Megachurch pastor Robert Morris abruptly resigned Tuesday after he issued a statement admitting "moral failure." A woman has come forward alleging that she was sexually abused by the preacher, beginning when she was 12.
Megachurch pastor Robert Morris, who served as a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, abruptly resigned Tuesday after a former parishioner stepped forward to say she was sexually abused by him for years, beginning when she was 12.
Morris had initially responded by saying in a statement Friday that "moral failure" had resulted in him having improper relations with a "young lady." On Tuesday, as media stories spread about the sexual abuse allegations, he quit.
Cindy Clemishire, now 54, says she was 12 and Morris was 21 when he spent Christmas with her family in Texas in 1982. Morris called her into his room, and told her lie down on her back, she told The Wartburg Watch, a website dedicated to survivors of church sexual abuse. Her account of what happened was published in an article Friday.
“Never tell anyone about this. It will ruin everything,” Clemishire says Morris told her. Clemishire remembers she was wearing pink pajamas, she said.
After doing as Morris said, Clemishire said the man then touched her breasts and reached into her underpants, Clemishire said. The groping then continued for more than four years, she said, until she finally told her parents in 1987.
After Clemishire's account was published, Morris — who now is senior pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas — issued a statement about engaging in "inappropriate sexual behavior" and experiencing "moral failure" with "a young lady" in 1987.
“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," Morris said.
The pastor said he confessed to church elders in 1987, sought counseling and stepped down from preaching for two years. The matter was handled appropriately, he said.
Morris has not been criminally charged.
"Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area,” Morris said, according to the statement. “The sin was dealt with correctly by confession and repentance.”
Inside Edition Digital has reached out for comment to Morris.
The church also said Friday that the matter had been handled appropriately. Morris had “properly disclosed” the matter to church elders. “Since the resolution of this 35-year-old matter, there have been no other moral failures,” church officials said in a Friday email to employees, NBC reported.
On Tuesday, the church announced that Morris was no longer with the church.
“Today, June 18, the Board of Elders of Gateway Church accepted the resignation of Robert Morris, the senior pastor," read a statement released by officials. The church also said it had hired a legal firm to conduct an "independent, thorough, and professional review of the report of past abuse."
The church also said its elders had initially believed that Morris had an extramarital affair, which he had discussed many times as a sinful episode, "with ‘a young lady’ and not (the) abuse of a 12-year-old child,” the statement said.
Clemishire, who is a grandmother, said she was appalled by the "young lady" reference.
“I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home," she told The Christian Post on Saturday after seeing Morris' response.
“It went on for many years. He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation," she said. "I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior.”
Gateway has an estimated weekly attendance of 100,000 worshippers at several locations. Morris is a well-known evangelical religious leader who advocates incorporating conservative Christian morality into government and Republican politics.
Morris was on Trump's Evangelical Executive Advisory Board during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump also appeared at Morris' church in 2020 for a political and economic summit of religious leaders.
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