Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-28-25

This week’s message is an essay I was asked to write for The American Spectator magazine this week. I have edited it somewhat, mainly for length, for the Monday Ministry blog. It addresses the life and recent death of noted pastor John MacArthur. It is an interesting coincidence that MacArthur’s death followed, by mere days, the death of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart (about which I also contributed to TAS and here). They were not only prominent preachers, but they had many points of disagreement – points that were indeed pointed.

MacArthur and Swaggart were, since the death of Billy Graham and with the possible exception of his son Franklin (who has not a similar ministry of pulpit Sundays and mass meetings), these two men represented, and prominently, the two main strains in contemporary Christianity. So their deaths invited comparisons.

Faithful readers know that I am from mainline Protestant tradition, and an encourager of liturgical worship. But I am also Pentecostal, and – as might be decided here – was offended that MacArthur called my people counterfeit Christians and of the devil. (Swaggart and his son called MacArthur “evil” for rejecting Holy Spirit gifts. Tit-for-Holy-Tat…)

MacArthur’s substance and style was judgmental and sounded dogmatic… unless and until he facilely shifted beliefs. He was, for instance, a hyper-Calvinist and (see essay) could easily be called Arminian – but he once stated that he could not explain contradictions in his faith “because God is sovereign and mysterious.” Well, just so. I welcome the mysteries because we need reminders that God is in charge, not our feeble logic.

I just wish some preachers would not cherish their judgmentalism. It smacks of a need to feel superior, and might offend those who struggle for the Truth more than they seek spiritual comforts.

John McArthur, the de facto leader of one of American Protestantism’s major contemporary wings, died on July 14, 2026 at the age of 86. The son and grandson of preachers, MacArthur was the author of more than 150 books and pamphlets; was still active in the pulpit of his church, Grace Community Church of Sun Valley CA, and head of his Master’s University and Master’s Seminary; and hosted a daily radio program/ media ministry, Grace To You.

As a Bible scholar he produced a Study Bible and the Legacy Standard Bible, which has sold more than 2-million copies and has been translated into two dozen languages.

Through such activities John MacArthur became prominent beyond his spiritual base, which could roughly be characterized as Reformed. His influence indeed bled far, with his books, appearances, and pulpit activity; assiduously, he taught in weekly sermons the entire Bible, verse by verse, totaling decades of methodical messages. Otherwise MacArthur’s theology was difficult to label: He was born Baptist; attended Bob Jones University and Biola University; adopted elements of Calvinism, even hyper-Calvinism including predestinarianism and a pre-millenial eschatology. If a distinction must be drawn, John MacArthur was more a teacher than a preacher.

Intra-denominational distinctions in America have through the centuries inspired more intense debates and divisions than secular squabbles. The American church, whose major concerns once were focused on the place of the Social Gospel, has in many venues split into disagreements – often laden with bitter judgmentalism – over matters of the Rapture (when believers will be taken to Heaven and avoid, or not, the End-Times Tribulation); whether the New Testament’s Gifts of the Spirit (prophecy, healing, tongues, etc) given to the First-Century church are valid today; and Modernism/Liberalism.

There are new and shifting alliances in the church, according to issues – such as the Catholics and some Protestants agreeing on abortion and public schools – but for the most part there is a bit of Holy Anarchy in the American church. The umbrella-term “evangelical” has become almost meaningless to everyone except sloppy pollsters. And there are disagreements and sometimes latter-day anathemas exchanged between mainstream denominations, Fundamentalists, Charismatics and Pentecostals, Seeker-Sensitive churches, the emergent movement, Reformed traditions, the Metro movement, accommodationists and relativists, Holiness churches, Christian Zionists, Orthodox Protestants, High-Church schismatics, holders of the Prosperity Gospel, “New Covenant” believers, Mega-Church devotees, Lordship salvationists, Christian Nationalists. and Dispensationalists holding to Pre-, Mid-, and Post-Millenial Tribulation beliefs; etc.

It is interesting to note that, despite his public persona and speaking style – which seemed, and frequently was, stern and judgmental – John MacArthur reflected several and shifting theological strains through his spiritual evolution; and sometimes would bridge various traditions. He was rather a strict Calvinist but never became a Presbyterian (for a time he called himself a Baptist Calvinist, not as an oxymoron). He called himself at one time a “Leaky” Dispensationalist, allowing wiggle-room in discussions about God’s role in history and the coming Tribulation. He fanned the issue of “intersectionality,” maintaining that women had no role in church leadership, especially behind the pulpit (he also called his stance “Complementarianism.”) For years he was dogmatic in defense of a doctrine he called “Incarnational Sonship,” basically maintaining that Christ became separate and holy only upon his earthly birth – a fair description of his singular belief – but he later recanted and admitted that the Old Testament clearly portrayed and illustrated incidents of the pre-Incarnate Jesus. MacArthur eventually identified with St Augustine’s self-corrective “Retractationes,” however writing that “I doubt I’ll ever have the time or energy to undertake” such work.

To many Christians, MacArthur’s major theological battles were with Pentecostals; and many saw great confusion, even harm, to the church. He championed what he called “Cessationism,” the argument that the Gifts of the Spirit – ministry blessings conferred to Christian converts in the Age of the Apostles, nine in number including gifts of healing, wisdom, prophecy, ecstatic prayer, knowledge – were obsolete after the first century. Pentecostals asked for a Biblical citation about their expiration, but none exists. MacArthur would ask whether Pentecostals and Charismatics (virtual exchangeable labels) have ever witnessed miracles like healings in our days… to which millions (and spreading rapidly in the contemporary church) answered “Yes” to the dare. Nevertheless MacArthur held a “Strange Fire” conference that savaged the Gifts of the Spirit, and wrote three books condemning Pentecostals.

In non-doctrinal controversies, as with many contemporary ministries, John MacArthur was not immune. He insisted that Martin Luther King was a “non-believer” who “misrepresented everything about Christ and the Gospel.” Capturing as many headlines as his Covid stances, he resisted public sympathy for a woman in his congregation, Eileen Gray, over sexual abuse, including of her daughter Wendy by a Grace Community employee. MacArthur criticised her but invited prayers for her abuser husband David, even after he was sentenced to serve 21 years to life in prison for aggravated child molestation, corporal injury to a child and child abuse. According to an eyewitness, Gray had confessed to MacArthur years earlier that he had molested his daughter. Many publishers, after this controversy became public, rejected a new MacArthur book about the “War on Children,” and MacArthur ultimately self-published the book.

And leaders of what fairly might be called the two major camps within Protestantism have died within a month of each other. Jimmy Swaggart was the most prominent Pentecostal preacher, with a widespread ministry whose influence touched Charismatics, ecstatic worshipers, Fundamentalists, etc. Swaggart died on July 1, 2025. Two weeks later John MacArthurd died. Once again (very generally speaking) he can be seen as representative of another major group of Christians and traditions – Reformed traditions, Biblical exegetes, etc.

The passing of these two very influential leaders, and so close in time, does not portend a vacuum in American Christianity; but it easily might allow different factions to draw closer. President Trump, who reached out to Swaggart’s next-generation preachers, and who occasionally called both Swaggart and MacArthur (evidently a follower of the Swaggarts’ worship services) already enjoys a fellowship with America’s faith community.

Having bequeathed a huge body of scholarship and micro-focused Biblical exegesis to his subsequent generations, John MacArthur can now, presumably, be counting for himself the angels on the heads of pins, as was his wont.

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