Pastor of Texas megachurch resigns after woman claims he sexually abused her in the 1980s

DALLAS (AP) — The pastor of a Texas megachurch has resigned after a woman testified that he sexually abused her multiple times in the 1980s, starting when she was 12 years old.

The Gateway Church’s board of elders said in a statement Tuesday that it had accepted the resignation of Robert Morris, the church’s senior pastor and founder. The council said it had hired a law firm to conduct an independent investigation to ensure it had “a full understanding of events” from 1982 to 1987.

The allegations came to light Friday on the religious watchdog blog The Wartburg Watch. Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News on Saturday that she met Morris in 1981 when he was an itinerant preacher and began preaching at her family’s church in Oklahoma. She said Morris, his wife and young son became very close to her family. She said he was staying at her home in 1982 when he asked her to come to his room. He asked her to lie on his bed and then began touching her inappropriately, said Clemishire, now 54.

She said the abuse continued for about four and a half years. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Clemishire did.

When asked about the allegations by The Christian Post, Morris, 62, said in a statement to the magazine that when he was in his early 20s, he “engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct toward a young lady in a home where I lived.”

“It was kissing and fondling and not sexual intercourse, but it was wrong,” he said in the statement. “This behavior occurred several times over the next few years.”

The committee said that before Friday it was “not aware of all the facts about the inappropriate relationship between Morris and the victim, including her age at the time and the duration of the abuse.” It said it did not understand the “extramarital relationship” that Morris had often addressed during his tenure as “abuse of a 12-year-old child.”

The church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake was founded by Morris in 2000 and has several locations in the area. He says that over 100,000 people visit him every weekend. Morris, the founding pastor, is politically active. He was a member of former President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board. The church hosted Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.

Morris did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to his church email address Tuesday.

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In this story, Cindy Clemishire’s age is corrected from 52 to 54.

Jamie Stengle, Associated Press