A Texas pastor who pleaded guilty to repeatedly abusing a 12-year-old child “has been forgiven by God,” many of his supporters have suggested.
Pastor Robert Morris, 64, who founded one of the largest megachurches in the U.S., abused the 12-year-old girl over a period of four years in Oklahoma in the 1980s, and last week admitted he was guilty of five criminal counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
Osage County District Court, in Oklahoma, handed Morris a sentence of 10 years, but he will only serve six months in jail due to a plea deal. He will also register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
The girl had told her parents and also informed leaders at the church in 1987, but no one had called the police. The allegations include one count of attempted rape.
Morris’s imprisonment marks a spectacular fall from favor. In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump named him his spiritual adviser and a member of his evangelical advisory committee.
Then, in 2020, Morris welcomed Trump to the Gateway Church in Dallas, where Trump referred to Morris and Steve Dulin, another Gateway elder, as "great people with a great reputation.”
The case has generated international headlines and triggered a wave of condemnation; however, many of Morris’s supporters believe that God has forgiven him.
A Facebook post made by the 700 Club – the flagship TV program of the Christian Broadcasting Network – about Morris’s sentencing was flooded with comments supporting Morris in the wake of news about his admission.
“God does forgive, and I believe he is a forgiven man,” one supporter wrote in response to the news.
“He is found guilty in the court of man, but he is forgiven and acquitted in the court of heaven where our Lord Jesus sits as the judge,” another said.
One supporter called for people not to judge him and likened Morris’s child abuse to repentant figures in the bible. “All the great people in the Bible make mistakes,” they wrote. “God is slow to anger and quick to forgive. Don’t judge him, let God be the judge of everyone.”
Others suggested that the time between the abuse and the charges hadn’t been factored into legal proceedings.
“For something that happened 40-plus years ago. UNBELIEVABLE,” one person wrote.
“Love you, Pastor Robert. Praying for you and your family. God isn't finished with you. Your best has yet to come!” another said.
Morris was the founder of the Gateway church in Southlake, Texas, which had a weekly attendance of around 25,000 people, but resigned from the Church last year when his victim, who publicly identified herself as Cindy Clemishire, 55, made the allegations against him.
As well as telling her parents and the church in 1987 of the abuse, she had previously tried to bring the allegations against Morris in 2005, and again in 2007.
A leaked transcript of a 2005 phone call revealed that Morris tried to bribe Clemishire into silence, telling her to “put a price on it”.
Speaking at the court, Clemshire said, "Let me be clear: there is no such thing as consent from a 12-year-old child."
"You did not just harm me as a child—you stole my innocence, the most sacred possession a child has, and you murdered the future woman, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, daughter, and friend I was meant to become."
