CHICAGO — A mega-church here has issued a public apology to a credit union, saying a lawsuit it filed was a sinful violation of 1 Corinthians 6 and biblically should not have been pursued.
Harvest Bible Chapel has also apologized to a freelance journalist and two bloggers against whom it had also filed suit, alleging the church had been defamed. All of the lawsuits have been dropped.
The church originally filed litigation over five lawsuits made by Evangelical Christian Credit Union that ECCU declined to modify or refinance.
But after firing its founding pastor, Rev. James MacDonald, it has rethought the lawsuits.
“This week the elder board will transition to a completely new board of elders,” the church said in a statement on its website. “With a new church leadership team and new elder board now in place, along with this apology and the restitution Harvest has made/offered to each of you, we hope this will start the healing process between each of you and Harvest.”
‘We Ask for Forgiveness’
In a specific statement to Evangelical Christian, the church stated, “The elder board of Harvest Bible Chapel is writing to you to apologize and ask for your forgiveness for the legal action brought against ECCU by Harvest. While at the time we thought we were acting in the best interests of the church, we now realize this lawsuit while lawful was a sinful violation of 1 Corinthians 6 and biblically should not have been pursued. We don’t want to make excuses or give a rationale for our actions. We only want to let you know that we are sorry for any anxiety, pain, grief, and cost that ECCU incurred due to the lawsuit filed by Harvest.
“To that end, Harvest is offering to reimburse ECCU for any reasonable out of pocket legal expenses incurred by ECCU which resulted from the lawsuit,” the statement continued. “Although a private apology has already been made to your staff, we felt inclined to apologize to you directly. Additionally, since our action against you was public, we will also make this apology public, posting it today to our website. We have owned this failure and now extend to all of ECCU our sincere apology.”