Recent allegations of sexual misconduct by notable Evangelical pastors have led to a lot of controversy and outrage among Evangelicals. Such behavior is not new, so I am wondering where the outrage was years ago when Evangelical and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers were accused of rape, sexual assault, and other heinous crimes? Better late than never, I suppose.
Robert Morris, the pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas — a megachurch with over 25,000 members — was recently accused of and admitted to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s. The abuse went on for several years. Church leaders knew about Morris’ sordid past, believing he had an inappropriate relationship with a “young woman” — as if, somehow this is better. Now that leadership knows the “truth,” they are expressing their own outrage over Morris’ crimes — and yes, his behavior was criminal, even if he cannot be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. Give me a break. These are the same leaders that should have fired Morris on the spot, but let him resign instead. They, themselves should either immediately resign, or be booted out of office.
Central to this story is the church handling the original sexual abuse allegation in-house. Morris’ crime should have been immediately reported to law enforcement, both by the girl’s parents and the church board. That they chose to keep the abuse secret and slap Morris on the hands after he promised to never touch the cookie jar again is inexcusable.
I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I saw a lot of stuff swept under the rug, so much so that the rug is now 20 feet high. Since 2007, I have been an advocate for people who have been sexually assaulted and abused by Evangelical preachers. I have posted over 1,000 stories in the Black Collar Crime Series — a series that focuses primarily on sex crimes committed by preachers and other church leaders. These stories must get wide exposure. Why? Denominations, churches, and preachers do everything in their power to bury these stories, including not reporting sex crimes, as they are required to do by law in most states. All that matters to them is protecting the church’s name and testimony. They know that exposure leads to membership loss, which leads to income loss, which leads to loss of power. Victims/survivors don’t matter; the church does. And that’s why churches handle allegations themselves, hoping to keep offenders from being arrested or publicly outed. If allegations can’t be swept under the proverbial rug, criminal preachers are quietly encouraged to resign or retire. When a big-name preacher all of a sudden resigns, saying God is leading them somewhere else, the first question should be “Why?” None of that “God leading” nonsense. More often than not, the real reason is criminal in nature, or at the very least, conduct that should disqualify a man from the ministry.
Churches should NEVER be permitted to investigate sexual abuse claims in-house. Let me illustrate why. What follows is a quote from an Evangelical preacher about Morris’ assaulting a 12-year-old girl and how Gateway Church should have handled the woman’s allegations. In his mind, his “advice” applies to all Evangelical churches. I should note that this man is a notorious defender of men accused of sex crimes, often attacking victims in his defense of despicable, vile so-called men of God.
Here’s what he had to say in a post titled Bearing False Witness:
We [I] disagree with this move [appointing an outside firm to investigate] because the law firm is not skilled or experienced in sexual assaults or their investigations (we looked them up) and they are not believers. Will they apply the Bible correctly or merely be lazy and do what they did to Mr. [Ravi] Zacharias and create a very one-sided, biased report that avoided the truth?
Since church people are involved, then the Bible has jurisdiction and a prominent role in guiding the investigation. If it is left out we can be assured that the truth may not be heard but subjective opinion will be published.
Christians should not be afraid to practice true justice and do biblically guided investigations as the opinion of the unbeliever does not matter. What matters is that all of scripture is followed correctly and not followed to show people they are being spiritual in these matters.
Obeying God is more important than appeasing unbelievers, especially those who make false claims and bear false witness against believers. These words hold true when believers make accusations against other believers or unbelievers.
According to this man, since both the perpetrator and the victim are Christians, the church should investigate and render judgment. If law enforcement is involved, they must, according to him, follow the Bible. Fine, the Bible says adultery and fornication are capital crimes. I expect him to come out supporting the immediate stoning of Robert Morris. Of course, he thinks the victim is culpable too, so I suspect he would call for her stoning too.
Memo to this preacher: The United States is a secular nation. We are a people ruled and governed by laws. What the church says doesn’t matter. What the Bible says doesn’t matter. What does matter is the law and proper enforcement of said law. What does matter is justice. Obeying God, the church, or the Bible should play no part in our legal system. You are free to continue defending sexual predators, but this does leave me saying, The preacher doth protest too much, methinks.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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As a brit, I find it hard to understand why the USA’s Child Protection laws aren’t as rigid as ours. Every single person who works with, or volunteers with children or the vulnerable, must be DRB checked. (Disclosure and Barring Service.) When it was first introduced, IIRC over 25 years ago, parents would ask a scout leader or a volunteer if they had one…..now no one asks as it’s always done. It led to some slightly crazy situations when I was teaching kids in small Sunday School. Two adults is the rule. Our whole clientele were never more than 10 kids. One week all were away, as was my fellow-teacher, but a visiting child’s mum said the child was disappointed not to have a class. So mum came into the SS room with me and watched me teach her one kid! When 4 children’s parents didn’t collect them – they were pretty feral kids – we needed 2 cars to taxi them home – one adult couldn’t take all 4 in his 5-seater car, 2 adults is the rule. My colleague was best friend and godmother to 8yo twins who occasionally were the only attendees – but we obeyed the law, and a I sat in the room too, though they saw their godmother all the time in other situations. I liken it to the seatbelt law, it’s as automatic as reaching for your seatbelt when you get into your car, you just never question that you can’t be alone with a child in churches, schools, clubs, medical situations and more.
I still can’t get over Mr Tee saying in one of his posts that by Biblical standards a 12-year-old is an adult able to give consent and thus liable for being sexually abused by an adult. That’s despicable to the point that I don’t have words for it. Any parent or anyone who has worked with 12-year-olds can clearly see that they think and act like children – because they are children! Developmentally, most have not developed their analytical and critical thinking skills yet – which is why they’re tested in 7th grade to see if they’re ready to learn algebra yet. The ones whose brains have developed enough get to take algebra in 8th grade while the others wait a year. .
Bruce, I really appreciate your Black Collar Crime Series. 1,000 reports, from your site alone. (SMH).
The plauge of Evangelical Perverts (almost exclusively male – almost) is neither an aberation or a few bad actors.
A male dominated social cult, (now a political cult of the Donald and insane maga extremists – see DEE-T), IMO, sexual predation is exactly why the pedo’s and perverts join and belong to the church in such great numbers.
They are protected in their perversion and predation by the …………C-H-U-R-C-H……………!!!! Thats part of the deal, the Church is the perfect stalking grounds, for the alpha male perverts. Weak minded individuals (women, boys and girls, children, even infants) seduced by liars that are enabled by their CULT powers of manipulation, to prey on the helpless.
The Catholic Church, long the standard bearer for perversion, are threatened by the Evangelicals, whom are fast catching up. (Hello SBC, how y’all doing!)
It’s unimaginable isn’t it? My (used to be marriage) was a victim of sexual Church predation too, a Deacon enjoying getting his rocks off on my disgusting ex. Nothing like a little practical experience to fully understand where your church is “coming from”.
“ We [I] disagree with this move [appointing an outside firm to investigate] because the law firm is not skilled or experienced in sexual assaults or their investigations (we looked them up) and they are not believers. Will they apply the Bible correctly or merely be lazy and do what they did to Mr. [Ravi] Zacharias and create a very one-sided, biased report that avoided the truth?”
This says it all. The writer of the quote should be disbarred from future membership of the human race. Apart from the sheer illogicality I’d suspect that the majority of external lawyers called upon to investigate will be ‘believers’, because that’s the dominant culture. It has to be said, however, that being a believer or unbeliever is totally irrelevant to assessment of the evidence and lodging of charges, if appropriate. Perhaps the believer would use the bible as a guide to age of consent, which essentially (to this unbeliever anyway) is as soon as they can walk! What if a Muslim believer were investigating? Might they invoke Sharia considerations?
As for Ravi Zacharias, I’m not sure there’s anything more needs to be said. As I recall the only avoidance of truth was by Zacharias.
He’s continually laying down the ground work to defend himself. Plain as day.
Yes Zoe, this is always my suspicion with these people.
Most churchgoers are too frozen with fear to leave because the family and social price is just too high. It certainly was too high for me, so I defected not outwardly but in mind only.
It’s a huge step, so just to make sure, I’d read Bruce’s “Count the Cost Before You Say I am an Atheist,” before you do anything.
But if you’re sure …
https://youtu.be/pXb0zcEM-rI?si=LmjbSHgzNTFG-Sus
I find it very interesting that the blog piece that you quoted does not list the man’s name or where he is located. Seems to me if he wants to pontificate to the rest of us mere mortals, at least he should reveal himself. I like to think I am fairly up to date on whos who in the evangelical world. Maybe theres a reason why he is choosing to stay anonymous. As usual Bruce good work.
It’s David Tee. 😢😢 I wish he allowed comments on his site so people could “encourage“ him in his faith. 🤣🤣
All the people involved in these cover-ups, AND their supporters, are the very worst people.