DALLAS (TX)
Chron [Houston TX]
October 21, 2024
By Eric Killelea
Former Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris is among a rising number of Dallas-Fort Worth pastors to resign this year due to sexual abuse allegations and moral failures.
A number of megachurch pastors in North Texas have resigned this year after being accused of sexual abuse and other crimes. Other religious leaders in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro have stepped down or faced significant consequences due to a series of ‘moral failures’ and unexplained transgressions. Here is a running list of the Texas clergy who’ve face public scrutiny in 2024.
May
Terren Dames, North Dallas Community Bible Fellowship in Plano
Terren Dames, the former senior pastor North Dallas Community Bible Fellowship, was arrested and charged on May 2 for alleged solicitation of prostitution. Plano police accused Dames of calling an undercover officer to offer $150 for sex, per KERA News. Police arrested Dames after he showed up to the motel address the officer sent him. In a statement, the church said it removed Dames from the staff “due to a moral failure.”
June
Tony Evans, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas
Tony Evans stepped down on June 9 from his long-held post at the 10,000-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas due to an unnamed “sin,” per the Austin-American Statesman. Evans said he had “committed no crime” but that he “did not use righteous judgements” in his actions.
Mike Buster, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano
Prestonwood’s senior pastor Jack Graham on June 16 abruptly announced that executive pastor Mike Buster would retire after 35 years of serving the organization. The Southern Baptist megachurch in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro boasts 45,000 members including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other conservative politicians. The church has denied rumors that suggest Buster participated in any financial wrongdoing.
Robert Morris, Gateway Church in Southlake
Robert Morris, the founding pastor of Gateway in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, resigned from his influential position on June 18 after being accused of sexually assaulting a preteen girl in the 1980s.
The Wartburg Watch, a digital publication that exposes abuse in churches, published Cindy Clemishire’s account, which included allegations that Morris, then a 21-year-old traveling preacher and a friend of Clemishire’s family in Oklahoma, began sexually assaulting her on Christmas night in 1982 when she was just 12-years-old. Clemishire, now 54, said the abuse continued for more than four years in Oklahoma and Texas.
Morris admitted to the Christian Post that he “was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” when he was in his 20s. Morris said in a statement that the sexual encounters happened on “several occasions” and that “the situation was brought to life” in March 1987.
Morris became a megachurch pastor and eventually a spiritual adviser to the Trump White House. At its peak, Gateway Church boasted a weekend attendance of 100,000 members at nine locations in Texas and two other locations in Missouri and Wyoming.
In the wake of Morris’ resignation, four church elders including Morris’ son, James, resigned from the church in July as a hired law firm investigated the claims. James’ wife, Bridgette, also stepped down from her role at the church. Morris’ son-in-law, Ethan Fisher, announced plans to rebrand Gateway Church Houston into Newlands Church starting in 2025. Fisher is married to Elaine, Morris’ daughter. Gateway has reportedly lost 20 percent of its congregation since the news was made public. Morris has not been charged with a civil or criminal crime and has not made any public statements.
Luke Cunningham, Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury
Lakeside Baptist fired Luke Cunningham in June after learning that he was accused of sexually assaulting a minor at a church where he previously served. Turning Point Community Church in Lubbock, Texas, told WFAA that Cunningham had served as the student pastor there from 2016 to 2020.
Cunningham, who was a youth pastor at several churches in Texas, was arrested and charged by the U.S. Marshals on June 19 with sexual assault of a child, aggravated sexual assault of a child, and a second count of indecency with a child by sexual contact, per KERA News. The alleged crimes were committed between 2016 and 2018.
“We believe that when we find a wolf among the sheep, including another who may be called ‘pastor’ then the true pastors must step forward and bring about discipline,” Lakeside Baptist senior pastor Mark Forrest said in an email to KERA News. “We have done so, and we encourage all other true pastors to act with integrity toward God and the church, protecting the members and the little ones among us from harm.”
July
Tony Cammarota, Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco
Stonebriar Community Church announced the resignation of Tony Cammarota for a “moral failure” on July 7. Cammarota, a former associate pastor at Stonebriar, “confessed to church leadership of a moral failure,” the church said in an email to congregants, per Adrian Ashford of the Dallas Morning News. “He is deeply remorseful but his sin disqualifies him from serving on our staff as a pastor.”
Ronald Goines, Koinonia Church
Ronald Goines, the former lead pastor at Koinonia Christian Church in Arlington, Texas, reportedly turned himself into authorities on July 25 after the local police department issued two warrants for his arrest, per CBS News. The charges for indecent assault and for sexual assault reportedly came after a woman’s “outcry that was reported to the department” in June, per KERA News.
Josiah Anthony, Cross Timbers Church in Argyle
Cross Timbers announced on July 28 that Josiah Anthony had resigned as lead pastor due to “inappropriate and hurtful” actions towards members. The church told WFAA that Anthony’s alleged actions did not “include any children, physical or sexual interactions or any illegal activity to our knowledge.” However, CBS News reported that elders accused Anthony of having a “concerning pattern of behavior communicating inappropriately with women” and that “elders learned about more inappropriate comments he made via text messages and social media that they said were sexual in nature.”
August
Bryon Copeland, Cross Timbers Church in Argyle
Former Cross Timbers executive pastor Byron Copeland, along with founding pastors Brian Hackney and his wife, Jamie, resigned in August. “Although there have been a series of transitions, we want you to know that our Elders and Leadership team have a renewed energy, and our staff has a forward-facing posture,” the church said then, per WFAA.
September
Scott Crenshaw, Lake Country Church
The nondenominational church fired Senior Pastor Scott Crenshaw from his post in September for allegedly “looking at inappropriate material” online, his attorney, Mark Lane, told WFAA. Lane reportedly denied the allegations that Crenshaw was viewing pornography, and said the pastor was simply looking at something on Instagram. The lawyer planned to take legal action against the church and its elders to seek “restitution and damages for destroying” his client’s career. In 2016, New River Fellowship Church in Fort Worth announced it had fired Crenshaw for having “inappropriate images” on his work computer and thus was “not qualified to lead” the congregation anymore, The Wartburg Watch reported at the time.
Steven J. Lawson, Trinity Bible Church of Dallas
Steven Lawson, the 73-year-old prominent pastor of Trinity Bible in Dallas, was fired on Sept. 19 from the megachurch after he self-reported “an inappropriate relationship that he has had with a woman,” church elders said in a statement. Lawson and his wife, Anne, have four children, per Trinity Bible’s site. Lawson preached for about three decades in Arkansas and Alabama before becoming a teaching pastor at the Texas church in 2018.
Craig Stone, Willowwood Church of the Nazarene in Denton
Craig Stone, a church youth director at Willowwood, was arrested on Sept. 25 and faces charges for possession of child pornography and for indecency with a child by contact, per the Dallas Morning News. In August, a parent and child told police that Stone, age 63, was “engaging in inappropriate behavior with teenagers.” One male teen accused Stone of touching him inappropriately, and other teens told detectives that Stone might have sexual images of children on his computer. Detectives searched the church and Stone’s home, and the pastor apparently told police that he touched one victim and had naked images of a second victim, according to the police news release.
Marvin Scales, Waxahachie
Marvin Scales, a former youth pastor at an unnamed church in Waxahachie, Texas, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting four minors, per CBS News. Authorities say the investigation into Scales began when a 14-year-old girl gave birth in 2023. Staff at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center–Waxahachie told authorities that Scales was “overly involved” in the delivery process. Police confirmed that Scales was the father after analyzing DNA evidence obtained through a warrant.
Josh Howerton of Lakepointe Church in Rockwall
Josh Howerton, senior pastor of the sixth largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention, has driven hundreds of people away from his cultivated bro-culture congregation this year after delivering sermons in which he made a controversial joke about how women should do what their husbands tell them on their wedding night. Howerton apologized, and then faced allegations that he plagiarized that apology from Joby Martin, lead pastor of The Church of Eleven22 in Jacksonville, Fla.
Eric Killelea Religion Reporter
Eric Killelea is a religion reporter for Chron, based in Houston, writing about the impact of faith and culture on people in Texas. Previously, he covered Elon Musk, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity for the San Antonio Express-News. He has written extensively about criminal justice, oil and gas, mining and politics in Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Montana.