John MacArthur is Dead, Sort of
John MacArthur has died. He isn’t coming back, but he isn’t going anywhere, either.
He was an insufferable crank who busied himself with the affairs of other believers. Are you a veteran suffering from PTSD? No, you aren’t, because PTSD isn’t real. Are you among the 500 million charismatic believers in the world? There is a good chance that you aren’t even a Christian.
He was, here and there, a bullshitter. Did you know that he turned down the NFL to become a preacher? Or that he was a main character in the aftermath of the MLK assassination?
For those who treasure MacArthur and take offense at this obituary, I am relieved that you located your voice. I did not hear you when his church trampled the women trying to flee abuse, then trampled the elder who tried to help them.
He was a simpering bully who made a spectacle of being mean to Beth Moore. Then, in true bully form, he would squeal like a stuck pig when confronted with the slightest pushback.
He was habitually un-Christlike. He failed this test so badly that he broke the test itself: MacArthur and his followers challenged the very notion of what it meant to emulate Christ. While most evangelicals could point to the Jesus who washed feet or ministered to sinners, the MacArthur Jesus was perpetually clearing out the temple. And this version of Jesus never left the temple. He stayed there, rousting out the undesirables who sang the wrong songs or believed the wrong thing. In this version, turning over everyone’s table was the most Christlike thing imaginable, because it was Truth. To let anything slide, to give a single inch, was not what Christ would have done. It was not love.
To that end, MacArthur leaves behind a theological tree that will invariably eat itself. If you have discussed Church issues on social media in the last 15 years, you have probably encountered his theological offspring: bearded, angry man-children who thrive on conflict, acerbic trad wife influencers, and anonymous theo-trolls hiding behind cartoon profiles and Latin names. MacArthur’s acolytes absorbed his polemical flair but never possessed the same stage presence, the internal calculus of when to pull back and use their inside voice. They are worse, somehow: louder and cruder than their patron saint, careening around the internet, setting up one purity test after another, until they have winnowed their followers into an echo chamber. Many of them don’t seem to try to persuade anyone; the blowback they earn fuels a sort of negative feedback loop, wherein they are proved right by how much resistance they foment.1
He was, in his own way, a Trump before Trump. There will always be Christians who look at Samuel and demand a king. In MacArthur’s case, it was a prophet that they wanted. Billy Graham, with his pious drawling, was never going to be enough for these particular believers. John Piper was a sort of babbling oddball to them, fretting over starfish, gripping the sides of the pulpit and erupting into orgasmic joy over a random verse in Habakkuk. Tim Keller seemed interested in making friends with sinners, and this would not do, either. People wanted order, certainty, and the sort of security that comes from a spiritual authority telling you what to do and think. They wanted a prophet.
And John was willing. He was their champion, and he got rich doing it. He grew his church, then started a seminary. He plastered his name on books he may or may not have written. He spoke at conferences. He went on television programs. He built an empire.
In Christianity, our leaders never really die. Long after one of them leaves this earth, the ripples from their life roll over us and force us to contend with their legacy, whether we want to or not. Jimmy Swaggart, who shambled into the ether a few days before MacArthur, will never leave us. We have already inherited his wreckage: a huge swath of believers in the 1980s who were betrayed and humiliated by his scandals. Those believers had children, raised them away from church, and now those children are 33 and don’t know if it’s safe to step into a sanctuary.
In the same way, MacArthur’s legacy will arrive for us. There will be good and bad. Many people found truth in his teaching (Swaggart could play some pretty songs on the piano, too). Other people got hurt. Whatever your experience is with him, I believe you.
But the man has left us. I will extend him more courtesy than he gave many of his targets, and not speculate ominously about his eternal security. I’m not God. I’m not even a prophet.
I think John could have done better. That might sound cold, but please remember: I’m simply being Christlike. John taught me that.
I suppose it’s more rewarding when Ninevah doesn’t repent, and you get to watch it burn.
Met him once. I had really appreciated his commentaries. He came to my store to do a book signing and he was the most arrogant unlikable pastor I had ever met. I hope he gets to sit under the teaching of godly women for all eternity.
You will know them by their fruit.