FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — Katherine Leach’s abdomen churned whereas she was driving to Saturday worship at Gateway Church early this summer season.
Leach, who has been attending the nondenominational North Texas congregation for the previous three years, has additionally tithed — a follow of giving a tenth of 1’s revenue to a church or non secular group. She was additionally contemplating becoming a member of Gateway’s prayer workforce.
Then, on June 18, Gateway’s founder and senior pastor, Robert Morris, resigned after accusations made by an Oklahoma girl named Cindy Clemishire, who instructed the Wartburg Watch that Morris had sexually abused her on a number of events within the Nineteen Eighties, beginning when Clemishire was 12 years previous.
Since Morris based Gateway church in 2000, it has grown into one of many largest megachurches within the nation, with roughly 100,000 lively attendees at its primary campus in Southlake, a Tarrant County suburb, and 9 campuses throughout Texas and two others in Missouri and Wyoming.
“That is an unthinkable and painful time in our church. Our church congregation is harm and shaken, and we all know that you’ve got many necessary questions,” Gateway Church elders stated in a June 21 assertion, saying the church employed legislation agency Haynes and Boone LLP to conduct an unbiased inquiry on the matter.
The next service, on June 22, as Leach pulled as much as the church, a bunch of protesters carried indicators studying “She was solely 12” and, citing the Gospel studying forbidding the corruption of youngsters, “Matthew 18:16 Millstones not cowl ups!”
Leach additionally made an indication, however she needed to listen to what management would say on the service. After handing water bottles to the protesters, she went in and watched from the balcony. “I used to be going with the anticipation that there can be this sense of grief as a church physique,” Leach stated. “It was heartbreaking, and it made me sick to my abdomen, fairly actually, as a result of it was simply enterprise as standard.”
That was the final time, Leach stated, she’s been to a Gateway worship service, however she didn’t add her identify to the 25% of congregants who’ve formally left the church since June. As an alternative, Leach has been asking questions, asking for a replica of the church’s bylaws, monetary statements and the way her tithes have been used.
In 2022, Morris, throughout a go to to Willow Creek Neighborhood Church in Chicago, spoke a couple of deal he made with Gateway Church members. “I’ve instructed our church on a number of events, I’ve stated to them … ‘If you happen to’ll attempt it for one yr — if you’re not totally glad — on the finish of that yr, I’ll provide you with your a refund,’” Morris stated. “With 22 years of church, nobody has ever requested for his or her a refund.”
Leach is now considered one of a number of congregants attempting to take Morris up that provide. On Sept. 9, she submitted a letter to Gateway Church requesting her tithes again. Virtually a month later, she and different congregants filed a lawsuit alleging that Gateway Church dedicated monetary fraud with congregants’ tithes.
Pastor Robert Morris applauds throughout a roundtable dialogue at Gateway Church Dallas Campus, June 11, 2020, in Dallas. (AP Photograph/Alex Brandon, File)
The go well with alleges Morris and different Gateway leaders instructed their congregation that 15% of all tithes would go towards international missionary work. Leach and the suing congregants allege the promise wasn’t upheld and that they don’t know the place the tithes — which might quantity to greater than $15 million yearly — went.
Lawrence Swicegood, Gateway Church’s spokesperson, stated the church “doesn’t touch upon pending litigation,” however he added: “These are severe allegations. A few of these issues have been delivered to us lately, and we’re actively investigating them. Funds donated to our church are sacred, and it’s important that we maintain ourselves to the best biblical requirements of ethics and integrity.”
Stated Leach: “The extra the onion will get peeled, the extra issues are found, the extra issues are raised — and transparency is a large one. Members have the appropriate to know the place their tithe goes.”
Morris is just not the one pastor who has provided congregants “a refund” on tithes. Life.Church, one of many largest church buildings within the U.S., instituted its 90-day tithing problem in 2007. If a giver doesn’t “see God’s blessings” after tithing for 3 months, the church claims to refund their tithes fully.
NewSpring Church, in South Carolina, additionally provided a 90-day tithing problem in 2016. If “God doesn’t maintain true to his guarantees of blessings” to worshippers giving 10% of their revenue or extra, they will request the cash again.
Cash-back affords, stated Russ McCullough, an economist at Ottawa College in Kansas and co-host of the varsity’s “Religion and Economics” podcast, sign “that you simply totally imagine in what you’re doing, a lot in order that you realize you’re to supply this money-back assure,” McCullough stated. “It’s both used to lie, or if it’s getting used honestly, it’s getting used to sign high quality.”
Ben Witherington III, a professor of New Testomony at Asbury Theological Seminary, stated Morris’ giveback promise could counsel he realized he had a credibility difficulty. “One of many potential causes Morris would say that within the first place is he needed to clarify that he could possibly be trusted, however that already suggests there’s suspicion that he’s not reliable,” Witherington stated.
Ben Witherington III, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. Photograph courtesy of Asbury Theological Seminary
However Witherington stated there are deeper issues with money-back affords, due to how funds are seen within the Bible. “They’re not given to the church. They’re given to God,” Witherington stated. “They need to know higher than to make such a suggestion, as a result of when you give it, you’re not purported to take it again. It’s purported to be a present to God, not a present to the church.”
Tithing, or the idea of giving a tenth of what one had similar to cash, crops or livestock for non secular functions, dates again to the Hebrew Bible. The cash or sources can be used to assist clergy, preserve church buildings or assist the poor.
Emily Nelms Chastain, a Christianity historical past professor at Southern Methodist College, stated that earlier than the twentieth century, a main approach church buildings in lots of denominations collected funds was by renting pews. Households who sat in pews nearer to the altar have been seen as increased on the social and financial scale.
“There have been questions on the place the cash was going and the way folks have been paying their approach into heaven or paying their approach into some sort of profit within the church,” Nelms Chastain stated. “When this type of moral battle comes up within the church it actually shakes folks’s non secular basis by way of their believing.”
How tithes are used can affect a congregation’s belief in its management, stated Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, director of the Institute for Religion and Studying at Baylor College, and in flip can be utilized to carry leaders accountable. “They’re purported to be trustworthy of their religion and accountable in the usage of the cash.”
On Oct. 5, Gateway church elder Tra Willbanks stood within the pulpit and instructed attendees that the church’s financials have been “independently audited since 2005” and warranted them: “At this level we’re not conscious of any monetary wrongdoing. We, your elders and church workers, perceive and embrace the sacred and biblical responsibility we now have to steward the {dollars} given to Gateway.”
The church can be within the technique of becoming a member of the Evangelical Council for Monetary Accountability and publishing its bylaws after they’re up to date, he stated.
The ECFA requires church buildings to have an unbiased, governing physique that might evaluate annual monetary statements. A replica of the statements can be accessible upon written request.
Leach stated her issues about Gateway Church’s monetary state go “a lot deeper” than getting her a refund. If that does occur, she stated, she plans to reallocate the funds to different ministries.
“This isn’t about cash in our pockets. That is about biblical stewardship. That is about transparency, and the issues that we now have in regards to the lack of transparency and what’s happening behind closed doorways,” Leach stated. “On the finish of the day, I wish to make it possible for I deal with God’s cash with excellence.”
