Also in 2024, internationally known Dallas pastor Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship stepped down due to what he called “old sin,” not long before Steve Lawson of Trinity Bible Church was removed after it was discovered he had “an inappropriate relationship” with a woman. The lead pastor of Cross Timbers Church in Argyle resigned due to “inappropriate and hurtful actions,” leading to other leaders departing. Soon, the Argyle church campus will operate as a satellite location of Keller’s Milestone Church instead of under the Cross Timbers banner.
But for those who have only recently started tracking church scandals in the Dallas area, North Texas ministries are no strangers to controversies, with some of them dominating national headlines for extended periods of time.
Walker Railey (1987)
When Peggy Railey died in 2011, the world was reminded of the horrifying 1987 attack that left her incapacitated in a vegetative state. She had been strangled with a cord in her Lake Highlands home while her husband, Walker Railey, the senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Dallas, was not home. Walker was quickly a suspect in the attempted murder, especially when he admitted to lying about an extramarital affair he had been having at the time. A few days later, he attempted suicide by overdosing on drugs and leaving a note that seemed to admit guilt, albeit not explicitly. Oddly enough, police wouldn’t charge the preacher with attempted murder until 1992, when a slim amount of DNA evidence helped finally bring criminal charges. Although Railey would be acquitted in a 2003 trial, he lost a 1988 civil case brought against him by his wife’s family to the tune of $18 million. In the years between the crime and the trial, the case was a common topic for national news TV, papers and magazines. For North Texans of a certain age, it is nearly impossible to get the creepy audio of one of the messages that Walker left for Peggy on the night of the attack out of their heads.
Robert Tilton (1991)
There was a time when North Texas, not the Joel Osteen-powered Houston area, seemed to be the Texas capital of TV megachurches. And in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, there were few faces on religious TV more well-known than Robert Tilton’s. The slick, smiley Farmers Branch pastor built not only a church of thousands, but a global TV ministry by blatantly telling viewers that sending him “a vow” of thousands of dollars would result in earthly riches and happiness. Reports indicate that by the time the ‘90s rolled around, Tilton’s ministry was generating $80 million per year. Such a practice was bound to draw scrutiny, and eventually, Tilton’s unsavory efforts and those of a couple of lesser-known Dallas-area televangelists were exposed when a local pastor named Ole Anthony teamed up with ABC's Primetime Live in 1991. The exposé uncovered practices, including batches of prayer requests sent in by viewers with money thrown away and institutional protocols designed to prey upon vulnerable, and often, poor and elderly followers who called the ministry looking for prayer and hope.
Tilton immediately denied all the claims, but both federal and state investigations began, bringing more damning, fraudulent details to light. Titlon’s popular show, Success-N-Life, stopped regularly airing in 1993 and his Word of Faith Family Church closed in 1999. If you look around the internet hard enough, you will find Tilton still preaching about how to make money.
W.V. Grant (1996)
In the 1980s, W.V. Grant built Eagle's Nest Family Church in Dallas into a 5,000-member empire in only a few years. As a pastor who practiced so-called “faith healings” on a television ministry, Grant was one of the evangelists mentioned in the ABC investigation that brought Robert Tilton down. But in 1996, Grant was indicted by the feds for tax evasion after admitting on an undercover video that he used $100,000 in contributions to the church to pay the down payment on his $1.2 million home in DeSoto.Grant was forced to send the details of his conviction to everyone on his mailing list and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. After his release in the late ’90s, Grant returned to pastoring in Dallas, where he leads the Eagle’s Nest Cathedral on Regal Row.
Rudolph Kos (1997)
Of the many church scandals from North Texas, the case of Roman Catholic priest Rudolph Kos is arguably the most horrific and impactful of them all. While serving at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Irving and St. John’s in Ennis, Kos molested altar boys more than 1,000 times over the course of the 1980s and early ‘90s. The landmark 1997 civil case against the Catholic Diocese resulted in a historic $119.6 million judgment, still the largest single jury award of its kind, which set the stage for Kos’ 1998 criminal trial in which he was convicted on multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison.
Reports from the time indicated that some church leaders had reason to believe Kos was a pedophile, but allowed him to remain in his position regardless. Years before the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team would uncover systemic cover-ups of clergy sex abuse, the Kos scandal brought the issue to mainstream headlines.
On the 20th anniversary of the Kos civil trial, WFAA wrote that “the trial itself, which the State Bar of Texas has called one of the most important cases in Texas history, was the first time that evidence of abuse by a Catholic priest and the church’s efforts to cover it up had ever been presented publicly in a U.S. courtroom.”
Kos was denied parole in 2012 and will not be eligible again until 2028.
Ollin Collins (1998)
When the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that two women accused pastor Ollin Collins of sexual misconduct, it was felt well beyond the Watauga environs of Harvest Baptist Church. At the time, few churches in North Texas were growing as rapidly as Harvest, which had nearly 4,000 members and had spent years expanding its mammoth campus. Collins was also the board chairman of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest pastor training grounds in America.The married pastor was accused of having affairs with two women from his church who had been receiving counseling from him. Through their lawyer, the two women claimed that Collins leveraged his power as a spiritual leader against them while one suffered from depression and the other was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Collins stepped down from his church role and the seminary in 1998. These days, Collins is the pastor at The Bay Community Church near Bridgeport. His bio on the church’s official website notes his accomplishments at Harvest, but does not mention anything about the scandal that ended his time there.
Terry Hornbuckle (2006)
A pastoral scandal that involved rape, drugs and Dallas Cowboys legends was bound to draw a great deal of attention; the 2006 trial of Arlington pastor Terry Hornuckle did just that and then some. Hornbuckle was found guilty of drugging and raping three women, two of whom were members of his church, Agape Christian Fellowship. In court, the married pastor claimed all of his sexual encounters were consensual. During the trial, one of the accuser's mothers said that former Cowboy Deion Sanders had called her and, according to the Dallas Morning News at the time, “asked her not to go to the police because he and Mr. [T.D.] Jakes were trying to help Mr. Hornbuckle.” Emmitt Smith, another legendary Cowboy and the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, wrote a letter to the grand jury that indicted Hornbuckle, calling the preacher “an honest and trustworthy man.”
Just before Hornbuckle’s 15-year sentence was complete in 2020, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported, a jury in a civil commitment trial determined the former pastor was “a sexually violent predator who was likely to assault other women if he was released from confinement.” An appeal to have him released from the state commitment facility in Littlefield was denied in 2021.
Rickie Rush (2020)
By the time a grand jury declined to indict Rickie Rush on criminal charges in 2022, a trail of abuse allegations dating back years had dogged the Inspiring Body of Christ church leader. In 2020, the Dallas Morning News reported that five former IBOC members accused Rush, one of the most prominent mega church pastors in the country, of physical and sexual abuse. The case that garnered widespread attention due to Rush’s stature and long list of prominent supporters and friends even saw Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot recuse himself due to his personal relationship with the pastor. Rush has maintained his innocence over the years, through each allegation, and still serves as IBOC senior pastor. On July 19, he posted a message to his Facebook page stating, “Stop tripping and forgive yourself so you can get the job done!”
Matt Chandler (2022)
Similar to Rush’s controversy, popular preacher Matt Chandler didn’t lose his leadership spot when he found himself involved in a scandal. In fact, in December of 2022, after a three-month leave that church elders called “disciplinary and developmental,” Chandler was greeted back with a standing ovation. A few months prior, he admitted to the church of carrying on an “unguarded and unwise” online relationship with a woman while maintaining it was not romantic, sexual in nature. All by itself, to some, that may seem mild in comparison to the other scandals on this list, but Chandler is an internationally-recognized pastor who not only heads the 4,000-member Flower Mound congregation, but also leads an organization dedicated to planting churches across the globe. Aside from that, his massive reach includes members of countless other churches thanks to his popular books and bible study curriculum.
Added to that, Chandler’s 2022 leave of absence came after a 2019 New York Times report that detailed the story of an 11-year-old girl whose family says that Chandler and other church leaders mishandled sexual abuse allegations in 2012.
Chandler’s new book, The Overcomers: God's Vision for You to Thrive in an Age of Anxiety and Outrage, will be released in August.
Robert Morris (2024)
In June 2024, Robert Morris resigned from his senior pastor position at Gateway Church after allegations that he sexually molested a 12-year-old in the 1980s while he was a young pastor in Oklahoma were reported publicly. The prominent religious author, TV personality and a former spiritual advisor to President Donald Trump had made mention of past misdeeds from the pulpit, but never publicly acknowledged the level of abuse his accuser, Cindy Clemishire, detailed. Soon after his resignation, four elders were removed from their positions after an investigation found they had prior knowledge of Morris’ past abuse. By the end of 2024, the church suffered a sharp decline in attendance and tithing. In March, Morris was indicted in Oklahoma for “lewd or indecent acts with a child stemming from incidents that date back to the 1980s.” Morris’ next Oklahoma court date is slated for Sept. 4.
