Gateway Church in Southlake announced Tuesday that the church’s founding pastor, Robert Morris, who had been accused of sexually abusing girls between the ages of 12 and 16, had resigned.
The Oklahoma woman, now in her 50s, Dallas Morning News Morris abused her multiple times while he was a traveling evangelist in the 1980s. In a one-page news release, church spokesman Lawrence Swisgood said church elders “did not know all the facts about the inappropriate relationship between Mr. Morris and the victim, including her age at the time or the length of the abuse.”
“It was the elders’ prior understanding that the extramarital relationships that Pastor Morris discussed on numerous occasions throughout his ministry were with ‘younger women’ and did not involve the abuse of a 12-year-old child,” Swisgood said in a statement.
Morris has not been charged with any crime. The 62-year-old news A request for comment has been received since Saturday.
The abuse allegations first attracted widespread attention on Friday in a blog called Wartburg Watch, a religious watchdog group. In a statement to The Christian Post, which published a story detailing the allegations on Saturday, Morris said he had “engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with young women.”
An internal memo sent to Gateway employees when the allegations came to light said Morris “has been open and forthright about the moral failings he made more than 35 years ago.” The one-page memo said Morris underwent a two-year “restorative process” that was “closely supervised” by elders at Shady Grove Church in Grande Prairie, which later became Gateway’s Grande Prairie campus.
The note goes on to say that he returned to his pastorate with the “full blessing” of Shady Grove elders and the woman’s father.
A woman named Cindy Cremischer, who said Morris was married and had children when the family met in 1981, denied that her father gave his blessing for Morris to return to the pastorate. news Victims of sexual abuse typically aren’t named publicly, but Klemischer gave permission for his name to be made public.
In a lengthy statement released Tuesday afternoon, Klemischer said he had “mixed emotions” about Morris’ resignation but had been calling for his departure for many years. He said he first contacted Gateway leaders, including Morris, in 2005 and again in 2007.
“Gateway had information but knowingly decided to embrace the false narrative that Robert Morris wanted them to believe,” Klemischer said in a statement on Page 2. Citing her faith, she said, “We are called to forgive those who have hurt us, but understand that forgiveness is about ourselves and takes time. We should expect and demand consequences.”
In a statement, Swicegood said Gateway elders are “heartbroken and appalled” by the allegations and “express our deepest sympathies to the victim and her family.”
“For the sake of the victims, we are grateful that this situation has been brought to light. We know that many have been affected. We understand that you are hurting, and we are deeply sorry,” the statement read. “We pray that time will help heal all those affected.”
Morris is a prominent televangelist and active political figure. In 2016, he was appointed to then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Council. According to a news release from the Trump campaign at the time, the 25-member council was created to advise Trump on “issues important to American evangelicals and other people of faith.”
In a Facebook post last fall, Morris said he became a Christian at age 19, a few months before meeting James Robison, a televangelist best known for the Moral Majority movement of the 1980s. Robison asked Morris to travel with him to preach to middle and high school students, and the two have remained close friends ever since, Morris said in the post.
Robison is president of Life Outreach International. news The organization said in a statement Tuesday that Morris joined the James Robison Evangelistic Association in the late 1980s as a morning supervisor at the call center. Public speaking was not part of his job duties during his time there, the statement said.
Prior to recent media reports, Robison “was unaware of specific details regarding Mr. Morris’ departure from Shady Grove Church,” according to the statement.
Former Southlake Mayor John Huffman posted a statement on X on Tuesday morning ahead of Morris’ resignation, condemning Morris’ alleged actions. He said Morris should have spent time in prison and “ruined” the life of a 12-year-old girl.
“Some crimes are so egregious and despicable that they disqualify a man from holding a position of trust such as the pastorate,” Huffman said in a statement.
Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, of Plano, said in a text message that lawmakers must change the law to ensure justice is provided for victims of child sexual abuse.
In February 2022, Morris appointed his son, James Morris, to the church’s elders as his successor and the next senior pastor of Gateway Church. According to the church’s website, after a “rigorous six-month interview process” that included interviews with elders and outside consultants, Morris was selected in September of that year to take up the role as senior pastor in spring 2025.
Gateway Church, founded by Morris in Southlake in 2000, has nine campuses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and holds online services. It has about 100,000 attendees each weekend, according to its website.
The church’s board of directors has hired the law firm Haynes & Boone to conduct an “independent, thorough and professional investigation” of the allegations to “ensure a full understanding of the events” between 1982 and 1987, according to the statement.
Klemischer said in a statement he was skeptical of the investigation. He echoed the views of attorney Boz Tchividjian, who questioned why the elders were limiting the investigation to five years.
Gateway’s statement did not say whether the findings would be made public. Church spokesman Swisgood did not immediately respond to calls and emails seeking more information.
Haynes & Boone spokesman Jacob Vaughn confirmed in a statement Tuesday that the company has “begun” conducting an investigation but did not answer questions about the scope or possible timeline of the investigation.
Arts and entertainment reporter Kaisa Kedefoss and breaking news reporter Matt Kyle contributed to this report.
