Evangelical thought leader Lance Wallnau, who predicted Donald Trump would become president prior to his election in 2016, has accused Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren of using the child sexual assault allegations against Gateway Church founder Robert Morris to take a political dig at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
Morris recently resigned from Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, after 54-year-old grandmother, Cindy Clemishire, alleged that he sexually abused her over multiple years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12.
Prior to the scandal, the megachurch leader was also a spiritual advisor to the former president and featured prominently on Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board. Since the allegations were made public, a spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign has said Morris no longer has a role in Trump’s advisory board.
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Last Thursday, as the Evangelical community reeled from the news of the allegations against Morris, Warren expressed his outrage about the allegations.
“I’m angry & disgusted to hear of Robert Morris’ sexual abuse of a child & heartbroken for Cindy Clemishire. To sexually use a 12 yr old child, then continue it for yrs, is not merely an ‘inappropriate relationship.’ It’s a crime. Sexual child abuse is an evil punishable by law. One can’t just confess when caught & move on with no consequences. For the integrity of Christ’s Body, God insists ‘Expel the wicked person out of your church!’ 1 Cor. 5:13,” Warren wrote on X.
“Perpetrators are to be publicly fired, not allowed to resign. Child abuse STILL enrages Jesus: ‘If anyone offends one of these little ones, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and drowned in the sea.’ Matt.18:6,” he added while pointing to his wife’s own experience as a survivor of child sex abuse.
“Until the Church realizes the soul-destroying trauma of sexual abuse, the pattern will continue. Kay still remembers the horror of being molested in church as a little girl. Prov. 31:8,” Warren added.
On Saturday, Wallnau, who called Warren a “never Trumper Bible thumper,” said in a statement on X that the Saddleback Church founder’s outrage is selective.
“The Truth About Rick Warren- His outspoken outrage is uncharacteristic for the man who prefers to avoid hot divisive topics, ever since helping Obama become President,” Wallnau charged.
“He urges his pastors to avoid Trump and electoral politics even at the moment their disengagement will cost them their nation. So why the outrage? Robert Morris was the counterpart to his position. People challenged him to stand like Gateway because Morris was an outspoken supporter of Trump. It agitated Rick,” the Evangelical thought leader added about Warren. “His sudden gush of oratory and ‘outrage’ is fueled by his own personal axe which he can now grind with justification in public.”
He further noted that: “Rick is consistently silent when he should speak up and speaks up when he should be silent. He is outraged by sins in pulpits but not outraged by the same sins in his district. There’s an odd symmetry to all this.”
Shane Idleman, founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Southern California, had the same assessment of Warren.
“Lance, I was thinking the same thing. @RickWarren where were you the last decade when many of us pastors were speaking out against all types of atrocities from the LGBTQ agenda to political correctness to open borders and abortion? Rick, where were you honestly,” Idleman asked on X.
When one commenter replied to Wallnau that she didn’t see Warren as a “jealous or vindictive” person, Wallnau admitted he is “a good man, but flawed.”
“I don’t see Warren as jealous, or vindictive. Christians ought to discuss things openly and honestly and not be labeled. Warren is not concerned about politics but about purity of kingdom. Two separate things,” the commenter asserted.
Wallnau revealed that Warren was once a mentor in ministry, but they went their separate ways due to ideological disagreements.
“Warren was once a mentor to me in ministry. We parted when he failed to discern Obama and then told us pastors not to get involved with the raging culture wars (especially Trump and his saving America platform) while using his platform to sympathize with BLM talking points. He’s a good man, but flawed,” Wallnau replied.
Pastor A. Jackson of The Door Christian Church of Hemet, California, insisted, however, that Wallnau is right about Warren in a statement on X.
“Morris is in trouble this isn’t going away, and Rick Warrens tweet is not going to speed that process up nor bring justice to the situation. Warren knows it,” Jackson said. “So I agree it’s actually fake outrage. How do I know? I didn’t see any tweets from him about the child molesting Lincoln Project. Child sexual trafficking at the border. Nothing about trans activities involving kids etc.”
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