John MacArthur, who died at 86, was known for uncompromising preaching
One of evangelicalism’s most influential figures drew praise and controversy
John MacArthur, the resolutely conservative pastor who died Monday at the age of 86 as one of the most influential figures in American evangelicalism, in many ways didn’t fit the evangelical mold. Although he arguably had a more authoritative presence in U.S. Christianity during the past half-century than any other person with the exception of Billy Graham, he also was something of an outlier:
He was pastor of Southern California’s Grace Community Church megachurch, yet he vigorously denounced the seeker-sensitive movement that formed many of the country’s largest churches. He always preached wearing a suit and tie, contrasting with the casual style many of today’s most popular evangelical pastors. He regularly denounced liberal political movements including critical race theory and defied covid-19 health restrictions, but he also found Christian nationalism incompatible with the gospel. His style of expository preaching — focusing on the meaning of Bible passages, often a verse or even a word at a time — was both copied and rejected by evangelical pastors. The same can be said of his Reformed theological views, which tilted toward the conservative end of the conservative spectrum and were strongly complementarian, meaning that he saw virtually no place for the leadership of women in the church or in marriages.
He also distinguished himself from parts of the evangelical movement through his denunciation of Pentecostalism or charismatic theology as well as what he saw as promotion of a prosperity gospel. Among the best-known Christian leaders he denounced by name were megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, Bible teacher Beth Moore and President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser, Paula White.
MacArthur was certainly prolific. His church has made literally thousands of his sermons available for viewing, listening or downloading, and he wrote or edited about 150 books, dozens of them Bible commentaries and nearly all of them relating to theology. He did all this while holding one of the longest pastoral tenures in the country, serving as senior pastor at Grace Community for 56 years. He had been hired at the church in 1969.
He also founded the Grace to You media ministry and at one time served as the president of Master’s University.
After his death Monday, accolades poured in from throughout the evangelical world: Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that MacArthur “could get more out of a Bible verse than anyone I've ever known.” Ken Ham, a leading advocate for creationism, praised MacArthur for standing for “biblical authority starting in Genesis.” Scott LaPierre, a pastor and well-known Christian author, said that MacArthur’s writings gave him peace and spiritual confidence. And Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called MacArthur “a lion of the pulpit.”
MacArthur also faced criticism
MacArthur also had his critics. His uncompromising views as well as his denunciation of various movements within evangelicalism made him unpopular among Christian leaders who didn’t share his theology or social perspectives. A quick Google search shows hundreds of articles written by pastors and other Christian influencers who saw him as presenting a narrow or even false view of Christianity.
In an interview published by the John MacArthur Trust, MacArthur responded to the criticism with a tone of certainty that his critics saw as arrogance:
Jesus understood that criticism is inevitable. If you try to avoid the criticism of the ungodly, you will inevitably be criticized by the godly. Or you can avoid the criticism of the godly by affirming what they know to be true. And the ungodly are going to hate you, just like they hated Jesus. There's no middle ground. If you're in the middle, you're going to lose both sides. You can't wander around the middle. If you do that, you will have compromised yourself to the degree where you're useless. You may have a big crowd, but you're useless in a definitive way. So criticism is inevitable.
Some recent criticism of MacArthur had a sharp sting to it: There perhaps was no criticism that was more damaging to MacArthur’s reputation than reports that surfaced in 2022, when The Roys Report, an evangelical watchdog publication, published an article about a 2002 church service in which MacArthur said that God wanted a woman in the church, Eileen Gray, whom he named, “to be publicly shamed” for leaving her husband. Her then-husband, David Gray, is currently serving a sentence of 21 years to life in a California prison after being convicted of child molestation and abuse.
That article was followed by a report in Christianity Today. The evangelical magazine presented the stories of other women who claimed they had been advised by pastoral counselors at Grace Community Church to continue to submit to and live with their husbands despite being abused.
Both The Roys Report and Christianity Today were unable to get MacArthur to comment on the Gray case or the stories of the other women.