Robert Morris, Texas megachurch pastor, pleads guilty to sexually abusing a child
Robert Morris, the Texas megachurch pastor who built Gateway Church into one of the largest congregations in the country, pleaded guilty Thursday in Osage County District Court to charges that he sexually abused a girl in the 1980s.
Morris, 64, entered the plea before Judge Cindy Pickerill, admitting to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was given a 10-year sentence, but he will serve only six months in the county jail. He must also register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
The plea represents a remarkable fall for Morris, who founded Gateway in 2000 in Southlake, Texas, and grew it into a megachurch with tens of thousands of weekly attendees. His sermons were broadcast to audiences around the world, his books became bestsellers in evangelical circles, and he served as a faith adviser to President Donald Trump.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rob...rcna234748
Robert Morris, the Texas megachurch pastor who built Gateway Church into one of the largest congregations in the country, pleaded guilty Thursday in Osage County District Court to charges that he sexually abused a girl in the 1980s.
Morris, 64, entered the plea before Judge Cindy Pickerill, admitting to five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was given a 10-year sentence, but he will serve only six months in the county jail. He must also register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution.
The plea represents a remarkable fall for Morris, who founded Gateway in 2000 in Southlake, Texas, and grew it into a megachurch with tens of thousands of weekly attendees. His sermons were broadcast to audiences around the world, his books became bestsellers in evangelical circles, and he served as a faith adviser to President Donald Trump.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rob...rcna234748
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
