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Comment by BJones12 | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the Robert Morris reference, not going to defend any action, but I will point out his 'bad action' was 40 years ago.

Why does that matter? There are abuses happening now, every day, by high profile. Some (Epstein, Diddy) are starting to be caught. Others (Drake) may face judgement far into the future. Others (Chris Brown) never will.

If criticizing modern church culture requires referencing acts of 40 years ago, and criticizing secular culture requires references acts that happened recently, and will probably happen again tomorrow, that could indicate that the modern USA church is doing better than we think. Possibly a lot better.

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No, the bad actions are still happening today.

Maybe the original action (the sexual abuse) happened 40 years ago. But he continued to lie about it until recently and pushed other people to lie on his behalf. This isn't 40 years ago, this is still very recently. This is still wrong and was a wrong that was ongoing. Had he actually been honest about these things and properly served whatever justice is right for these things and lived openly about it for the last 40 years, it would be a very different story.

And now he's suing the church for millions of dollars for some retirement he feels he's entitled to. This is church money, which should be used to push the work of Christ. He's massively enriching himself, to continue living a lavish lifestyle instead of actually helping the people he was charged to help. Yet another wrong.

> But he continued to lie about it until recently

From what I've heard, he has disclosed actions years, possibly decades, ago but did not mention that involvement of a minor. I expect this is because a lawyer, or possibly anyone with a quarter of a brain, gave the same advice to him as they would any other human - shut your mouth. Is that a wrong?

> And now he's suing the church for millions of dollars for some retirement he feels he's entitled to.

One article [0] says "his attorney sent a letter to church lawyers [demanding] more than $1 million that had accrued in Morris's retirement account". Again, I suspect that he is getting advice from lawyers to do what they would advise any other human to do - collect on earned retirement benefits. Is that a wrong?

> He's massively enriching himself, to continue living a lavish lifestyle

If you'll forgive the crudeness of this comparison, I expect that running a church of 100,000 attendees to be of comparable, but not equal, complexity as a company with 100,000 customers. That could make running Gateway in the same ballpark as running Asana. The CEO of Asana gets 15 million a year for his trouble. Morris got, what, 5% of that? 3%? Is it self-enrichment to offer world-class leadership to a church at a 95% discount to its free market value?

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/robert-morris-gateway-chu...

Continuing to lie and hide these things is wrong. Telling a few people and pressuring them to lie on your behalf doesn't make the lie better. It's incredible you're arguing otherwise and really points to your character.

And while it might be sound legal advice to shut your mouth, it's not necessarily the moral thing to do.

And yes, I think it's wrong pastors are paid millions of dollars, and that he's suing to try and continue the gravy train. And its asinine to compare counts of attendees to a church as the number of employees at a company. People attending a church aren't employees. And comparing the mission to the church to a for profit enterprise is once again just clearly missing the point.

If the person leading the congregation is making significantly more than the poorest of the congregation there's a real problem.

Your continued comments just further exemplify the things I find wrong in the modern Christian church.

> And its asinine to compare counts of attendees to a church as the number of employees at a company.

You did not comprehend my comments, because I did not.

> And while it might be sound legal advice to shut your mouth, it's not necessarily the moral thing to do.

I hope that you argue that the 5th amendment is immoral when anyone uses it, and not just pastors.

> If the person leading the congregation is making significantly more than the poorest of the congregation there's a real problem.

Ideally a congregation will include all of society, which will include people making zero, so your argument becomes that a pastor making significantly more than zero is immoral.

I would challenge you to find a moral basis for that in the Bible.

Apologies, I guess I did misread the employees and customers part.

> I hope that you argue that the 5th amendment is immoral when anyone uses it, and not just pastors.

Once again, you're not understanding man's law isn't God's law.

And also he wasn't just not bringing it up, he was actively suppressing his victim from coming forward with the truth, having his lawyers tell her she would face jail time for bringing up the truth. If you don't see that as morally wrong I don't know what to tell you.

And I'm not against pastors being paid. Absolutely, they should be compensated for their work. Paul says this. But they shouldn't be living in mansions with fancy cars and private jets and living a life of opulence. If those around them are living homeless and hungry while they pull down millions, there's a problem.

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