Pastor Robert Morris is the founder of Gateway Church that started in 2000 and has roughly 25,000 members in attendance across 10 campuses every weekend. His net worth is estimated to be $117 million. On June 14,2024, an article was posted, which can be found here , in which a woman states that Robert Morris began sexually abusing her in the 1980s when she was between the ages of 12-16. Morris was in his early 20s at the time, married, and had a young child. The church released a statement referring to this girl as a “young lady” and made no mention of her age. A picture of the statement will be attached below.

 

 

 

It should also be noted that, in the article, it talks about how she requested $50,000 in compensation to cover her therapy expenses, and she was met with an offer of $25,000 if she signed an NDA to which she refused.

Robert Morris also served on President Trump’s spiritual advisory board and has made many posts that were pro-Israel without acknowledging the genocide of the Palestinian people. 

Below I will recount personal experiences as a former member.

As someone who attended Gateway Church, there were countless sermons on how women are responsible for sexually pleasing their husbands and that if he wants to have sex and they do not, they should have sex anyways because that is what God wants them to do. He also said that if a woman does not want to have sex with her husband, it is her fault if he cheats on her because she deprived him.

In the article mentioned earlier, he discusses how, when he was younger, he would purposefully seek out young girls who he knew had “daddy issues” because he knew they would be easier to manipulate.

This is the same man who, when his mixed grandchild was born, stated from the stage that he was “upset that she came out brown, but God is working on my heart.”

He would give 6 week message series (I believe yearly) in which he would persuade members to tithe in order to be blessed by God. I used to work in the coffee shop and there was a way for us to charge drinks to their departments. This was supposed to be meant for if a new member came, the pastors could buy them a drink. There were countless times a pastor or staff member would come up and charge a personal drink to their department. I was 17 when I realized that my hard earned tithe money was going towards vanilla lattes.

When I was 12, I was at a Gateway Students service and questioning my sexuality. We had a “conversion” service where the pastor (not Robert Morris but one of the youth group pastors) talked about how God hated gay people and how we would all go to hell, but that if we had “homosexual tendencies” but did not act on them, that was okay. We were forced to sign cards promising to follow “God’s plan for marriage” (aka be in a heterosexual marriage) and this one service caused me to deny my sexuality for ten years. 

Why we need to do something

Robert Morris is not a pastor, he is a business man running a corporation. There is no world in which a pastor should have a net worth as large as he does. He abuses his power and charisma and feeds damaging lies to people and covers it up as “God’s word.” 

Gateway Church is a cult and people have been brainwashed to blindly believe and worship Robert Morris. I fear that the congregation will not take the allegations seriously and find some way to turn a blind eye. We need to put pressure on the church so that something is done and he faces punishment. 

I am sick and tired of hearing pastors abusing their power to abuse children. This must end, but we have to speak up if we want something done. 

Robert Morris needs to be removed from his position of power and not be allowed to preach any longer.