Gateway Church edits advice to abuse victims: ‘Go to the police first,’ not church

A day after urging sex abuse victims of current or former leaders of the embattled Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, to report their abuse to elders, longtime elder at the megachurch, Tra Willbanks, revised his advice on Sunday, urging them instead to “go to the police first.”

The revision of Willbanks’ comments, which was first highlighted on X by survivor advocate Amy Smith, came during the longtime elder’s presentation of an overview of a four-month internal investigation led by the law firm Haynes & Boone into allegations that the church’s founder, Robert Morris, sexually assaulted Cindy Clemishire for more than four years beginning when she was 12 in the 1980s.

After presenting his overview of the report, which led to the removal of multiple elders who knew that Clemishire had made claims that she was sexually abused as a minor by Morris prior to her story being made public on June 14, Willbanks urged members during the church’s Saturday afternoon service to report any claims of sexual abuse by current or former leaders to the church.

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