8,000 seat TX church attendance after lead pastor (Trump's spiritual advisor) busted for pedophilia

I read the article. This is way worse than pedophilia. He repeatedly sexually assaulted a girl from age twelve to age sixteen when he was in his twenties.

Isn't that what pedophiles do? Any sex with someone so young is sexual assault.
- I'd distinguish between passive consumers of CSAM and child rapists. Both are terrible, the latter is worse.
- Pedophiles have many different paths. All of them are sexually attracted to children. Some run away to be hermits. Others molest or rape children. Others seek therapy. Some take medication to castrate themselves and eliminate all sexual urges entirely. Some write disgusting fiction. Some make disgusting art. Still others seek out CSAM. Some roleplay their desires with partners their own age.
  
  This guy had all these options and chose the worst possible one.
This is way worse than pedophilia.

uh no it's literally pedophilia which drove him to sexually assault a minor.
- Pedophiles have many different paths. All of pedophiles are sexually attracted to children. Some run away to be hermits. Others molest or rape children. Others seek therapy. Some take medication to castrate themselves and eliminate all sexual urges entirely. Some write disgusting fiction. Some make disgusting art. Still others seek out CSAM. Some roleplay their desires with partners their own age.
  
  This guy had all these options and chose the worst possible one.

It is amazing that there are people still coming after that story got public.

You have no idea the mental gymnastics zealots can get up to.

My grandmother was a fanatical roman catholic and she swore that all the stories about priests diddling little kids were a conspiracy by the rest of the world to discredit Catholicism.
- I'll add that there's an element of denial and fear at losing community. For most ex-Christians I know, losing that familiar community is the last thing to go during their deconstruction. They might not believe in anything that's taught anymore, but leaving behind that community means isolation for a while and having to build new friendships and support systems.
  
  So zealotry is definitely a component, but don't discount fear of being an outcast, either.
- If only I could upvote this twice!
Honestly I'm more surprised that so many didn't show up. That's never been my experience.

Looks like, based off a quick Wikipedia skim:

The lead pastor resigned
That's a different guy preaching
That's about 30% of its normal attendance
At least one person in the audience is there to take a picture and point out how many people are still there ; )

What do you expect, the church to completely dissolve? I wouldn't be surprised if this church had some serious theological issues given its association with Trump, but one pastor, even the lead pastor, doing an evil doesn't mean the whole church is faulty.

but one pastor, even the lead pastor, doing an evil doesn't mean the whole church is faulty.

There's a reason the saying is "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch." That kind of fraud and manipulation infects the leadership, wittingly or unwittingly, and I would not be shocked to learn that he's taught them some bad habits when it comes to outing bad leaders. I myself left another megachurch whose story was very similar to this one, and while it may not be exactly the same, it's uncanny how the stories rhyme.
- I don't think it can really infect them if they didn't know about the crime until recently. That being said, I understand your concern. Christians are meant to be built different, though. Jesus was a friend of sinners. We're not assumed to be corrupted because we hung around someone who was corrupt.
  
  The way my church's denomination does it, when a pastor steps down, they pull in a new pastor from another church, which also alleviates this concern. I say this not to defend Gateway Church (their new pastor is the old pastor's son,) but to demonstrate that not all churches have the problems you hear about.
corruption in the ecclesiastical leadership of a spiritual organization - pedophelia no less - should implode any such org.

their whole thing is supposedly about good and evil and righteous justice for victims, if you read their texts.

instead it's another grift. tithes and perverts.
- It's not just about good vs evil. It's about love and forgiveness. That's not to say pedophiles should get off scot free, because it's also wisdom - it's very unwise to keep a pedophile in a position where they have access to kids like that.
  
  But I digress. If the org is imploded, all the churchgoers will have to find a new church, and many won't bother. Unless the church has serious theological issues (which just about no church would think they do,) that wouldn't be good. Instead, it's possible to remove the bad apple and replace them with someone else. The way my church's denomination does it, whenever a pastor steps down, the new pastor comes from another church, which helps to make sure there isn't lasting corruption. From what I read about this one, the new pastor is the old pastor's son, so...
...but one pastor, even the lead pastor, doing an evil doesn't mean the whole church is faulty.

You're probably right. The problem I'm running into is religion's history of causing literally every issue you can think of, up to and including war and everything that comes with it. So while that church may not be faulty, our failure to not use religion as a wall to hide atrocities behind sorta makes it automatically on the wrong side of the fence. Unless it proves otherwise, of course. Which, I think, it has failed to do so quite remarkably.

These days, I would have thought his association with Trump and pedophilia would boost his popularity cause America do be weird.

Only works on Trump. Plus, he didn't try to go on the right wing grift circuit and invoke the magic words that make the crazies forget how critical thinking works (e.g. cancelled, woke, lawfare, Jesus, false flag, globalists, deep state operatives, etc.).

Don't worry, some other grifter will come in and continue to fleece the congregation for all of their money.

If they don't attend church every Sunday, they'll upset their imaginary friend in the sky.

Every accusation is a confession

I know nothing about religion outside of movies and such - why would he wear a suit? Isn't he supposed to wear something like a robe? Or at the very least a white collar band?

Also, that's still way too many people.

Different denominations have different traditions. Christianity is not a monolith and has split many, many, many times.

My experience is that the more separated the church is from the oldest denominations, the less likely the priest or pastor is to wear "traditional" garb. The church in the picture is some flavour of southern evangelical, and so is pretty far removed from Roman Catholicism.

I grew up in a reformed Calvinist tradition and the pastors always wore suits. In later years, younger pastors would even ditch the jacket in the summer.
Situational as to the church. In my experience the less overtly church-like the house of worship, the less likely the pastor is going to dress like what we'd consider a pastor. Football stadium/theater mega church? guys lookin' like a used car salesman. Full stone with the statuary on it? Dudes fit is gonna be immaculate.
A suit seems like good attire for a showmaster and/or business man
On the first point I had a thought about this the other day. My grandma told me we're supposed to wear "our best" to church and someone wearing jeans would wind her up big time. Then I thought, "Uh, none of these clothes existed when Jesus was alive. If anything we should wear tunics."
Take everything with i say with a grain of salt/do some searching to get more specifics of what I say, its been years since I've really considered myself properly Catholic and a lot of what I learned is a bit rusty.

It depends on the flavor of Christianity, Catholics and some Protestant denominations that are still traditionally pretty close to Catholics, like the Anglicans, use the all black outfit with the Roman collar, that black collar with the white tab for their day to day outfits and the wear specific robes and garments when performing Mass.

I'm not sure of the details of the various flavors of Orthodox, but the bit I have seen tend to also use the various robes and other garments.

Some flavors of Protestant tend to focus on their leadership being part of the people and being in service to others (and actually do a lot of community service) tend to wear fairly plain common clothes.

And then the big Protestant mega churches that operate more like tax havens than actual ministries serving the community, tend to wear the nice suits and fly in their private jets.

Didn't think this would matter to a Trump supporter. It's just another witch hunt by the DOJ, right?

Like I don't think that prison is necessarily gonna reform anyone but I hate this idea that the church will, when (not sure on this specific one) it has a history of covering up abuse. Maaaaybe this guy has reformed but it doesn't sound like he's made things right by his victim, who due to a legal technicality cannot press charges against him, even though he's admitted to the crime. The system is broken, the church is broken.