Robert Morris, the founding father of a Texas megachurch and a religion adviser to the Trump White Home, has resigned from his job as its senior pastor, the church mentioned on Tuesday, days after he was accused of sexually abusing a baby within the Eighties.
The Board of Elders of Gateway Church, based mostly in Dallas, mentioned in an announcement that it had accepted Mr. Morris’s resignation. The board mentioned it had employed a legislation agency to conduct an impartial investigation into the abuse allegations made public final week by a lady who’s now 54. Mr. Morris couldn’t instantly be reached for touch upon Tuesday night time.
The assertion didn’t say if any associated prices had been filed in opposition to Mr. Morris, whose church says it has greater than 100,000 energetic attendees. Messages despatched to Haynes and Boone, the agency employed by the church, didn’t instantly reply to messages.
Over the weekend, The Christian Submit, a Christian information outlet based mostly in Washington, D.C., quoted Mr. Morris as saying that he had engaged in “inappropriate sexual habits with a younger woman.”
“After I was in my early twenties, I used to be concerned in inappropriate sexual habits with a younger woman in a house the place I used to be staying,” Mr. Morris, 62, advised The Christian Submit. “It was kissing and petting and never intercourse, however it was incorrect. This habits occurred on a number of events over the subsequent few years.”
The connection was reported final week by The Wartburg Watch, a Christian watchdog publication. The web site mentioned that Mr. Morris had sexually abused a woman, starting when she was 12 years outdated.
Mr. Morris later advised The Christian Submit that the connection had been “dropped at mild” in 1987. He left the church that 12 months to get counseling, on the request of church officers and the lady’s father, he mentioned. In 1989, he returned with their approval.
On Tuesday, the Board of Elders of Gateway Church mentioned in its assertion that it had been conscious of Mr. Morris’s inappropriate relationship however didn’t have all of the information of the scenario till final week.
“The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had mentioned many occasions all through his ministry, was with ‘a younger woman’ and never abuse of a 12-year-old little one,” the church mentioned. “Though it occurred a few years earlier than Gateway was established, as leaders of the church, we remorse that we didn’t have the knowledge that we now have.”
Mr. Morris, who based the church in 2000, served on a religion advisory council throughout former President Donald J. Trump’s administration. He hosted Mr. Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020.
Requested about Mr. Morris on Tuesday, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential marketing campaign mentioned that the pastor had no position in it.
“President Trump’s broad attraction amongst religion communities throughout the nation is a testomony to his unwavering dedication to upholding religion and the safety of spiritual liberties,” mentioned the spokesman, Steven Cheung.
Chris Cameron contributed reporting.
