The good I see in the Robert Morris issue

By Elizabeth Prata

When the sentence for a crime is not speedily executed, the hearts of men become fully set on doing evil. (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

One who hates disguises it with his lips,
But he harbors deceit in his heart.
When he speaks graciously, do not believe him,
Because there are seven abominations in his heart.
Though his hatred covers itself with deception,
His wickedness will be revealed in the assembly. Proverbs 26:24-26

This essay isn’t about Robert Morris.

On June 14, 2024, a woman named Cindy Clemishire in partnership with The Wartburg Watch (a church sexual abuse reporting and support page) announced she had been molested by Robert Morris in 1981 when she was 12. Morris, now age 63, is the pastor of the largest mega-church in the United States. He was selected as then-candidate President Trump’s spiritual advisor. He has been in the preaching business since he was 19 years old. He is incredibly famous.

But this isn’t about Robert Morris’s fame.

Several times in the past, Morris had confessed to his elders and sometimes to his congregation that when he was younger, around age 20 or so, but married and with a baby, he had fallen into what he termed “a moral failure” with “a young lady” but since that time he has “walked in purity and accountability.” He was pastor of Shady Grove Church the first time the issue came to light. Most recently he has been pastor of Gateway Church.

(Side note: any pastor who engages in adultery is a fallen ‘below reproach’ pastor, and needs to step down and resume his seat in the pew. He can be forgiven if he repents, Jesus will forgive. But he has lost the office of pastor forever, his immoral act disqualifies him. 1 Timothy 3:2-7. It should also be remarked that many people had warned about Morris’ false doctrine for years, accusing him of being a false teacher. Where there’s smoke there’s fire).

But that so-called “young lady” grew up. She is Cindy Clemishire, and Morris’ interaction with her was not a consensual short term fling, as Morris had intimated. She was a 12 year old child, and the alleged molestation had gone on for four and a half years.

When this accusation came out, the nation was stunned, shocked, and sickened. For the next week, accusations flew, coverups were intimated, information and misinformation shot out from the can of worms and flung around in frenzied orbits. Morris’ accused act was even rebuked by Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione, former Southlake Mayor John Huffman, and State Representative Nate Schatzline.

Initially, the elders at Morris’ current church (Gateway Church) defended their lead pastor, but eventually the flames and horror grew to the point that they met and asked for Morris’ resignation. You can read Cindy’s account here.

But this isn’t about that.

That info above was just the necessary context.

As the news came out, and it was just a few days after mega-church long term pastor Tony Evans (also false) stepped down abruptly due to an unnamed sin, I was reeling. Granted, both are false, but it’s such a blot on Christianity, and the pagans don’t know they’re false. What is happening?!

I, like everyone else, was reeling from the horror of a child molester revealed. The disgust and outrage mounted as the heinousness of his casual lie about her age or the length of time it went on was revealed. About the fact that he took advantage of his friends who were hosting him overnight, to allegedly molest their daughter right under their noses. On Christmas, the day we celebrate the holy Savior’s birth!

At the loss of a childhood innocence, betrayal, blots against Jesus, abuse of his position, the sullying of the pulpit. The list goes on at all the terrible things a revelation of this sort raises.

But this isn’t about that.

I do not like to dwell on foulness. It shrinks my soul. I sought a positive. I chose to look at Jesus, not the horror. THIS is what it’s about.

It’s about JESUS.

Finding the Good through the worst news. I thought of three things that a horrific event can bring to mind about our God. Because Jesus is infinitely GOOD, there must be an infinite number of GOOD aspects to this our finite minds cannot grasp. I’ll be happy with these three.

1.His patience. Jesus is patient. He is patient to a degree I cannot even understand. His patience is not endless, but it is magnanimous. I myself was not saved until I was 43. He was patient with ME all those decades, and I strutted around the earth doing sin and reveling in it. His patience to allow a man such as accused child molester Robert Morris is even greater, because the man all these years purported to speak in Jesus’ name.

Angry, I mentally changed Exodus 22:18KJV “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” to “Thou shall not suffer a to suffer a molester to live.” Yet I remember God’s patience, wanting all to come to repentance, unwilling that any should perish.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9).

Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4).

Jesus allows sin to exist because it serves His good purpose. His patience is not endless. Sin will end one day. We can cling to that. But until that day, focus on how patient He was with YOU (me too) before the moment came when He justified us.

2.His wisdom: He tests us all through false teachers. I mean, we know Robert Morris is false. We know through their doctrine. False doctrine is evil because it is sin. However seeing also HOW false they are through exposure of his sinful immorality is hard to bear. But there is a purpose in it. Jesus uses corruption when exposed as a test to show His elect the ‘exceeding sinfulness of sin’ as the Puritan Ralph Venning coined. As we view the rancid evilness of sin, we recoil, and cling to the purity and holiness of Jesus all the more.

What did David do when Nathan rebuked David for his sin? David recoiled. Then he wrote his Psalm 51 confession. It is the same when we see others’ sin so blatant, we shrink back in disgust (just in case we were getting used to our own pet sin or sin in others). Any Christian pursuing holiness and advancing in sanctification will quail in horror to see such doings, and the boomerang reaction is to run to Jesus. We cry out, ‘Lord, let that not happen to me! Preserve me from sin, I confess my sin!’ Then we care even more deeply about the holiness of His church.

For nothing is concealed that will not become evident, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. (Luke 8:17)

3.His mercy: This one was big for me. If we were allowed to see all the sin there is, we would die immediately from crushing grief. That He lifts the blanket covering sin so minutely, slowly, measuredly is a mercy. As always, His timing allows us to absorb, self-reflect, test our emotions, engage compassion, repent ourselves, fight for purity in our own church… and so on.

We reel and stagger in disgust when this one man’s sin is exposed, imagine how FULL of sin this world is. Its foul and fetid stink permeating everything man does. Sin’s percolating decay leaching into the perfect world God hath made, staining it with vile rot.

We don’t see it all. Our puny souls and finite minds cannot get a mental hold of the totality of it. But imagine this: Jesus sees it ALL. He sees it all at once. And not just from heaven, He came down from glory and lived among it. Sin did not stain Him, but in the end, He became sin. He lived among sinful man, knowing their hearts and minds. He saw Nathanael under the fig tree before he was even called, (John 1:48).

Jesus sees this one is a secret embezzler (Judas) or that one is a molester and that one is a murderer. He knows the secret sins of all. He is merciful to allow us to see sin in only thimbleful amounts!

If He were to lift the blanket on even our own sins all at once and force our nose in it like a puppy? We would die, probably. It’s a mercy that Jesus ONLY allowed us to see Robert Morris’ sin and not all the sin in the world.

When a pastor falls or a secret is exposed to the world it does take a moment for us to absorb, process the feelings, and re-attain equilibrium. But don’t dwell on the horror part. Know this:

now, will God not bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and will He delay long for them? (Luke 18:7)

Then look to Jesus.

Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. (Isaiah 45:22).

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” (Numbers 21:8)

looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)