of recovery nearly four months after Clemishire publicly accused Morris of sexual abuse in an interview with Christian blogger Dee Parsons of the Watchburg Watch back in June. That interview led to a reckoning of sorts at Gateway Church, one of the nation’s largest megachurches with more than 100,000 members then in its congregation. Morris, a well-known conservative religious leader in Texas with a history of advising Gov. Greg Abbott and former President Donald Trump, resigned from Gateway four days after the interview.
Since then, several pastors including Morris’ son James have taken leave or stepped down from Gateway amid an investigation into Clemishire’s claims by the church-hired law firm Haynes and Boone. Meanwhile, a rapidly rising number of pastors in North Texas have been removed from their pulpits due to sexual abuse allegations, moral failures and other scandals.
Morris, now 63, admitted to The Christian Post in June he committed “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” but has since remained quiet. He has not been charged civilly or criminally, and it’s unclear whether he’ll ever face charges given statutes of limitations in Oklahoma and Texas.
Clemishire, now a 54-year-old grandmother of four, told the Christian Post earlier this year that she tried filing a civil lawsuit against Morris in 2005, but that the pastor’s lawyers suggested she was in-part to blame for the abuse because she was being “flirtatious.” She was offered $25,000 if she signed a non-disclosure agreement, but Clemishire said she refused.
Clemishire told Dallas Morning News this week about her “lifelong journey” of recovery, which involved decades of therapy. Her experiences have led her to become an advocate to help other sexual abuse survivors. “I have seen her grow emotionally and have more peace in the last four months than I have in the last 20 years,” said Tracy Jungels, Clemishire’s friend for three decades, to DMN.
Clemishire has also found a sense of purpose in helping people who also were abused by religious leaders. “I’m not lugging it around like I was,” Clemishire reportedly said in August at the Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests meeting in Houston. “I literally felt the shame lift off of me when I realized the response of the world.”