Evangelist James Robison appeared in a video message alongside his wife Betty last Saturday (June 22) to claim that he was unaware of Robert Morris’ alleged sexual abuse of Cindy Clemishire when she was a minor in the 1980s.
Robison is the founder of the James Robison Evangelistic Association (JREA), which is now known as Life Outreach International.
In the video, Robison said that the way Morris’ alleged abuse was handled was “wrong,” that “abuse of a child should not be tolerated,” and that he “would do anything to help heal Cindy and her family.”
Following the news of Morris’ resignation from Gateway Church on June 18, Robison’s organization released a statement saying that Morris didn’t join JREA until the late 1980s when he did so in the role of “morning supervisor in the call center.” This role included only “overseeing the daily administrative tasks of the call center” and did not “include public speaking.”
RELATED: Televangelist James Robison Denies He Knew Robert Morris Allegedly Committed Child Sex Abuse
However, newspaper clippings appear to contradict these claims. According to the Longview Morning Journal, Morris was “invited to join with the James Robison Evangelical Association as an associate evangelist” in December 1981.
Other clippings dating from 1982 to 1989, obtained by The Roys Report, say that Morris was part of JREA; one even described him as a “staff evangelist with the James Robison Evangelical Association.”
“Last week, reports surfaced that Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church had engaged in sexual assault of a child,” Robison said during his video message. “Since then people have been asking questions about my relationship with Robert.”
Robison explained that he’d “like to set the record straight because some people are claiming that I was present when Robert met with the victim’s family in 1987 and that I knew the girl’s age when these events took place.”
RELATED: Robert Morris Resigns as Gateway Church’s Senior Pastor Following Sexual Abuse Allegations
“This is false. It is not so—it is, in fact, a lie,” Robison stated.
He continued by revealing that Clemishire corrected her original story, in which she named Robison as one of the men who accompanied Morris to visit her father in 1989 and ask for permission for Morris to return to ministry.
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