Megachurch founder James MacDonald allegedly sought murder for hire, police investigating

[47of74]

A friend of mine just told me about this

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Police in Illinois are currently investigating allegations that Harvest Bible Chapel founder James MacDonald sought to find a hitman to commit murder.

“A subject came in and filed a report and we are doing an investigation based on that report,” Wilmette Deputy Police Chief Pat Collins confirmed with The Christian Post Monday.

The allegations regarding MacDonald’s efforts to commit murder were first reported by independent journalist Julie Roys, who cited Chicago radio personality Mancow Muller and Emmanuel “Manny” Bucur, a deacon at HBC and former confidant and volunteer bodyguard of MacDonald’s, as the individuals making the claims.

Muller alleges that MacDonald asked him at least twice in 2018 if he knew a hitman he could hire. Initially, he thought that the HBC founder was joking but it became clear to him during a conversation in December that MacDonald was “really serious,” Roys reported.

 

[GeoBQn]

Ha, that's near my parents' house.  In my mind, it was always "the church that looks like a factory outlet store."

And murder-for-hire allegations are just the tip of this crazy-ass iceberg.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/james-macdonald-fights-over-firing-assets-of-harvest-bible-chapel-amid-murder-for-hire-allegations.html

[Cartmann99]

Hmm...

What essential oil blend is recommended for when your husband attempts to hire a hitman? 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GeoBQn said:

Ha, that's near my parents' house.  In my mind, it was always "the church that looks like a factory outlet store."

And murder-for-hire allegations are just the tip of this crazy-ass iceberg.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/james-macdonald-fights-over-firing-assets-of-harvest-bible-chapel-amid-murder-for-hire-allegations.html

I guess there used to be a whole chain of Harvest Bible Chapels here in the Midwest.

There was one in Davenport that had moved into a former big box store I'm going to say about 15 years ago.  A couple years ago they and the other affiliated churches left the company denomination and the church renamed itself earlier this year.

 

[Pecansforeveryone]

Wow, just wow. I figured he would lay low for a couple of years after being fired and then re-invent himself/start a new church. Now.... I don't know. Even if he isn't charged, these charges are serious enough, I don't know how he will spin them away. 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

Wow, just wow. I figured he would lay low for a couple of years after being fired and then re-invent himself/start a new church. Now.... I don't know. Even if he isn't charged, these charges are serious enough, I don't know how he will spin them away. 

He'll just claim Jeeeeeeeeeeezus forgave him as so many other fundies do.  That and do some more kissing of the orange man baby's ass to appeal to the Branch Trumpvidian set.

[pook]

What is the coles notes on these people, James and Stacy McDonald, or am I wrong?  I continue to be a real-time follower of the J-Rod circus from the beginning and it's just so exhausting that I barely have any time for alternate fundies and yes I am not proud.

[DomWackTroll]

53 minutes ago, pook said:

James and Stacy McDonald, or am I wrong?

Nope, it's a different James MacDonald. James and Stacy are too busy oversharing their sex life and posting Seventies soft-rock lyrics on Facebook to plot murders. 

[PennySycamore]

I was going to say the same thing, @DomWackTroll.  I didn't think that this James McDonald was the same as that James McDonald of James and Stacy fame.

ETA:  It's weird to see how so many pastors have so little problem with murdering their wives.  (Not saying that the Rev. McDonald was seeking a hitman  to off his wife.)  There's that youth pastor in Washington state that murdered his wife and then set fire to the house so that her death might be seen as due to the fire.  Problem was no smoke in the lungs of the dead wife.  Then there was the pastor whose second wife apparently died in a car crash in which he was uninjured.  His first wife died from a fall down the basement steps of so they thought.  He murdered them both.  I could go on because there are many more.

Edited May 23, 2019 by PennySycamore

[Petronella]

3 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

It's weird to see how so many pastors have so little problem with murdering their wives.  (Not saying that the Rev. McDonald was seeking a hitman  to off his wife.)  There's that youth pastor in Washington state that murdered his wife and then set fire to the house so that her death might be seen as due to the fire.  Problem was no smoke in the lungs of the dead wife.  Then there was the pastor whose second wife apparently died in a car crash in which he was uninjured.  His first wife died from a fall down the basement steps of so they thought.  He murdered them both.  I could go on because there are many more.

I wonder if they’re just cynical and don’t really believe what they’re preaching, or if the whole “personal relationship with Jesus//God answers me in prayer and ‘lays things on my heart’” just naturally leads to an assumption that “my strong feelings” = “God’s will.”

Edited May 23, 2019 by Petronella

[47of74]

7 hours ago, Petronella said:

I wonder if they’re just cynical and don’t really believe what they’re preaching, or if the whole “personal relationship with Jesus//God answers me in prayer and ‘lays things on my heart’” just naturally leads to an assumption that “my strong feelings” = “God’s will.”

Along with "God's will" meaning that they need to have a big ass house with a ten car garage

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It has long been clear that Pastor James MacDonald runs a pretty shady operation in Elgin’s Harvest Bible Chapel. The Elephant’s Debt blog and others have documented its financial shenanigans for years. Most recently Julie Roys of World magazine has written an article with stories of expelling kids from the church school when their pastor father refused to sign a noncompete agreement, revising church bylaws to move authority from the elders to a five-man committee, keeping secret 20% of the budget including the pay of the pastor and his sons, building a giant new house with a ten-car garage while claiming it was under 5,000 square feet in size, and repeatedly stabbing a photo of a rival pastor. Perhaps the most bizarre story is the one about the specially bred trophy deer herd.

 

[clueliss]

Click the article someone posted above and see the picture of James and go - uhhh okay yeah I've done a bible study of one form or another in a small group with material from him.  

[47of74]

The hits keep on coming

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Embattled Harvest Bible Chapel founder James MacDonald, who allegedly sought to hire a hitman to commit murder, is also alleged to be a gun-toting bully who practiced his shooting at the church’s camp.

He once pointed a gun at a former worker who requested payment, witnesses told police.

The details were revealed in a heavily redacted report from Wilmette police in Illinois in which McDonald denied to one would-be victim that he had shopped for a contractor to murder the individual.

“MacDonald had learned of the podcast and murder for hire talk. MacDonald told [redacted] the rumors that he wanted [redacted] killed were untrue,” the report says.

Also this

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n February, Mancow played "hot-mic audio" of someone who sounded like MacDonald calling a Christianity Today editor a "certifiable p--ck" and hinting that the magazine's former CEO be brought down by putting child porn on his computer. Shortly after that audio aired on WLS, MacDonald was removed as senior pastor.

I'd tell anyone involved with that church to do what the people in Davenport did and not walk away, but run away.  At goddamn warp ten.

[Howl]

So, according to The Wartburg Watch, someone was with James and noticed that he was looking at porn on his phone.  James' excuse was that he was afraid his then son-in-law has posted pics of his daughter on a porn site.   

So yeah, take a minute (or longer if you need it) to process that this was a dad (and a "pastor") randomly surfing porn sites hoping to find pics of his daughter. 

This is sounding so much like Mark Driscoll Part Deux, except that MacDonald makes Mark Driscoll seem relatively nice. 

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Howl

[JermajestyDuggar]

16 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

I was going to say the same thing, @DomWackTroll.  I didn't think that this James McDonald was the same as that James McDonald of James and Stacy fame.

ETA:  It's weird to see how so many pastors have so little problem with murdering their wives.  (Not saying that the Rev. McDonald was seeking a hitman  to off his wife.)  There's that youth pastor in Washington state that murdered his wife and then set fire to the house so that her death might be seen as due to the fire.  Problem was no smoke in the lungs of the dead wife.  Then there was the pastor whose second wife apparently died in a car crash in which he was uninjured.  His first wife died from a fall down the basement steps of so they thought.  He murdered them both.  I could go on because there are many more.

I am one of those people who likes to watch shows and read stuff about murderers. There are quite a few people who murder their spouse mostly because they don’t want to get a divorce. Which is often religiously based. To them, it would be better if they were a widow than a divorcee in their religious community. It’s disturbing. That divorce is so demonized in their religion that they would rather secretly kill their spouse than get a public divorce. 

[nelliebelle1197]

21 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Hmm...

What essential oil blend is recommended for when your husband attempts to hire a hitman? 

This is not Stacy’s James.

[Howl]

32 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I am one of those people who likes to watch shows and read stuff about murderers.

Yo tambien.  We call it murder porn at my house; hubs doesn't get it, but I remind him that I don't get why he can watch endless reruns of Blue Bloods. 

[Palimpsest]

43 minutes ago, Howl said:

So, according to The Wartburg Watch, someone was with James and noticed that he was looking at porn on his phone.  James' excuse was that he was afraid his son-in-law has posted pics of his daughter on a porn site.   

So yeah, take a minute (or longer if you need it) to process that this was a dad (and a "pastor") randomly surfing porn sites hoping to find pics of his daughter. 

The Wartburg Watch has been following James MacDonald for ages (he's a mucky man even without this latest scandal) but I find that site incredibly hard to search.  As in, I always have to google Wartburg Watch <plus key words>.  Have you found a faster way? 

Quote

This is sounding so much like Mark Driscoll Part Deux, except that MacDonald makes Mark Driscoll seem relatively nice. 

I'm old.  My first thought when I hear hit man is Jeremy Thorpe.  But did the hit man kill a dog? 

 

[Marmion]

From what I have just read , this is not the first time that their pastor , James MacDonald , has been accused of misconduct . https://world.wng.org/2018/12/hard_times_at_harvest   Also , this reminds me somewhat of this other case .  https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-metal-singer-tim-lambesis-guilty-of-hiring-hitman-to-kill-wife-115266/

[JermajestyDuggar]

24 minutes ago, Howl said:

Yo tambien.  We call it murder porn at my house; hubs doesn't get it, but I remind him that I don't get why he can watch endless reruns of Blue Bloods. 

The thing is I hate gory scary movies. It’s the biggest reason why I’ve never watched GOT. I watched the first episode with a decapetation and I was like, “ya I’m done.” But I’m always interested in solving murders. I just don’t want to see the detailed crime scene photos if they are particularly violent and gory. 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

This is not Stacy’s James.

Still even if he's not the answer to the question about the blend of essential oil to be used when one's husband attempts to hire a hit man is likely any blend that can be purchased in the same section that "finer" gas stations used to sell "bath salts" in.

[nelliebelle1197]

2 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Still even if he's not the answer to the question about the blend of essential oil to be used when one's husband attempts to hire a hit man is likely any blend that can be purchased in the same section that "finer" gas stations used to sell "bath salts" in.

Stacy will sell you that!

[Black Aliss]

23 hours ago, GeoBQn said:

Ha, that's near my parents' house.  In my mind, it was always "the church that looks like a factory outlet store."

And murder-for-hire allegations are just the tip of this crazy-ass iceberg.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/james-macdonald-fights-over-firing-assets-of-harvest-bible-chapel-amid-murder-for-hire-allegations.html

As this article notes,  "A megachurch pastor allegedly asked his personal bodyguard to murder his former son-in-law during a motorcycle trip to the Creation Museum. . . .is [pretty much] a winning Fundamentalist Christian Bingo card "

[clueliss]

By the way - back in the 80's a Pastor and his mistress (from the Emporia KS area) conspired to murder her husband and his wife.  I believe they made a tv movie about it.   He succeeded in killing his wife.  The link below is the result of a google search - Sandy Bird was the Pastor's wife

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-tm-kansas18may02-story.html

[47of74]

As this article notes,  "A megachurch pastor allegedly asked his personal bodyguard to murder his former son-in-law during a motorcycle trip to the Creation Museum. . . .is [pretty much] a winning Fundamentalist Christian Bingo card "

Especially if one or more of them was wearing Branch Trumpvidian gear at any point during the trip.