Pastor James MacDonald is a former senior pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel. After a traffic incident last month, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 59-year-old woman.
Felony Assault and Battery
The Christian Post reported that the ousted former pastor of an Illinois megachurch is said to have "personally inflicted great bodily injury" upon a lady named Barbara Bass, as stated in a criminal complaint that the office of the District Attorney for San Diego County submitted. The complaint's allegation, referenced by The Roys Report on Wednesday, Apr. 12, noted that he might be sentenced to as many as seven years in prison if found guilty.
As per Christianity Today, on Wednesday, Mar. 22, the City of Coronado Police Department issued a statement claiming that a 62-year-old male was trying to parallel park his truck in the 900 block of Orange Avenue at 10:15 a.m. when he hit a 59-year-old woman's parked vehicle.
The woman immediately stepped outside her vehicle to talk to the man. However, as the offender exited his truck, he assaulted the victim.
In addition, while physically abusing the woman, his truck rolled backward and struck the car parked behind him. Witnesses rushed to help the victim and prevented the offender from escaping. After arriving on the scene, the officers detained the suspect and discovered a stolen weapon inside the man's vehicle.
The victim was in critical condition and was taken to the hospital for treatment. While police investigators were on the scene conducting their investigation, the route was blocked off for roughly one hour and fifty minutes.
Also Read: Pastor Eddy Noelsaint Detained Following the Accusation of Sexual Battery on His Church Member
Pastor James MacDonald's Response to the Allegations
According to Attorney Michael Pancer, Pastor Macdonald would never do anything to harm a fellow human being, Chicago Sun-Times reported. The accusations written do not accurately reflect the events that took place. They are reportedly confident that the evidence presented will establish that Pastor Macdonald's intentions and actions were not violent nor accurately ascribed in the allegations against him. "We look to the legal process to establish what did happen and remedy the situation lawfully," Attorney Pancer added.
Furthermore, in 1988, Pastor MacDonald established the Harvest Bible Church. The church expanded to seven locations and now has 13,000 members across Chicago.
As per Religion News Service, the pastor was also a host of Walk in the Word, a program that Harvest ceased airing in 2019. His last years at the church had been defined by a series of issues involving money and disagreements, most of which were driven by his aggressive leadership style.
At the time, Harvest Church filed lawsuits against Julie Roys, the woman who founded the Roys Report, as well as two bloggers who had written negative things about the church. Later on, the church issued an apology for the litigation.
Also, after he left the church, Pastor MacDonald led an internet preaching ministry and served as a guest speaker on multiple occasions. Much of his time on Twitter, where he has more than a quarter of a million followers, is also spent on an ongoing legal dispute with Harvest and a forensic accountant that the church engaged to investigate the ministry's finances. He asserted that the leaders of the church as well as the accountant, worked together to devise a scheme against him and discredit him.
Accordingly, in 2019, the elders of Harvest expressed their gratitude for MacDonald's 30 years of service in ministry. They suggested he could return to service if he undergoes a restoration process.
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