Founding elder exits Gateway Church as attendance falls in wake of Robert Morris scandal
Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, has announced the exit of founding elder Steve Dulin as an independent investigation of child sex abuse allegations made by Cindy Clemishire against founder Robert Morris remains underway.
Dulin’s exit, which continues the snowballing fallout from Clemishire’s allegations against Robert Morris, came in a statement from Gateway Church cited by WFAA.
The announcement also came less than a week after the church revealed that Morris’ son, James, and his wife, Bridgette, also mutually agreed with Gateway leaders to step down from the helm of the church just weeks after he took over in the wake of his father’s resignation. Both Dulin and James Morris, along with two other Gateway Church elders, were asked to take a leave of absence from the church after Haynes & Boone, LLP, the firm doing the independent investigation, recommended the move, according to the statement.
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“Steve has served Gateway Church for many years in various roles. We love Steve, his wife Melody, and their family and sincerely thank them for investing their lives here at Gateway Church. They have faithfully served our congregation, our community, and our church through the years," the statement said.
Dulin served as the executive pastor leading Gateway Kingdom Business Leaders ministry. Gateway leaders said after meeting with Dulin earlier this week, they decided it was best to "go in a different direction." No specific details regarding the parting were shared.
Clemishire publicly alleged in June that Morris began sexually abusing her when she was 12 on Christmas Day in 1982 and continued the abuse for four-and-a-half years after that. Robert Morris, 62, admitted to The Christian Post in an earlier statement that he had engaged in "inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady" while he was a pastor at another church in his early 20s. But he did not name his accuser or disclose her age at the time. He would go on to resign from Gateway Church on June 18.
In a recent interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kam Hunt, a former youth pastor at Gateway Church, who also played football for Texas Christian University, revealed that even though he and his wife are still members of the church and don’t plan on leaving, it appears many have left since the scandal, noting that attendance over the previous weekend was undeniably down by about 50%.
“The testament of faith and Christianity is that we keep going; that would signal to other people on the fray that this church is going,” he said. “Leadership needs a complete overhaul, of course. Let’s not repeat the sins of the past, and part of the sins of the past includes we put a person in God’s place.”
Hunt argues that as the church grew, it appears to have lost sight of its priorities and began operating too much like a business.
“Pastors are not meant to be celebrities. They are not meant to be on the throne that God is supposed to be on,” Hunt said. “If you are a Christian, the celebrity is Jesus Christ. Your celebrity is not the person talking about the person you should be worshipping. Don’t worship the middle man.”
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