THE DEVIL IS A LIE! THERE IS A DISCREPANCY HERE! PASTOR ROBERT MORRIS AND THE ELDERS OF GATEWAY CHURCH IN SOUTHLAKE, TEXAS, SAID MORRIS STEPPED AWAY FROM MINISTRY FOR 2 YEARS TO UNDERGO A CAREFULLY MONITORED RESTORATION PROCESS FOLLOWING A “MORAL FAILURE” WITH A “YOUNG LADY” WHO WAS ACTUALLY A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL; HE PREVIOUSLY RECOUNTED ONLY BEING AWAY FROM MINISTRY FOR 1 MONTH
DANIEL WHYTE III, PRESIDENT OF GOSPEL LIGHT SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL, SAYS PEOPLE, YOU ARE WATCHING IN REAL TIME GOD DISMANTLING “EVANGELICALISM” AND THE EVIL AND LIES THAT HAVE PROPPED IT UP FOR YEARS — NOT THE TRUE “FAITHFUL FEW CHURCH,” “REMNANT CHURCH,” AND “7,000 CHURCH,” MIND YOU, AND NOT TRUE CHRISTIANITY, BUT THE MAN-MADE POLITICAL MACHINE EVANGELICALISM AS WE KNOW IT IS BEING DISMANTLED. WHYTE TELLS ROBERT MORRIS HE NEEDS TO RESIGN IMMEDIATELY AND TURN THE CHURCH OVER, NOT TO HIS SON RIGHT NOW, BUT TO THE ELDERS BECAUSE IF GATEWAY CHURCH IS NOT CAREFUL THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WILL BE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR TO SEE IF ANY MORE LITTLE GIRLS HAVE BEEN RAPED BY THE PASTOR OR ANYONE WHO HAS ADOPTED THIS DEMONIC SPIRIT.
Despite statements from elders of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, and their founding Pastor Robert Morris suggesting that he stepped away from ministry for two years to undergo a carefully monitored restoration process following a “moral failure” — sexually abusing a girl over multiple years in the 1980s beginning when she was 12 — he was back in ministry just one month after he was confronted about the abuse.
The 62-year-old Morris made the admission in his 2011 book,Dream to Destiny. The description he provides in the book coincides with the timeline of the molestation confirmed by himself, his accuser, Cindy Clemishire, 54, and the elders of Gateway Church.
Morris revealed that he got a job with televangelist James Robison’s prayer center a month after he stepped away from ministry in the 1980s after the “Lord orchestrated the circumstances for me to step out of ministry.” Prior to those circumstances, which he did not disclose in the book, Morris admitted he was struggling with pride — not a sexual attraction to a pre-teen girl.
After a month away from ministry, Morris stated that he felt he had dealt with his pride sufficiently to make a comeback. He said he was having a hard time finding work with the skills he developed as a preacher and had only been able to get hired as a security guard.
“After a month of working nights as a security guard at Motel 6, I felt I had made great strides toward humility. I decided that perhaps I was ready to return to ministry. So I checked back with James Robison’s ministry to see if they had any job openings. I was happy to discover that they needed a morning supervisor at their prayer center, from 5 A.M. to 2 P.M.,” Morris wrote. “That sure sounded better than the ‘graveyard shift’ I had been working at the Motel 6. So I took the job.”
Morris revealed that only 10 months after he became saved at age 19, the now 80-year-old Robison, the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, took him under his ministry and quickly made him an associate evangelist. The meteoric rise of his star on the preaching circuit after that, he said, made him prideful.
“Things had happened pretty fast after I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ at the age of 19. Only 10 months after being saved, I met James Robison, and he asked me to start traveling with him, speaking to junior and senior high school assemblies. So I had not even been a Christian for a year when I began to travel and preach the gospel. Pretty heady stuff for someone so young (and even younger in the Lord!),” Morris recalled.
“Though I started out speaking at public schools, it wasn’t long before I was preaching at crusades. Eventually, James was even gracious enough to give me a title: associate evangelist. Wow—I was only 20 years old, but because of my association with James, I was already involved in television, preaching to large crowds, and even had a title to prove that I was a bona-fide evangelist! It seemed to me that the favor of God was on everything I touched. What a destiny lay before me! What could stop me now?” he asked.
Life Outreach International did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post on Monday.
After Clemishire made her abuse by Morris public last Friday, the megachurch pastor would admit that it was his “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” that temporarily stopped his ministry.
“When I was in my early twenties, 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. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,” Morris said in a statement to The Christian Post after Gateway Church was asked about the allegations.
“In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area,” Morris added.
In Dream to Destiny, Morris confessed that while being accountable to his wife Debbie and his friends in the area of his sexuality “has not been easy, … it has proved to be a good and healthy thing.”
“When I decided to make myself accountable to Debbie, we had been married about seven years. I sat her down and said to her, ‘I need to come clean with you about my past. You know that I have an immoral past—but I want to tell you everything about my past.’ Then I told her everything. Now I have a very bad past, and I thought she would be shocked. I was actually afraid she would leave me. I was afraid she would say, ‘You’re a pervert’—and then leave,” he wrote.
Morris said when his wife responded with love and compassion he admitted to her that he had a habit of looking and lusting after other women.
“I told her that I had a habit I needed to break—a habit of looking. And I asked for her help. I made myself accountable to her. ‘I don’t want to look, but I need some help,’ I said. ‘Will you help me? If you see me looking, I want you to pray for me. I want you to talk to me about it. And I want you to call me on it.’ I had no idea how quickly my request would be answered,” Morris wrote.
“Soon after that we took a vacation and were at the swimming pool. Needless to say, that is a very hard place not to look! Sure enough, a lady walked by me, and I was looking. The next thing I knew, Debbie had reached over and pinched me right where no person should ever be pinched—on the back of my arm. She grabbed my skin in a very painful squeeze, looked into my eyes with intense determination and asked with great seriousness in her voice, ‘Do I need to pray for you?’”
Clemishire first told The Wartburg Watch that Morris began sexually abusing her on Dec. 25, 1982, and continued with the abuse for four-and-a-half years after that. When contacted by CP on Saturday, the 54-year-old grandmother confirmed the details in the report but insisted she was no “young lady” when Morris began abusing her.
“I’m, of course, just appalled,” Clemishire told CP on Saturday about his description of her as a “young lady.”