(Opinion)—Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris has been exposed as an alleged child molester and defenders of John MacArthur are outraged.
“If parents come to a church & say a pastor has sexually molested their 12 year old daughter, you call the police. Full Stop,” posted Daily Wire Culture Reporter Megan Basham on X.
Similarly, prominent Southern Baptist Pastor Tom Buck posted about Morris, “Not only should he not be in ministry, he should be in jail. There should be no statute of limitations for molesting a child!”
One of the reasons it’s important to be clear about the authority God has given different spheres is so justice is pursued. If parents come to a church & say a pastor has sexually molested their 12 year old daughter, you call the police. Full stop.
— Megan Basham (@megbasham) June 19, 2024
Podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey likewise chimed in: “Let’s (g)et something straight: repentance and restoration does not include restoring an accused abuser to a leadership position . . . He can be forgiven. He can be restored to the body of Christ. But he failed to fulfill the requirements for overseer God gives us in His Word . . . A person like this should NOT be a pastor again.”
I agree with these sentiments. But it’s ironic that none of these righteously indignant commentors said anything when I exposed John MacArthur two years ago for protecting pedophiles at his church. Basham, Buck, and Stuckey—like much of the evangelical establishment—continued to support and praise MacArthur, despite overwhelming evidence of MacArthur’s misconduct.
Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Give a gift of $50 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you will receive a copy of “Ghosted: An American Story” by Nancy French. To donate, click here.
Last February—two years after MacArthur was exposed—Basham posted about MacArthur’s 55 years in ministry, saying he had “enduring relevance for new generations.”
Tim Whitaker of The New Evangelicals responded with a clipping I’d published in a 2022 article of MacArthur praising the “steadfast faithfulness” of David Gray. Gray is a former teacher at MacArthur’s church, who is serving 21 years to life for sexually molesting his children. And he was serving time for this heinous crime when MacArthur publicly praised him!
“Tweets like this are a great reminder how little you, and folks in your sphere, actually give a damn about protecting children,” Whitaker posted on X. “Imagine saying this to a man you hired who is in prison for molesting his own children.”
Tweets like this are a great reminder how little you, and folks in your sphere, actually give a damn about protecting children
Imagine saying this to a man you hired who is in prison for molesting his own children pic.twitter.com/jSOwL0B3Vf
— The New Evangelicals (@newvangelicals) February 5, 2024
As if that weren’t bad enough, three years prior to Gray’s conviction, MacArthur publicly excommunicated Gray’s wife, Eileen, because she refused to take David back into her home.
At the time of the excommunication, MacArthur didn’t know about David’s sexual abuse. But he did know about David’s physical abuse.
Eileen had told MacArthur’s Grace Community Church (GCC) that David had tried to suffocate one of their children and had obtained an order of protection from her husband. GCC knew about the order of protection. And in letters from GCC I published, the church repeatedly pressured Eileen to drop the order of protection!
David had also confessed his abuse to a GCC pastor during counseling. In one of my 2022 articles, I included a sworn court statement from Eileen’s hometown pastor, Alvin Barber, who confirmed that GCC knew about David’s horrific abuse—but urged Eileen to take David back anyway.
“I have listened to one of the counseling sessions on tape between (GCC Pastor) Carey Hardy, David, and Eileen and found that Eileen was being told to just accept her husband as he was and submit to him, even in spite of his admitted abuse of her and their children,” Barber wrote. “Thankfully Eileen has chosen the legal protection of herself and her children over the obvious intimidation and questionable counsel of Carey Hardy and Grace Community Church.”
My reporting on MacArthur’s cruel mishandling of the David and Eileen Gray situation has been confirmed by Christianity Today and former GCC Elder and Attorney Hohn Cho. But to this day, MacArthur has refused to repent for what he has done. And his supporters have only doubled-down—not only in their defense of him, but their attacks against me.
Tom Buck dismissed my reporting on MacArthur by saying it was part of a conspiracy “to deconstruct conservative evangelicalism and stand against the social Justice movement.”
If you can’t see that the attack on John MacArthur and GCC is part of the bigger agenda of some who want to deconstruct conservative evangelicalism and destroy those who stand against the social Justice movement, you aren’t paying attention!
— Tom Buck (Five Point Buck) (@TomBuck) February 13, 2023
This is absurd because I am a conservative evangelical!
But for the past two years, MacArthur defenders have lied about me and my reporting—all in an effort to protect a celebrity pastor who has clearly protected abusers and punished victims.
Perhaps the most egregious lies were published by Stuckey. In a video, she falsely claimed that I “had it out for MacArthur.” As evidence, she claimed that I accused MacArthur “of being a prosperity preacher, which if you know anything about John MacArthur—he is not at all a prosperity preacher.”
I never accused MacArthur of being a prosperity preacher. I published an article, noting that MacArthur was an “anti-Prosperity Gospel preacher,” but had prospered greatly from his $130 million ministry empire.
Stuckey also mischaracterized me as being “on the progressive end” without offering any evidence to support her claim. And she grossly mischaracterized my reporting on MacArthur’s mishandling of the David Gray case.
She asserted that MacArthur didn’t know about David Gray’s abuse of Eileen and their kids when he excommunicated Eileen in 2002. Her basis for this was that David Gray was convicted of sexually abusing his kids in 2005.
But as I stated earlier, MacArthur and GCC clearly knew about David Gray’s physical abuse of Eileen and her kids in 2002. They just didn’t know about the sexual abuse.
But Stuckey either didn’t read my articles—or she purposefully obfuscated the facts. Tim Whitaker of The New Evangelicals brilliantly exposes this in a video critiquing Stuckey, which I highly recommend watching.
What’s clear is that neither Stuckey, nor Buck, nor Basham truly care about abuse victims. They care about protecting MacArthur and their Reformed, anti-Charismatic tribe.
The only reason they’re calling out Robert Morris and Gateway Church is because Morris is a prosperity preacher and Charismatic.
The same could also be said about Justin Peters, who’s likewise continued to promote MacArthur, knowing full well the overwhelming evidence against him.
Yet, when evidence surfaced about Morris’ abuse, Peters was quick to platform Pastor Stephen LeBlanc, who had damning evidence against Morris. I could hardly stomach hearing Peters express shock and disgust over Morris, knowing Peters has been mum about MacArthur’s shocking mishandling of the David Gray case.
Certainly, what Morris did to Cindy Clemishire is not worse than what David Gray did to his children. But Gray isn’t the only pedophile MacArthur has protected.
As I also reported two years ago, MacArthur likewise protected Paul Guay, a former GCC pastor who confessed to MacArthur in 1979 that he molested his daughter, Wendy Guay.
My exposé on Guay included a 2003 written declaration from former GCC member John Tucker, who was there when Guay confessed to MacArthur. I also talked to Tucker, who recounted the events to me just as he had written in his declaration.
I also published a 1979 handwritten letter from MacArthur to Wendy Guay. In the letter, MacArthur writes that he’s “so sorry about all the problems you have been through, but I believe the Lord is working in very special ways. Your dad is really sad about it all and we have met and talked at length about the situation.”
MacArthur writes that Paul Guay will continue to be “a faithful part of our staff” and urges Wendy to forgive her father.
Guay stayed on staff at GCC for three more years before being dismissed for sexual misconduct with a GCC secretary. Guay then went on to serve another 40 years in pastoral ministry and God only knows how many others he abused in that time! (Paul Guay died in 2012.)
In 2003, Wendy learned that her father had sexually molested other people in her family. So, she contacted MacArthur, asking for his help confronting her father’s elders with the information.
In an email I published, MacArthur stunningly denies Paul Guay ever confessed to him. Yet, MacArthur concludes the email with shocking callousness, saying to Guay’s victim, “I’m not sure why all this has become an obsession for you after so many years . . .”
With this story in mind, someone named Rachael Anne confronted Megan Basham on X, following her post last week about Morris.
“And if the pastor is employed at Grace Community Church, and the pastor who’s told about it is John MacArthur? What then?” Rachael Anne wrote.
And if the pastor is employed at Grace Community Church, and the pastor who’s told about it is John MacArthur? What then?https://t.co/GiNJ0hsmCL
— Rachael (sometimes SaaSy) Anne (@swimflythrive) June 19, 2024
Basham replied, “MacArthur denies he was ever told such. Roys is going by records created many years after the fact, nothing from the time period iirc other than JM’s letter to Wendy which does not specify the ‘trouble’ in question . . .”
This response reveals just how disingenuous Basham truly is.
All Dee Parsons had to go on when Cindy Clemishire told Dee her story was Cindy’s first-hand account and a vague reference to what Cindy described in a book Morris had published. Yet, Basham doesn’t discredit Dee’s story for lack of evidence.
Similarly, I had Wendy’s first-hand account of abuse by Paul Guay, and John Tucker’s first-hand account of Paul Guay’s confession to John MacArthur.
But I also had the statement Tucker had written in 2003—the year Wendy confronted her father’s elders with evidence of his pattern of abuse. I also reported testimony by Wendy’s mother, who corroborated Wendy and Tucker’s story.
Most notably, I have the incriminating handwritten letter from MacArthur himself. Though it’s true MacArthur didn’t “specify the ‘trouble’ in question,” given all the other information I reported, what other plausible explanation does Basham or anyone at GCC have? No one from GCC has ever offered any alternative explanation—and I’ve repeatedly asked for one.
The bottom line is that there’s a mountain of evidence showing that MacArthur protected pedophiles and harmed their victims. Yet, he has never owned it or apologized. And his supporters don’t care.
So please, spare us your indignation over what Robert Morris did to Cindy Clemishire until you’re ready to call out John MacArthur for what he did to Wendy Guay and Eileen Gray. Your hypocrisy is glaring—and none of us buy your alleged outrage.
Julie Roys is a veteran investigative reporter and founder of The Roys Report. She also previously hosted a national talk show on the Moody Radio Network, called Up for Debate, and has worked as a TV reporter for a CBS affiliate. Her articles have appeared in numerous periodicals.
English 
Spanish
49 Responses
People are so disappointing. In this instance, it appears that Ally Beth Stuckey doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Of course, this hurts her credibility. Which is too bad, because she has made some decent contributions on her web cast. But she, and the others you mention, have all lost credibility because they will not use “equal weights and measures.” Julie, the evidence you have compiled with regard to MacArthur’s mishandling (to put it kindly) of Wendy Guay and Eileen Gray seems overwhelming! But his defenders will not see it. They refuse to look hard at the evidence.
You are no doubt aware of some other integrity issues with MacArthur, including:
1. his heroic tale of being thrown out of a car traveling at 60 MPH and sliding down the highway for 50 yards on his back (I thought miracles ended with the apostles!);
2. his claims of a legendary jaunt to Memphis in a sedan with other civil rights leaders in April of ’68, hours after Martin Luther King was assassinated and actually standing in the motel room where James Earl Ray pulled the trigger;
3. and the biggest whopper of them all, that back in the early 1960’s, MacArthur was an All-American running back who was coveted by the Cleveland Browns and the Washington Redskins! Anyone who is willing to look at the evidence should check out Brent Detwiler’s blog.
At any rate, it is disturbing that MacArthur can’t admit he’s wrong, doubly disturbing that he made up these yarns to enhance his “myth,” and disappointing (frustrating?) that people such as Stuckey, Peters, Buck, and Basham WILL NOT SEE IT and hold MacArthur accountable.
Thanks, Julie, for working to be an old-fashioned reporter. The object is to get at the truth, not to protect your idols.
Spencer,
Thanks! The idea that Stucky ever has ANY idea of what she is talking about is silly. Likewise, the idea that MacArthur has any integrity is likewise silly. People like Justin Peters – selling his own ego using the name of Jesus as a prop for his paycheck… well, that speaks for itself…
I don’t bother listening to these sorts – of which there are literally an infinite number in the religious/evangelical industrial complex in America and the world.
Thanks for Julie Roys for VERY incisive, clear-headed writing. I have long donated to this very valuable service to the body of Christ – and motivated to make an additional donation this year.
Greg Logan
Greg: I wonder if she’s related to the Stuckey’s restaurants that had billboards all over the place on Highway 80 and Route 66 decades ago when we traveled out west. You know, the ones that always had a close-up of the pecan log rolls. We could never get our folks to stop at a Stuckey’s. Shoot.
Spencer, Just seeing your comments now about his sports claims/lies.
Yes, these and other JMac well-documented public, decades-long, unrepentant lies and deceptions alone disqualify him as a pastor or elder. Those who enable him as part of MacArthur Inc. are also unfit for ministry.
This is been going on in Churches,and they the top ones protect not the victim,but the offender.
It happened to my family ,2 of my daughters were molested touched by a Youth Pastor 34 years ago.
This is very horrible for our church right now. John MacArthur cannot be trusted as a preacher that he shamed Eileen Gray, refused to his members to lockdown the church, and now is covering up the predator in the pulpit. Members of the protestant church like MacArthur commit sin against God. I discerned how evil MacArthur and others!
This article is on point. These camps
(Reformed and Charismatic) are always ready to ignore their own flaws while bringing attention/condemnation to the other side. That’s why I have no interest in belonging to either one.
Tribalism for sure. We all have to be aware we can fall into that. Thanks Julie I share your content keep up the great work.
JMac will NEVER admit he’s wrong and much of his crowd feels it’s a ‘feature’ and not a ‘bug’. I don’t understand why more people haven’t exposed his lying about his athletic abilities and accomplishments. Meaning his claims of being a college all-American or how pro teams wanted him but “he gave it all up for God”. Julie, I’d love to see you investigate that.
Julia, although I have had issues with your Reformed background and beliefs that I consider unbiblical, I fully agree with you on the article. Thank you for being so steadfast when many would not be.
You must be confusing me with someone else. I don’t have a Reformed background.
Julie, I appreciate the exposure about MacArthur. I’ll admit, I grew up steeped in his preaching and the guy is GREAT at what he does. His marketing over the years has been stellar and when you’re truly a fan, it’s hard to not get sucked in. THANKS TO YOU, and his former elder who clarified just how deep the rot went, I now have a clear head about MacArthur and now have cut myself loose from his teaching. It’s hard to let go of because it’s so organized and easy to follow. And it’s hard when he did the right thing in COVID by keeping the church open. I’ve been a long time Bible teacher and not using his resources feels like losing a leg! We want heroes, we really do, and we want to be entertained and feel justified by being morally superior (listening to MacArthur and buying his hermeneutic makes you feel morally superior). My prayer for myself is also my prayer for those who were like me: open eyes and an open heart to hold pastors to a Biblically high standard.
I suspect JM will prove to be covered in Teflon. At his age he could suddenly “retire” and get re-platformed at any number of ministries. He’s had a succession plan identified for years.
Allie Beth Stuckey is a nasty, cruel, mean-spirited hypocrite- I’d even go so far as to say she’s crossed the line into being straight up hateful. Zero evidence of any fruit of the Spirit on her part. Of course she’d run cover for a man like that.
Julie, you are right about the hypocrisy, however The New Evangelical’s YT channel is one I would steer clear of trying to defend your point. Have you looked at their content? I have and I find it disturbing.