As Robert Morris Case Continues, How Should Christians Interpret Such Scandals?

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As Robert Morris Case Continues, How Should Christians Interpret Such Scandals?

Robert Morris, the disgraced pastor from Texas, just appeared in court for the first time since 

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 nearly a year ago from Gateway Church, the church he founded in 2000.

“It’s really sad and tragic when those things take place,” Jeff Schreve, an author and pastor based in Texarkana, said on a recent episode of CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture,” referring to cases like the Morris scandal.

Morris’ dramatic fall from grace rocked 

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 the church’s massive congregation, but Christian culture writ large as the 63-year-old former pastor was 

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 of repeatedly ********* assaulting her in the 1980s, when she was just 12 years old.

After Clemishire leveled her accusations against Morris, he resigned from his post as lead pastor of the multisite Gateway Church based in Southlake, Texas. He was then indicted in mid-March by an Oklahoma multi-county grand jury on five felony counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child.

On May 9, he appeared in public for the first time since his ouster. The ex-minister 

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 for a hearing in Oklahoma, where Osage County Judge Cindy Pickerill set a preliminary hearing for Sept. 4.

“How that guy thought he would not be disqualified from public pastoral ministry is beyond me,” said Schreve. “t looks like he may go to prison; he should for what he did.”

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The Southlake campus alone saw a significant decline in attendance and tithing contributions in the wake of the revelations about Morris. In 

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 in November of last year, one of Gateway’s three remaining elders, Kenneth Fambro, said tithes at the church had dropped by 35%-40% since Clemishire first revealed her allegations against the now-disgraced Morris.

Processing these kinds of stories can be overwhelming, even sparking theological and spiritual questions, casting clouds of doubt over some believers’ faith in God. Scandals of this magnitude are certainly not something most believers will face directly. Nevertheless, everyone will be met by disappointments and discouragements at some point in their lives.

While Scripture makes it clear those in spiritual leadership will be “judged more strictly” and should be held appropriately accountable for their actions (James 3:1), Schreve encouraged Christians to remember “we all have 

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,” a reference to the Old Testament book of Daniel, and urged caution and discernment when it comes to spiritual authorities.

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“We have those who are real Christians who fall and those who are pretenders, those who are not real believers, who are in it for the money, the false prophets who are in it for the money,” he said. “[Christians] need to be discerning … with where they go to church, what they’re listening to, who they’re listening to.”

Believers, he said, need to remember Satan is a “master liar” whose “lies sound the most like the truth,” cautioning against unwarranted cynicism but encouraging Christians to “have our senses trained to discern good and evil.”

While scandals like Morris’ undoubtedly grieve the heart of God, Schreve said it’s important Christians remain rooted not in human leaders — though they are important, no doubt — but in Jesus. To make his point, the Texas-based pastor referenced 

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, when the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about his disappointment in Demas, who once worked in ministry with Paul but ultimately “deserted” him “because he loves the things of this life.”

“We have to keep our eyes on Jesus,” Schreve said. “He never fails.”

The evil present in this world, he later noted, is the result of sin and the freedom God gives human beings to choose for themselves what — and who — they want to follow.

“To really love God, you have to have a choice to not love God,” he explained. “If He’s just going to make it to where you have to serve Him and you have to obey Him and there is no choice, then … free will goes out the window and we just become robots.”

That, though, doesn’t mean God is absent from His followers enduring pain. Schreve, author of the new book, “

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,” said the Lord is working to “redeem” the trials believers face, noting He is “eradicat[ing] evil” from the earth.

“He’s just not doing it immediately, which is a good thing, because that means you and I would be gone,” Schreve said. “There’s evil in us, too. We still have the sinful flesh within us that longs to do evil and rebels against God. So He is working all things to His perfect timing and we can trust Him that, in the end, we’re gonna all say as believers, ‘You did all things well.’”

You can catch our full conversation with Schreve in the video embedded above.

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