A federal lawsuit claiming Southlake-based Gateway Church and founding pastor Robert Morris committed financial fraud with church members’ donations has been dismissed.
In court filings Tuesday, federal judge Amos Mazzant sided with the megachurch and Morris’ argument that courts could not involve themselves in church matters or how they spend tithes under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine — a legal principle derived from the First Amendment protecting religious institutions from government interference.
The suit was filed in October 2024 by a group of church members claiming Morris and other Gateway leaders told their congregation 15%, or $15 million of its $100 million annual church revenue, would be distributed to global missions and Jewish ministry partners. But the former church members accused the megachurch of not upholding that promise and weren’t sure where the donations actually went…