This will leave a mark

A few weeks ago, Harvest Bible Chapel pastor James MacDonald (and the elders) decided to sue journalist Julie Roys and four others regarding the blog "The Elephant's Debt", a site which details various abuses of Harvest Bible Chapel, the larger Harvest Bible Fellowship association of churches, and of MacDonald himself.  Yesterday, MacDonald's lawyers requested that the lawsuit be withdrawn after losing a motion to keep certain documents private. In response, The Elephant's Debt has written a response--a response I consider justified--that can only charitably be described as savage. 


 Now ignoring the realities of 1 Corinthians 6's prohibition of lawsuits among believers, and in particular James 2:6's description of rich people (MacDonald certainly qualifies) dragging those who are poorer into court, what can we learn from this?


First of all, listen to your lawyers.  I would be surprised if a body like Harvest didn't have a few among the elders, and of course they hired lawyers to file the action.  If these guys didn't warn MacDonald and the rest that "discovery" is like a full body cavity exam, they should be disbarred.  Otherwise, MacDonald needs to step out of ministry for a while if he didn't pay attention. 


Second, listen to your lawyers.  I would also be surprised if Harvest's lawyers didn't ask to see the evidence MacDonald and the elders wanted to present to prove libel--to knowingly promote falsehoods with malice, since MacDonald is a public figure--and if he didn't have the goods to make the case, again, the lawyers should be disbarred if they didn't warn him, and MacDonald should resign if they did.  We have enough harassment lawsuits as it is.  James 2:6.


Third, listen to your lawyers.  They would have told him that he would have little chance of getting significant damages from the defendants, and that (if the evidence existed) simply presenting the evidence would likely suffice to silence the criticism.


Fourth, read the evidence for yourself.  If it doesn't make your case, don't take it public in the first place.  The request to keep that evidence quiet shows MacDonald and HBC elders ignored this basic principle.


Fifth, if you don't want something to become public, don't do it.  If you look at Julie Roys' writing and The Elephant's Debt, you will very quickly notice that their evidence consists of publicly available documents, HBC internal documents, and testimony from those who have left the church. 


Sixth, a functional dictatorship (MacDonald has a 50% vote on the elder board; nothing happens without his consent, really) is a truly awful way to run an organization.   Let's be honest here; Roys' sources were either on the elder board, or were employed by HBC.   They went to Roys because they were not willing to risk the big boss' wrath by expressing reservations within the organization--just like we see in the District of Columbia, really.


Really, MacDonald has more or less admitted that his lawsuit was merely a way by which he might extract revenge against his detractors, and in doing so, associations he theoretically cares about are paying a heavy price.  His Walk in the Word radio show is being withdrawn except for online, Harvest Bible Fellowship is now separated from Harvest Bible Chapel, and quite frankly, since WITW (and MacDonald) are also affiliated with Moody, it's going to leave some significant marks on Moody as well.   James MacDonald needs to make some big apologies, and then step away from pastoral ministry for a while to consider how to fix the mess he made.


And that assumes that this mess is not going to get a whole lot worse.  One of the big issues at hand is that a major backer, a man who married into the Van Kampen family that runs mutual funds, left after reviewing a partial audit of their books.  Guys like that don't just resign over bad news, since they've seen that before.  They resign because what they saw invites law enforcement to take a look.


Update: sixth, listen to your lawyers when they explain to you that suing a lawyer (Ryan Mahoney) and an investigative journalist (Julie Roys) is the worst possible situation for making a libel lawsuit stick, as they know libel law well and moreover will make you pay for handling evidence recklessly. I dare suggest that this is a consequence of MacDonald really having no one who could keep him accountable for at least the past decade and a half.