In October 2013,
World reported: "As MacDonald and Harvest celebrate 25 years of ministry, they face a barrage of criticism from former elders, pastors, and staff who say the church leadership has operated in recent years with too little transparency and accountability". According to
World, a group of former Harvest Bible Chapel elders had spoken out publicly about their concerns, alleging that the church had a "'puppet elder board'". After three elders resigned their positions, citing a "'culture of fear and intimidation'", Harvest publicly reprimanded two of the former elders and removed them from church membership. In September 2014, Harvest and MacDonald apologized for their actions toward the two former elders and lifted the church discipline against them. In October 2018, Pastor James MacDonald and Harvest Bible Chapel sued two former members (Ryan Mahoney and Scott Bryant) and their wives, as well as journalist Julie Roys, for defamation. Mahoney and Bryant ran a website called The Elephant's Debt that had been publicly critical of MacDonald and Harvest. In December 2018, World Magazine published an exposé by Roys on the church and pastor, outlining an alleged history of financial mismanagement and authoritarian and abusive leadership by MacDonald. The church disputed these claims. On January 7, 2019, following a court decision denying the church's request to keep subpoenaed documents secret, the church sought to drop the lawsuit, saying that it had no legal means of protecting innocent third parties. McDonald took an "indefinite
sabbatical from all preaching and leadership" on January 16, 2019. On January 25, Chicago radio personality
Mancow Muller, who described himself as a Harvest attender and a friend of MacDonald, publicly criticized McDonald's leadership, called for the elders of Harvest Bible Chapel to be removed, urged church members to stop making financial contributions until needed changes were made, and asserted that an outside group should be brought in to lead the church. On February 12, 2019, James MacDonald was fired from Harvest Bible Chapel after recordings were released of MacDonald making inappropriate comments. In the recordings, obtained by Mancow and aired on his February 12 show, MacDonald joked about orchestrating a plot to
blackmail Harold Smith, the CEO of
Christianity Today magazine, by planting illegal
child pornography on Smith's computer. This move came after years of reports from former elders, pastors, and staffers accusing him and the church of financial mismanagement and other improprieties. On February 19, the church's executive committee resigned and announced other planned structural and financial changes to the church. Later that month, MacDonald's two sons resigned from positions at the church, Further reporting by Julie Roys showed that MacDonald had used church funds to purchase a vintage 1971 VW Beetle (valued at $13,000) for
Ed Stetzer (contributing editor at Christianity Today) and Harley-Davidson motorcycles for several other Harvest members.{{Cite web On April 30, 2019, the outgoing elders of Harvest Bible Chapel issued an apology for filing the 2018 lawsuit. The apology asserted that even if the lawsuit may have been "lawful," it was "a sinful violation of 1 Corinthians 6", and therefore it "biblically should not have been pursued."{{Cite web == References ==