Category: Enlightenment

Here’s the link to this article by Hemant Mehta.

JUN 16, 2024

Morris, a Donald Trump ally, admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a “young lady”

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Robert Morris, a megachurch pastor who used his reputation to help Donald Trump get elected, admitted to sexually abusing a child for a “few years” beginning when she was only 12. He was in his twenties at the time of the attacks. Morris is now downplaying the severity of what he did by referring to it merely as “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.”

Before going into the details of the allegations, it’s important to understand Morris’ standing in the evangelical world.

When Trump was trying to convince conservative Christians to support him in the summer of 2016, he released a list of his “evangelical executive advisory board,” a collection of mostly white, mostly male Christians who would be guiding him in the months ahead. That list included the likes of James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Ralph Reed.

It also included Robert Morris, the senior pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas.

Morris is the sort of person who claims his prayers can cure women’s infertility and that it’s “scientifically impossible to be an atheist.” He even prayed over Trump in the White House in 2019.

In 2020, Trump visited Gateway Church for an event on race relations and the economy. During the event, he thanked Morris and other church leaders by saying they were “Great people with a great reputation.”

The reason Morris amassed the sort of power that allowed him to be that close to the president is because he was able to hide his own actions for decades.

According to the Wartburg Watch, which first broke this story, Morris was a traveling evangelist in 1981 when he visited Tulsa, Oklahoma and met a family with an 11-year-old daughter named Cindy Clemishire. (Because she’s gone public with her story, I’m naming her here.)

Morris, along with his wife and son, stayed with Cindy’s family frequently. They all became very close.

On Christmas Day, 1982, he allegedly invited Cindy to come to his bedroom where he proceeded to touch her beneath her clothing. He then told her, “Never tell anyone about this because it will ruin everything.”

As a little girl, she didn’t know any better.

Part of the reason Morris was able to get away with it, and the way he was able to get so much alone time with the child, was by telling his wife he was “counseling” the little girl.

This sort of behavior continued for years, through 1987.

At one point, Cindy told a friend what had happened and the news came back to her own father, who “demanded that Morris get out of ministry.” Morris stepped down for two years. When he finally returned to preaching, he began the church that would later become Gateway Church.

It wasn’t until Cindy was much older that she realized the extent to which she had been abused and just how inappropriate (and criminal) it was.

In 2005, she obtained an attorney to file a civil lawsuit. Robert Morris’s attorney responded by implying that they believed it was her fault because she was “flirtatious.” She asked for $50,000 (which was not much in my estimation.) They responded that they would give her $25,000 if she signed an NDA. She refused, so she can now tell her side of the story.

If that story is true, it’s appalling (but not surprising) that the attorney blamed the child for what Morris did to her. No 12-year-old girl can legally consent to sex with an adult. She was not flirting with him.

(Interestingly enough, in one of Morris’ books, he writes about how he stepped down from ministry in his mid-20s—a time period that coincides with when Cindy’s father demanded he get out. The book, however, says God told Morris to take time away from the pulpit to deal with his “pride.”)

When reporter Leonardo Blair of the Christian Post asked Morris for comment about these allegations, the church responded with a confession of sorts. But they’re all acting like it’s not that big of a deal.

“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.

He explained that he returned to ministry in March of 1989, two years after his abuse was exposed with the blessing of the survivor’s father and the elders of his church. He further noted that he and his wife met with the survivor and her family in October 1989.

“I asked their forgiveness, and they graciously forgave me,” Morris said.

She was not a “young lady.” She was a 12-year-old girl.

It wasn’t merely “inappropriate.” It was criminal.

It wasn’t just “kissing and petting.” According to Cindy, Morris “touch[ed] every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me.”

And Cindy’s father did not give Morris his blessings.

“My father never ever gave his blessing on Robert returning to ministry! My father told him he’s lucky he didn’t kill him. I am mortified that he is telling the world my dad gave his blessing! Of course, we forgive because we are called to biblically forgive those who sin against us. But that does not mean he is supposed to go on without repercussions,” she said.

The statement from Gateway Church also included comment from the church’s elders, but it’s no better than anything Morris said.

“Pastor Robert has been open and forthright about a moral failure he had over 35 years ago when he was in his twenties and prior to him starting Gateway Church. He has shared publicly from the pulpit the proper biblical steps he took in his lengthy restoration process,” they said. 

“The two-year restoration process was closely administered by the Elders at Shady Grove Church and included him stepping out of the ministry during that period while receiving professional counseling and freedom ministry counseling,” they said. “Since the resolution of this 35-year-old matter, there have been no other moral failures. Pastor Robert has walked in purity, and he has placed accountability measures and people in his life. The matter has been properly disclosed to church leadership.”

It wasn’t a “moral failure.” It was criminal sexual assault.

He didn’t share publicly from the pulpit why he needed any kind of “restoration.”

The fact that it happened 35 years ago is irrelevant largely because this was never made public until the survivor told her side of the story. (The Catholic Church learned the hard way that people won’t forgive them for clergy abuse that occurred decades ago.)

And no one should simply accept that Morris has had “no other moral failures” since that time because we already have evidence of this particular crime being covered up.

If “church leadership” knew all about what he did, what does it say about them that the congregation was never told Morris was a child sex predator? (In an internal Slack channel for Gateway, church staffers were given the same statement with no further details about how Morris sexually assaulted a child for many years.)

There’s simply no accountability of any kind happening here.

Morris is still, as of this writing, the senior pastor of Gateway. He’s not facing any punishments from his church, much less criminal charges. Hell, there’s a good chance he’ll downplay this story whenever he talks about it and receive a warm embrace from the people in the pews who he’s been lying to for all these years.

That’s what conservative Christians have a habit of doing whenever their pastors are forced to admit an incident of sexual assault that they thought they had swept under the rug. They do it so often that pastors have developed a playbook for these things. All they have to do is say they did something immoral, but it happened in the past, and they prayed on it, and God forgave them, and they’ve been doing great ever since. Rinse, lather, repeat.

There’s never any mention of all the people they hurt. There are never any details offered about the exact nature of their “immorality.” There are never any serious consequences for their actions.

The Dallas Morning News says that Morris wasn’t around on Saturday as this story began to spread:

Morris did not preach at the Southlake campus’ Saturday afternoon service, and the allegations were not addressed by pastors during the service. Several attendees either declined to comment or said they were unaware of the allegations.

It’s unclear if he’ll be in the pulpit today.

Morris has spent years preaching about sexual ethics and sin and consequences for one’s actions. During that time, he promoted a presidential candidate (and later president) who did all the things Morris urged people not to do because Christians like him love hypocrisy.

And all those years, he’s been hiding his own troubling secret. If the church’s initial response is any indication, they’re all still trying to bury the story.

Here’s the link to this article.

Most delegates still oppose women pastors, IVF is evil, and abuse reform can wait. But at least the new president doesn’t wear jeans in the pulpit.

JUN 13, 2024

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The Southern Baptist Convention, which has been dealing with a massive sexual abuse crisis for years now, finally got its priorities in order this week at its annual meeting… by threatening churches that believe women can serve as pastors and agreeing that in vitro fertilization is “dehumanizing” and must be opposed at all costs.

Let’s start with the sexism.

On Tuesday, delegates (“Messengers“) at the convention voted overwhelmingly (6,759-563) to expel Virginia’s First Baptist Church of Alexandria, a church that currently has a woman serving as “Pastor for Children and Women” and openly declares on its website that the Bible “not only permits women to serve in the offices of pastor and deacon but confirms this with examples by name.”

The church saw the writing on the wall two years ago when they were first ratted out for their disobedience. It didn’t matter that the church, which has existed for well over a century, donated millions of dollars to the SBC for missionary work. The Associated Press said that “the pastor of a neighboring church reported” them to the SBC after discovering they employed two women as pastors. (A man was still the “senior pastor,” but that was irrelevant.)

Their open belief that there’s nothing wrong with having women on staff as pastors is what pushed the SBC over the edge.

The vote came after the denomination’s credentials committee recommended earlier Tuesday that the denomination deem the church to be not in “friendly cooperation,” the formulation for expulsion, on the grounds that it conflicts with the Baptist Faith and Message. That statement of Southern Baptist doctrine declares only men are qualified for the role of pastor. Some interpret that only to apply to associate pastors as long as the senior pastor is male.

It would be unfair to call this church progressive given that it opposes same-sex marriage and denies the existence of transgender people, but even symbolic gender equality was a bridge too far for most Southern Baptists who voted.

The expulsion came a year after the SBC kicked out Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church for ordaining three female pastors.

But all of that was merely a prelude to what happened Wednesday when the SBC voted on a formal policy (called the “Law Amendment,” after the name of the person who proposed it) to banish any SBC church that placed women on the leadership hierarchy or openly supported that idea.

The policy, which needed two-thirds of the vote, two years in a tow, ultimately failed. They couldn’t get over the 67% threshold this time around.

Still, it’s hardly a victory when over 60% of SBC delegates support the Only-Men-In-Power doctrine. (Had this Amendment passed, the First Baptist Church of Alexandria would have been expelled from the SBC for having a female pastor and believing women can be co-equal leaders. As it stands, they were only kicked out for the latter offense.)

As reporter Kate Shellnutt of Christianity Today explained, the SBC will still be able to punish churches with “female lead pastors,” like they did with Saddleback, but they won’t have a zero tolerance policy for churches that place women in other leadership positions.

Had the Law Amendment passed, it could have led many churches to step out from under the SBC umbrella, as Bob Smietana noted at Religion News Service:

Southern Baptist churches have long relied on women to teach Sunday School, lead outreach ministries and do all the behind-the-scenes work to keep their congregations running smoothly. Southern Baptists also raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the names of legendary missionaries Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. But they have also banned women from the pastorate — especially serving as senior pastor of a church. 

… Passing this new rule, known as the “Law Amendment,” could lead to hundreds or thousands of churches leaving the SBC.   

Just because the vote failed, however, doesn’t mean those churches will stay put.

The fact that this rule—no women in church leadership!—was even an issue tells you a lot about where the SBC is at. They’re literally arguing about a mild version of gender equality while the rest of their house remains on fire. Sexual abuse runs rampant within the SBC but a large part of the focus this year was on whether a woman serving as associate pastor was substantially different from a woman serving as senior pastor. For the majority of delegates, it’s better to have women labeled as servants and let them keep doing the same work, I guess.

Had they chosen to expel churches that employ women as pastors, the expectation was that a lot of churches would quit before they could be fired. Some still may.

Some churches made the decision to leave before they might be asked.

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The Rev. Christy McMillin-Goodwin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Front Royal, Virginia, said she was surprised to discover that another Virginia clergyperson had listed her church as an example of one whose clerical leader was “sinning against God.”

“Our church decided to take a vote last May (2023) and the decision was unanimous,” she said of the church that had long stopped sending donations to the SBC and is affiliated with the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “People actually yelled ‘Yes.’ It was very impassioned that we don’t want to be a part of an organization that does not fully support women in leadership in the church.”

They were proud to be part of a historically racist and currently anti-LGBTQ organization, but punishing churches that have women in leadership was a dealbreaker? Got it. (Someone make that make sense.)

It’s not just slightly progressive churches that need to decide their membership status. A lot of Black churches are making similar decisions, turning an organization that’s already known for its support of white Christian Nationalism into one that more closely looks the part.

When that happens, it will be a completely self-inflicted wound.

Telling women they’re equally capable of spreading the Gospel seems to be the sort of thing that would draw in more Christians than it alienates. But dogma, for many of these Southern Baptists, overrides common sense. The majority of Southern Baptists want to force underage girls to bear their rapists’ babies but they can’t handle a grown woman in the pulpit.

On top of that, the SBC also voted to oppose IVF treatments, even though plenty of white evangelicals have used the technology to have babies. While the vote wasn’t a surprise, it’s an extreme approach that may signal the next phase in the Christian Nationalist attack on reproductive rights.

IVF, of course, is a procedure in which a sperm and ova are joined outside the body, in a laboratory dish. It’s meant to help couples struggling with infertility or other health problems. The concern for anti-abortion extremists is that, in IVF, the embryos that aren’t implanted inside a uterus may be discarded or placed in a freezer. They believe that’s tantamount to murder. (Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers has said parents who use IVF are “waging an assault against God.”)

If you cut through the fluff in the actual SBC amendment, these paragraphs are what it boils down to:

IVF destroys human life. IVF promotes eugenics. IVF will lead to the murder of millions of teeny tiny “human beings.” Therefore we must oppose IVF no matter what.

It’s a thoughtless statement from a heartless organization.

It’s also a slap in the face to all the Christian women who have used IVF to have babies because, without it, they were unable to have children.

While the resolution has no teeth, and people who use IVF will still be allowed to stay in their churches, it’s a signal that conservative Christians are not satisfied with the Supreme Court banning abortion rights and that they fully intend to support politicians who want to ban IVF, too. They will also use this vote to put more pressure on Republicans who support IVF because it’s overwhelmingly popular.

POLITICO puts it bluntly:

Though the resolution is nonbinding, nearly 13 million Southern Baptists across 45,000 churches may now face pressure from the pulpit or in individual conversations with pastors to eschew IVF.

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The Southern Baptists’ Wednesday vote could encourage other evangelical denominations and churches to follow suit in declaring — or at least teaching about — their ethical concerns with IVF.

All of this is happening while membership in the SBC is at a 47-year low.

In 2003, the SBC had a record high 16.3 million members. In 2023, the number dropped to 12.99 million, continuing 17 straight years of declining membership.

Meanwhile, the sexual abuse crisis remains a massive problem for the SBC.

It all stems back to revelations from 2022 about the SBC, in which we learned that, over the previous decade, more than 250 SBC staffers or volunteers had been “charged with sex crimes” against more than 700 victims. We also learned in the SBC’s own investigation that a private list of alleged predators (that wasn’t shared with member churches) included “703 abusers, with 409 believed to be SBC-affiliated.” The situation was so bad that the Department of Justice announced it was investigating “multiple SBC entities,” though not specific individuals, about their mishandling of sexual abuse cases. Last month, a former seminary professor became the first person indicted in the investigation. (He has pleaded not guilty.)

This month, we got an update from the SBC as to how its internal investigations are going… and it was predictably disappointing. A volunteer task force that was supposed to implement reforms announced that it would close up shop. While they created some resources to help churches deal with the problem, the biggest reform they could have made was creating a database of abusers so that criminals and known problematic people couldn’t church-hop after getting kicked out of one place… but that “Ministry Check” never happened because of a lack of funding and fears over getting sued.

To date, no names appear on the “Ministry Check” website designed to track abusive pastors, despite a mandate from Southern Baptists to create the database. The committee has also found no permanent home or funding for abuse reforms, meaning that two of the task force’s chief tasks remain unfinished.

Because of liability concerns about the database, the task force set up a separate nonprofit to oversee the Ministry Check website. That new nonprofit, known as the Abuse Response Committee, has been unable to publish any names because of objections raised by SBC leaders.

The SBC raked in over $10 billion in 2023. They could fund abuse reforms if they really wanted to without even noticing a change in their bank account. They just don’t want to. They would rather form a task force with no teeth than risk the world finding out just how many of their leaders are alleged (or charged) abusers.

When Lifeway Christian Resources (an arm of the SBC) released the results of a survey of congregation leaders last month, they found that only 58% of them required background checks for staffers who work with kids. With the number that low, the abuse is bound to continue.

Lost in the shuffle of all these votes was the election of the SBC’s new president, Clint Pressley, a megachurch pastor from North Carolina who represents the more conservative wing of the already conservative denomination. (The Religion News Service article about his election says, in the first paragraph, that Pressley “does not wear jeans in the pulpit.” Because that would be heretical.)

Pressley supported the anti-women Law Amendment and had “questions” about the proposed database of abusers, in case you had any questions about where he stands. Oh. And a volunteer at his megachurch was arrested in May after being accused of sexually abusing his own daughter. (The church thankfully reported the man to secular authorities leading to his eventual arrest.)

Keep in mind that the second largest Protestant denomination recently voted to get rid of its anti-LGBTQ policies and allow gay clergy members.

The SBC, on the other hand, is still debating which way to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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By Hemant Mehta · Hundreds of paid subscribers

Commentary about religion and politics, centered around atheism.