Last Sunday, the elders of Harvest Bible Chapel announced that they had found former pastor and church founder James MacDonald to be biblically disqualified for pastoral ministry. Today, MacDonald posted what appears to be a response to that announcement on his Facebook page.
MacDonald begins with a vague reference his “former church”:
I trust this timing finds you well in the Lord and growing in your awareness of how good He truly is. Our efforts to work through existing channels in our former church have reached an unsuccessful end, leading to this release of words we have long sought to express.
MacDonald addresses various concerns raised by Harvest’s weekend statement. Specifically, he confesses “sinful patterns of fleshly anger and self pity that wounded co-workers and others.” He adds that his decisions involving the lawsuit against Julie Roys, two former elders and their wives, his media ministry and Harvest Bible Fellowship were “regrettable.”
In the end, however, he continues to contest the statements from Harvest and remains in arbitration.
Decisions by the current Elder/staff, along with inaccurate announcements and recent public condemnation, signaled clearly the timing to communicate our message directly. With sadness we accept that no face-to-face confession or truth-advancing interaction will be forthcoming.
The above matters are now in Christian arbitration where impartial believers will hear and give a written, objective ruling. As we cannot give specifics, we are trusting the Lord for truth to be revealed in His time, and we covet your prayers.
Despite the words of confession and findings of HBC, it appears MacDonald is gearing up for a return to ministry of some kind.
After waiting many months in hope of a pathway toward restoration, we have been welcomed into the congregation of New Life Covenant Church in Humboldt Park, Chicago. A multi-ethnic church under Pastor Wilfredo DeJesus, New Life has embraced us in love, offering us a place to serve and the beginnings of healing community.
In a recent Naples Daily News article, I was quoted as saying that James MacDonald would be back in the ministry saddle. That interview was conducted in May. It is not that I think disqualified pastors should go back into the pulpit. I don’t; but this is the pattern that has become well traveled.
He may well end up in Florida. Remember about the time he was in the midst of his turmoil, one of their former churches (Harvest Bible Chapel in Naples) had him as a guest speaker, and when the pastor objected (who already didn’t agree with the decision to go from autonomous congregation to a branch of the mother campus) he was unceremoniously fired (though afterwards, they went back to independent status).
Now it turns out that the congregation will be evicted from their building when its lease expires next March. Because the building is owned by two of JMac’s supporters and they don’t like the pastor who was hired.
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2019/11/01/harvest-bible-chapel-scandal-james-macdonald-naples-lords-way-eviction-florida/1292333001/
Meanwhile there must be something in the water down there. Because over at First Baptist Naples (SBC) they brought in a man (Marcus Hayes) to be their pastor. The bylaws required 85% approval but Hayes only got 81%. Now depending on which side you believe, either the 19% opposed him because of racial reasons (Hayes is African-American with a Caucasian wife and mixed-race children) or not (lack of experience as a senior pastor, concerns about liberal theology), and people are being booted out of membership in violation of church bylaws (which really mean nothing, since courts cannot hear cases which solely relate to ecclesiastical matters such as membership).
Psychologists would have a field day breaking down MacDonald’s statement.
Right off the bat, he airs a grievance that is completely irrelevant to his behavior. More so, if they had not been recorded and publicized when they were, he’d still very likely be senior pastor at Harvest and angrily denying all claims of his aberrant behavior. He’s upset he got caught.
I believe the issues have been going on far longer than 2016.
“Not really my fault — if only people hadn’t been unfairly attacking me all the time and causing me so much stress.”
“Hey, guys, I may have been an a-hole, but I was a highly effective a-hole, don’t you forget that!”
There is absolutely nothing to stop MacDonald from making face-to-face confessions. The real problem is that he still feels Harvest owes him — whether it’s back pay, or retirement funds, or other ministry assets he developed while he was in their employ — so any such confession is clearly still contingent on them playing ball with him, which they are right not to do.
So yeah, everything he’s said and done so far is clearly just part of a carefully calculated plan to get himself back into the game — a highly profitable ministry of some kind. This is not the confession of a truly repentant man.
The fact that this is coming so late just means that the lawyers have finally convinced JMac that he must issue some kind of public statement. It takes a long time to get through an ego the size of the one he has. But lawyers do not apologize, they carefully word things so that there is no actual admittance of guilt that can be admitted into a later trial. I have no doubt that this man was looking for murder-for-hire hitmen at least twice. This will never be confessed and the whole thing was b.s. carefully worded by lawyers. Any people who are still following such an evil man will suffer the consequences of utter foolishness. I think God allows this just so the rest of us can see how bad this worship of celebrities has gotten to in Western Christianity. When attempted murder gets a pass, where how much worse can it get than that?
Are you kidding? If there’s a mark, there’s a con artist.
Ever heard of Mark Driscoll? Ted Haggard? Even Andy Savage is getting back in the ministerial saddle.
MacDonald will be back. Like a bad penny.
Religious Nihilism….
So, I hate to ask a dumb question but what’s the big deal about Harvest declaring him “disqualified for the ministry”? It’s not like they are in a denomination and McDonald is seeking to lead another denominational church. What’s stopping McDonald from finding a warm location with plenty of rich people (just once I want to see a “church plant” where it’s cold with lots of poor people) in starting his own new church?
A lot of defrocked ministers, with similar or worse scandal than this guy have done that.
Does this relate to a financial settlement or payout from the church?
The disqualification statement is the Harvest elder’s attempt to draw a final line under the whole sorry saga and move on. Their management of the crisis brought on by MacDonald’s behavior was terrible throughout, so I suspect felt it was especially necessary to do it.
You’re right that it doesn’t have any other effect than being a definitive public statement of MacDonald’s sins and their reasons, absent full repentance and restoration, (or whatever the term is for a disgraced pastor making full amends), he is no longer fit to be a pastor.
It should serve as an effective warning to other ministries and churches to keep MacDonald at arm’s length, but you have to remember that people like MacDonald don’t get to be senior pastors at megachurches for no reason. If nothing else, they have the gift of the gab and know how to schmooze and win people over, and that’s all it takes to find a new ministry or found a new church.
And as I posted earlier, the path may be set for him with the issues at the Naples church where he spoke earlier. Since the JMac supporters pulled the lease on the building effective March 2020, they (and any other JMac supporters in that church) can bring him and his buddies down to sunny Southwest Florida (by then he will be out of power for nearly a year, so he can claim “rehabilitation”), start the new congregation in the existing building (while the other congregation looks for a new place), lather, rinse, repeat.
And as I posted earlier, the path may be set for him with the issues at the Naples church where he spoke earlier. Since the JMac supporters pulled the lease on the building effective March 2020, they (and any other JMac supporters in that church) can bring him and his buddies down to sunny Southwest Florida (by then he will be out of power for nearly a year, so he can claim “rehabilitation”), start the new congregation in the existing building (while the other congregation looks for a new place), lather, rinse, repeat.
The disqualification statement is the Harvest elder’s attempt to draw a final line under the whole sorry saga and move on. Their management of the crisis brought on by MacDonald’s behavior was terrible throughout, so I suspect felt it was especially necessary to do it.
You’re right that it doesn’t have any other effect than being a definitive public statement of MacDonald’s sins and their reasons, absent full repentance and restoration, (or whatever the term is for a disgraced pastor making full amends), he is no longer fit to be a pastor.
It should serve as an effective warning to other ministries and churches to keep MacDonald at arm’s length, but you have to remember that people like MacDonald don’t get to be senior pastors at megachurches for no reason. If nothing else, they have the gift of the gab and know how to schmooze and win people over, and that’s all it takes to find a new ministry or found a new church.
This is all about Mammon and the closely related saving of face. JMac’s old org is in the process of going literally bankrupt and the “new” elders are trying to plug holes in the failing dam with their fingers. JMac has always been a psychopath wanting to con people out of their money and making himself out to be bigger than life. Insiders have wanted the new elders to publicly call out his sins and so much pressure has been brought to bare. JMac wants to get more Mammon out of an organization that does not have any.
Very wise, as usual, Mr J!