Robert Morris, who founded and led Gateway Church for nearly 25 years in the affluent Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Southlake, Texas, resigned after the scandal came to light in June. His exit sent thousands of evangelicals into a season of struggle that has lasted months.
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.
At each weekend service, worshippers continue to face reminders of the scandal, with interim or guest pastors kicking off their sermons saying “I’m sorry,” talking about grief or finding hope in difficult times. They’ve noticed people who have sat and prayed around them for years are once again not showing up for service.
The church has seen a decrease of 17% to 19% in weekend services attendance, a church spokesperson told CNN.
Not covered in this story: The church leadership says hey he told us about it but we thought it was with a “young lady” and whatevs it was all cool, we’re as shocked as you are it is horrible
The victim says what the fuck I have been telling them about it FOR YEARS NOW
It's a power thing. Many people choose jobs that give them power over unfortunate people for the express purpose of abusing those people's vulnerability, not because they like to help people.
Gateway Church draws an estimated 100,000 people to its weekend services and has more than 560 employees at nine locations in Texas, and two others in Missouri and Wyoming, according to the church.
Imagine how much money they’re raking in.
Religion should be private. Better yet, wake up from that long-con and give it up altogether.
With numbers like that it sounds more like a cult with tax exemptions. And why do they have so employees, shouldn't people be happy to do "the work of God" for free as volunteers?
If you do a single thing of value for a MEGAchurch, fucking bill them out the nose. That's not a religion it's GOOP with a significantly more exploitative and evil business model.
They bring new people in and show them a really fun time and then pressure them to sign a payroll deduction form so that their tithe can come directly out of their paychecks.
Honestly, I'm always in favor of people leaving religious institutions... I'm cool with people having faith but supporting these large organizations is fucking awful.
I used to work at a place where several partners were members of this church. The open disdain directed toward me for not being a churchgoer and the ostracization the occurred were a significant factor of my decision to leave.
After I left, one of the partners harassed me for several years via phone calls, text messages, and hand written letters mailed to my home trying to get me to turn my heathen ways around.
One of those letters said something asking the lines that while I had chosen eternal damnation for myself, I owed an opportunity of salvation to my daughter, so I needed to bring her to this church.
I don't remember how many years this continued, but it finally stopped.
This is just the WOKE MIND VIRUS Waging a WAR on RELIGION! WHO CARES if a Priest touches a couple hundred kids in their penises and vaginas when DRAG QUEENS EXIST!
What's scary is the Federal US gov, as well as the 5, an I think 7 eyes nations, have been working on projects for 40yrs to have victims of sexual abuse registered as sex offenders themselves. The claim being, if you're raped, you will rape in the future. Poor kids like this will be registered sex offenders for life, they wanted to call them sexnoffenders until they "offended" or some such nonsense. It would still cost them jobs, and single them out as victims.
Fed bastards only want control at this point. They could care less about facts.
People need to stop pretending this is Democrat vs Republicans...40yrs. Both parties had a chance to make things better in 40yrs. We only pay for bailout after tax break. They never fix anything just scrambled for ways to stay in power.