Remember Robert Morris? Pastor at one of the largest megachurches in the country, Gateway Church, that draws in a 100,000 suckers every week? Or did you manage to erase him from your memory after learning that he was guilty of molesting a 12 year old girl? If so, good for you, and stop reading because I’m going to remind you of the man.
There have been developments.
Last week, a pastor who oversaw all of Gateway’s campuses departed amid an undisclosed “moral issue,” becoming the latest in a series of changes for the church: The cancellation of its annual conference. The departure of Morris’ successor. The renaming of its Houston campus and an exodus of worshippers.
An “exodus of worshippers” sounds great, and is what I’d expect: empty megachurches as parishioners wake up and realize that it’s all a sham run by con artists and that they can do better with their life than getting their morality from a pedophile. I’m relieved to see that some people did exactly that.
For Emily High, the 17 years she spent as a church member came to a halt because she felt betrayed, she said.
“It’s anger, it’s all the range of emotions,” High told WFAA. “Being a pedophile, a molester, that’s not OK.”
Yes! Except…Ms High represents a minority.
The church has seen a decrease of 17% to 19% in weekend services attendance, a church spokesperson told CNN.
I can do math. That means there are still 80,000 fools and tools shuffling into those churches every weekend. The Christian grift continues!
The church members have a huge emotional investment in the church.
It is essier to endure the cognitive dissonance than admit it is all a sham.
birgerjohansson
A religious version of the sunk-cost fallacy. It makes sense considering the religious seem to find fallacies of all kinds alluring.
Let’s see if I got this straight: Morris resigned in June for molesting at least one girl many years ago…who knows about since then…and another “pastor” left last week for unspecified “moral issues.” At this point upward for 20% of Gateway’s crowd has dropped out because of Morris. I would expect more.
But despite that I wouldn’t get too excited about the fate of Gateway. The Roman Catholic Church has had thousands of cases aired in the public and countless more swept under their prayer rugs. Even our avuncular Pope Francis, referring to a case in Chili in 2018, spoke of victims “fabricating” allegations. By the middle of the year he was apologizing because the cases are rampant. That’s from the Pope who should know. Despite the size of the problem, the Catholic Church is still huge. Millions of people went to their local churches yesterday with their children in tow because…why? It couldn’t happen to them? It’s more important to do the ritual dances of the ancient past than protect the health and well-being of your children?
I don’t get it.
Of course, those who stay in the various religions don’t see it as “all a sham.” If you earnestly believe in Jesus (or Mohammad) and the mythology derived from Judaism, then it’s not all a sham. But that’s another problem for which no amount of revelations of abuse will deter the faithful.
Morris isn’t a drag queen, is he? After all, the church has been warning us for years of the dangers of exposing young children to drag queens.
Or a librarian.
Or a book.
Libraries, librarians, and books are all demonic in the mythology of the fundie xians.
Want to bet Morris started abusing those children by handing out…science books written for children.
Apparently, Morris cannot be charged because at the time of the offense (1980’s) Texas had a statute of limitation on child molestation.
Can you spell Hypocrisy? It is one of the greatest of virtues the xtian terrorists and rtwingnuts exhibit at all times..
You were raped? You must carry it to term and allow your rapist to avoid all support of it while he continues to rape other women/girls. Oh, he is a good xtian? Then he should not be troubled by your horrible plight at all.
From ghoulies and ghosties and long legged xtian terrorists and things that go hump in the night, good lard, deliver us.
Wait! Gateway Church? Does that mean that xtianity is a gateway to becoming a full-fledged career rapist? Just like certain milder drugs are called gateways to hard drugs? Seems, so!
@6 FFS, really? No wonder Texas is so fucked.
Sadly, the reason Morris was “defrocked” for being unfrocked was that the 12 year old girl was too old.
Something similar was reported recently here in Lexington, KY. The church here did not have 100,000 attendees, but it also tried to remain afloat by changing its name from Quest Community Chruch to LexCity Church. That didn’t save it. It has shut down, but I’m sure another grifter or worse will fill in the void very soon.