[TLFisher]

June 4, 2001—Harvest House and Authors Respond to The Local Church: Harvest House and authors Ankerberg and Weldon answered directly, and for the second time, asked for specific details instead of general complaints: ―we are requesting that you provide us with a written explanation of your specific objections....we shall thoroughly evaluate it, approaching the evaluation with an open mind.‖ This letter also stated, ―If we feel that there would be any benefit in having a meeting as suggested in your letter, we shall certainly contact you to arrange for it.‖ That hardly constituted an ―aggressive refusal‖ to The Local Church‘s attempts to resolve the issue. Response time: 19 days.

November 20, 2001—The Local Church Writes to Harvest House: Nearly a year after The Local Church sent its first complaint letter and more than five months after Harvest House sent its second request for their specific objections about the text of the book, The Local Church finally sent a lengthy written explanation of what they viewed as errors in the Encyclopedia. Ironically, while The Local Church took 10 months to supply the information Harvest House and the authors had originally requested back on January 19, The Local Church firmly demanded that Harvest House respond to the lengthy compilation of allegations in a mere two weeks. The Local Church also closed the letter by emphatically stating, ―Your failure to do so will give us little alternative but to pursue legal action against you.‖

November 29, 2001—Harvest House and Authors Respond to The Local Church: Once again Harvest House replied immediately, explaining that the company ―has just moved its offices, and we are currently in the process of completing our transition. In addition, as I‘m sure you realize, during the holiday season, it is extremely difficult to devote the time necessary to a project such as this in order to truly do it justice.‖ Still, Harvest House promised to provide a response, and stated that ―the points made in your letter will be carefully reviewed and evaluated.‖ Response time: 9 days.

Contrary to The Local Church‘s claim that Harvest House ―utterly disregard[ed their] letters,‖ in every case, Harvest House sent a gracious and timely response. More importantly, because The Local Church waited until November 20, 2001 to detail their complaints, Harvest House and the authors were left for nearly a full year in the awkward position of not knowing how they should evaluate The Local Church‘s undefined complaints about the Encyclopedia. All the complaints in The Local Church‘s first two letters (January 11 and May 16) were very vague and never pinpointed which statements in the Encyclopedia were supposedly defamatory. While waiting for this information from The Local Church, authors Ankerberg and Weldon had, in fact, carefully reevaluated the Encyclopedia‘s chapter on The Local Church to ensure it was accurate, and confirmed that indeed it was.

To be continued