Harvest Bible Chapel (James MacDonald)
Chicago-area evangelical megachurch network. James MacDonald fired 2019 after Christianity Today exposé documenting bullying, financial extravagance, and suppression of dissent.
CLCI radar
BITE breakdown
+1 for documented 2019 governance collapse and James MacDonald firing.
Profile facts
In context
Harvest Bible Chapel under MacDonald grew to multi-campus mega-status with the Walk in the Word broadcast and Harvest Bible Fellowship church-planting network. The 2019 governance collapse following the World magazine and Christianity Today investigations forced his removal. Multiple successor leadership disputes.
Recovery resources
- Tears of Eden — Christian spiritual-abuse-survivor support and clinician referral.
- Recovering Grace — Originally IBLP-focused; archive includes broader fundamentalist Christian high-control material.
- Reclamation Collective — Religious-trauma-aware therapist network; relevant for post-exit identity-rebuilding.
- ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association) — General referral and cult-aware therapist directory.
- Freedom of Mind Resource Center — Steven Hassan's organisation; BITE-model resources and family-side exit guidance.
See the full curated list at /resources.
Legal cases & controversies
- 2019 MacDonald firing
Evidence by BITE axis
- Senior pastor with no functioning external accountability
- NDAs documented for departing staff
- Aggressive litigation against critical bloggers (later dropped)
- +1 for documented 2019 governance collapse and James MacDonald firing
Timeline
- 1988Harvest Bible Chapel founded
- 2019MacDonald fired after governance investigation
Sources
We cite sources by name and outlet rather than fabricating links. Where a source includes its own URL, the open ↗ link opens it directly; otherwise search ↗ runs a Google Scholar query for the cited title — useful for verifying academic sources. For news outlets, search the outlet's own archive.
Change history
Substantive edits logged per the score-updates policy.
- 2026-05-29Phase 1 Batch J: per-group recovery resources applied via programmatic palette (closest-fit by category + subCategory + score). Palette: Christian high-control.
- 2026-05-20Source-density flags derived from existing free-text sources[]: investigative journalism. Heuristic auto-flag; subsequent editorial pass will populate structuredSources[] with reliability tiers.
- 2026-05-20Score band scheme migrated from 4 bands to 5 (Minimal 0–5 / Low 6–12 / Moderate 13–20 / High 21–30 / Extreme 31–40). No CLCI value changed; the new Minimal band was carved out of the bottom of the previous Low band.
Relevant hubs
Curated entry points on CLCI Hub for situations connected to this group.
You may also want to explore
Found something wrong on this profile?
We accept correction requests from anyone — current and former members, researchers, journalists, family members, and the listed organisation. Submissions are reviewed by an editor; we do not auto-publish.