2 – Unbiblical Firing

The method of my firing broke Scripture, bylaws and common sense. 

Broke Scripture:

HBC Elders acted unbiblically by not requiring the letter writers to meet with me, not vetting the accusations for accuracy or vetting the back story for a colluded agenda, nor ever meeting with me themselves. Everyone concerned has suffered great loss as a result.

• Matthew 18:15ff places great emphasis on going directly to the person you have an offense against.
• Matthew 5:24 commands anyone involved in an offense to “leave [their] gift at the altar” and “go be reconciled to your brother,” as a prerequisite to worship. The greater priority, is faithful adherence to the great commandment, and God receives no love from a worshipper with ‘brother hatred’ in his heart (Matthew 22:37-39, Mark 12:30-32).
• Scripture commands face-to-face meetings as a first step in every conflict resolution, because inevitably it produces a removal of things verifiably false and softening of hearts that tend to harden when we talk about people rather than to them.
• Biblically there is no place for a Christ follower to ‘mail in’ written accusations against an Elder (especially when the authors themselves have tenure as spiritual leaders and surely know better). How much was lost by ignoring Scripture, giving in to the urgency of the moment, rationalizing away what God’s Word commands? What if the letter writers had met with me? What if a substantive portion of what they wrote would have been fact checked leaving only the sin between us to resolve in a meeting of mutual humility? What if they had been pastored through their frustration and hurt rather than used and publicly exposed? To date I have heard from none of them, but remain open while not wanting to press in or cause more hurt. I truly pray to see these matters resolved for the sake of all. What if HBC Elders had put their efforts there, regardless of whether I stayed or left HBC?
• The 1 Timothy 5:18-22 passage was badly misinterpreted by Mike Vanlaningham, with devastating consequences (see Dr. William Mounce, who was prepared to testify at the arbitration and broad agreement among conservative biblical scholars).
  1. The context is honor and the careful process not to dishonor those who “work hard at preaching and teaching”;
  2. The 2-3 witnesses are from the same event, with specific detail as corroboration;
  3. The accused Elder is to be present for the witness testimony;
  4. The text implies a time interval for repentance (between 1 Timothy 5:19 and verse 20 (the public rebuke);
  5. The accused is to be present for the public rebuke;
  6. The action must be extremely careful to avoid any private agenda, which Scripture calls “partiality”.
• The passage closes with an exhortation to make sure Elders are not chosen hastily, lest they fail as novices at such a sober task, harming the whole church. Harvest Elders failed on every single point. Entirely missing the main emphasis of the passage, in their rush to accomplish public rebuke (driven by Bradshaw, who was driven by Jenkins/Vanlaningham), they affected an ecclesiastical lynching.
• The statement prepared by HBC staff for services on February 16-17, 2019, was so false and far from the actual reasons the Elders decided upon termination, that the Elder chair Ron Duitsman, who led the meeting where I was fired (he and I have since reconciled) refused to read it and resigned from the board over it. Instead it was read by Bill Sperling (we have also since reconciled).

Broke Bylaws:

HBC bylaws (legally binding in Illinois) mandated that the Executive Committee of the Elders could not meet unless all members were duly informed of the meeting which is standard board protocol. The Senior Pastor was a member of the Executive Committee.  In order to fire the Senior Pastor, per the bylaws, the EC had to: inform me of the meeting along with every other EC member, which they did not do (more than once); and give me opportunity to respond to the accusations, which they did not do. Upon agreement to terminate (my agreement not needed), they were to bring their unanimous recommendation to the full Elder board, for a simple majority approval.

Yet despite my offers to resign, none of those steps were taken. My sabbatical was used as an excuse for not informing me of late January/early February meetings. These unlawful meetings utilized secrecy to prevent me from seeking to participate, and possibly alter the downward spiral. Not once was I given a chance to see, hear, or respond to those six letters – which somehow appeared all at once. Additionally my pension, written and approved by these same Elders, states that no determination or “firing for cause” can take place unless I receive due notification and am given a chance to respond to the accusations in person, but again, that never happened. Talk to a member of the mob and you will hear, “none of that matters, throw the bum out.” But in reality Elders are to be “sober minded and temperate,” which they accuse me of lacking, yet I have not lashed out in fleshly public response,  nor has any member of my family, not a single time, since the unlawful, bylaw bypassing actions of HBC Elders on February 12, 2019.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)

Broke Common Sense:

In early February 2019, despite objections and pleas for common sense by multiple Elders, Executive Committee (EC) leaders collapsed under mob pressure. The remainder of the board was swept away, having no clue of the forces at work within the board itself to gain my ouster and to achieve CEO-level HBC leadership for Greg Bradshaw, independence of the Niles Campus for Mo Zachariah, relief from financial fears for Jeff Smith, and revenge for Dallas Jenkins. To hide this fact the Elder minutes of these and preceding meetings were edited (doctored) to eliminate evidence of objection, promises to care for my family, clarity on the rightful disposition of Walk in the Word, etc.

The after-midnight board meetings leading up to February 12, 2019, were by all accounts unlike any in the history of Harvest Bible Chapel and dominated by 2-3 rogue Elders (Dan George, Mike Dunwoody) who continuously breached the Elder Code of Conduct without consequence. What if the Elders had held each other accountable for their own anger and raised voices, before undertaking to provide the same for me?

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)

More than anyone else, Greg Bradshaw forced the unvetted letters on the unaware Elder board, one of whom leaked them online. Conversations with Michael Vanlaningham seemingly inflamed Greg’s self-righteousness to where he was walking the halls in Elgin with the root of bitterness springing up, defiling many (Hebrews 12:15). Dr. Vanlaningham defiled Greg about a matter he previously sought and received my forgiveness for, then Greg’s bitterness sprang up from the gossip in Dallas Jenkins’ letter campaign, and it was spreading like wild fire, full of deadly poison (James 3:2-10).

When the Elders asked me to resign, I agreed, pending the release of Walk in the Word and its net assets per historic agreements regarding my intellectual property. But when that was refused, I realized there was a lot more happening than most Elders knew and delayed until I was assured my pension and Walk in the Word would not be unlawfully seized. Only then did Dallas Jenkins, Greg Bradshaw, and Mo Zachariah meet with Mancow and somehow pass what a WITW audio engineer had recorded without permission – a 45-minute phone conversation, which many have never heard in its entirety. These men boasted about the coup they had affected, bragging that they controlled Mancow’s public volume, and that their ’termination team’ (Mike Vanlaningham, Sam Booras, John Dierker, Gil De las Alas) had achieved its goal of removing the whole MacDonald family.

This biblical, bylaw, and common-sense Elder fail, jettisoned 30 years of faithful ministry in order to silence the mob, and acquiesced to a few who threatened to resign if I was not fired. But that was not the only reason.

Some are no doubt saying, “Dude, you got fired. It happens, even unjustly, all the time – own what you can, get over the rest and get on with your life.”

I agree! And I surely would have, were it not for the false and destructive financial accusations against me, voiced by Tim Stoner to HBC congregation and online for 10 months. Those November 2019 allegations would accomplish their goal of ending my ministry forever, if not refuted here and now with clear documentation.  

As the HBC congregation listened, the leadership’s rhetoric escalated:

• Upon being fired, no mention of financial concerns (February 2019)
• Then “an ongoing pattern of financial abuse” in firing announcement (February 2019)
• Then “ungodly spending” (March 2019)
• Then “HBC suspended ECFA membership” over failed standards for accountability and arm’s length transactions (April 2019)
• Then “found the documentation of [2018] expenses to be insufficient and inconsistent” = $451,000 (April 2019)
• Then in November 2019, serious misconduct – their ‘hired gun’ intensifies HBC’s accusations to “malfeasance” and $1,900,000 million in funds purportedly paid to me and my family personally.

Any thinking person had to be wondering, “Why would James do this? Why would he spend so lavishly and foolishly while being compensated so well and loving the church as he surely seemed to?”

Answer: I didn’t and wouldn’t do that, as anyone who knew us and our love for the church would have understood. But “a lie travels around the world, while the truth is still putting its pants on.”

In the next post, I explain in detail with documentation why the financial accusations are false

– and all that has happened after I was terminated. The driving force behind everything that has taken place between the MacDonalds and HBC from February 13, 2019, until today…