Moral Failure or Crime? S6E12

I’m so glad you’ve joined me at the intersection of faith and true crime here at The Unlovely Truth. Security issues are hiding in every church - do you know where to look for them? I’m your host, church safety coach Lori Morrison. Our churches need to be the safest places in our communities, so our mission here is to find actionable steps that will make our churches sanctuaries of physical, emotional, and spiritual safety. To give you tools to help make that happen in your church, we’re going to investigate real crime stories from real churches. I’ve got three cases for us to investigate today, so let’s dive right in. 

 

Highlights from this episode include:

• Texas mega-church pastor Robert Morris’s resignation
• Judge criticizes church over their handling of predatory volunteer
• A different church has a wonderful response to handling predatory pastor 

 

Act 14:8-11 NIV

 

In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth 

and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, 

saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” 

At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, 

they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!”

 

I’ll bet most of you recognize this story, and some of you even have the kid’s Sunday School song about it running through your head now. I want us to focus less on the healing and more on what the people’s reactions are. They immediately wanted to worship Paul, and Barnabas who was with Paul, as gods themselves instead of praising the God Paul and Barnabas served. 

 

Don’t we still do that today? I see and share so many stories of leaders in the church who have fallen, and yet they are treated like they are the ones who are victims. They need to be held accountable. But what about us? So here is a question I think we all should ask ourselves: do we bear some responsibility when we place leaders on pedestals and refuse to believe they could commit evil and even predatory acts? 

 

I hope you’ll email me or reach out on social media to let me know what you think! I love it when people are willing to have hard, but impactful conversations that strengthen physical, emotional, and spiritual safety at the intersection of faith and true crime

 

Visit my website to access more episodes. If you would like to contact me about booking me as a speaker, or ask about my consulting services, please email me at lori@theunlovelytruth.com. 

 

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Robert Morris resigns, church leader responds

 

Judge takes pastor to task

 

Story where church get it right