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.
I’m never sure if my difficulty integrating with those communities is because they are by nature diffuse or because after having to go to FCA camps as a kid and sing hymns off projector screens that were just re-written country songs about Jesus instead of ford pickup trucks I not only can’t take any religion seriously but specifically and actively refuse to. My higher power commands that I shitpost. I actually got into an argument online with someone insisting that I was doing it wrong (also they were accusing me of being transphobic which is another community I don’t get on with because the surgery is and forever will be the only part of my gender I have ever taken seriously).