Just what is going on at Texas’ Gateway Church in North Texas is anyone’s guess, but the church cannot seem to hold onto pastors and leaders. So far this year, several have departed in disgrace or in mysterious circumstances with only vague allusions to unspecified wrongdoing.
Last week, Gateway announced the departure of a fourth pastor over an unnamed “moral issue.” Kemtal Glasgow left the leadership role for unspecified reasons that the church said made him unsuitable for the position.
Spokeswoman Tra Willbanks, a church elder, said in a Youtube video that the church was made aware of a “moral issue” that they said disqualifies Glasgow from his pastoral duties.
Glasgow’s departure is just the latest in a series that started with the discovery that church founder Robert Morris had sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s. Morris confessed in June to abusing Cindy Clemishire, who is 54 today. The abuse started on Christmas night in 1982 and continued until 1987.
Gateway Church says Glasgow’s departure is unrelated to the Morris sex abuse scandal. Church leaders said they have sympathy for the Glasgow family, and wish them “restoration and healing.” It is not clear whether the congregation at the church will be satisfied with this vague response.
It is unclear who the acting pastors will be, but church member Adena Wilson has been put into a new position of overseeing what the church calls its “campus pastors.” Church elder Willbanks said she was “excited” for Adena, who will be “a perfect person to take on this responsibility.”
Cindy Clemishire made her allegations public in a blog post published in June by a group that exposes abuse in churches. In earlier emails she sent to pastor Morris, Clemishire said it had been decades since he “began destroying my life,” and that she wanted restitution for his crimes against her.
Morris later defended himself to the press, saying what he did to Clemishire was “only kissing and petting,” not full intercourse, even though it was wrong. But he followed that up by saying he has “walked in grace and purity” since committing the assaults.
