Evangelical firebrand John MacArthur dead at 86
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American fundamentalism has lost its prophet.
John Fullerton MacArthur Jr., 86, died July 14 after a series of illnesses left him hospitalized.
Having served the nondenominational Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, Calif., for 55 years, MacArthur acquired a truly mammoth international audience to which he propagated his fundamentalist evangelical theology through his bestselling books, study Bible, commentaries, media empire of daily TV and radio broadcasts of his fiery “expository” Bible preaching on the Grace to You program, the annual Shepherd Conference, plus the rebranding and expansion of The Master’s Seminary and University.
MacArthur’s reach and influence on American evangelicalism were truly tentacular. His platform also had an international scope. MacArthur will be remembered as a stalwart defender of fundamentalist Christian theology for decades to come by having solidly secured himself a place among other fundamentalist figures such as John R. Rice, Jerry Falwell Sr., John Nelson Darby, Dwight L. Moody, J. Frank Norris, B.B. Warfield, C.I. Scofield and others.
However, no other fundamentalist figure comes close to MacArthur’s sheer influence, power and prestige.
Controversy
True to his fundamentalist heritage, MacArthur also was no stranger to controversy.
For the last two decades or so of his life, MacArthur regularly was embroiled in controversy. These included accusations that his church mishandled cases of abuse, one involving excommunicating a woman who divorced her husband after he was convicted of child molestation, another involving his university being placed on probation by an accrediting agency for alleged abuses of power by the administration. Plus misogynistic comments directed toward Southern Baptist darling Bible-teacher Beth Moore, accusations from a former Master’s Seminary vice president that MacArthur was a plagiarist and that he had “never written a book himself,” and, just this year, a claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Christian.
Not to mention his battle with Los Angeles County over COVID restrictions on large public meetings.
These controversies are just a few of the dozens in which MacArthur was involved. During his combative life and ministry, he aimed at everyone from charismatic Christians to “Free Gracers,” feminists, theistic evolutionists, LGBTQ people, climate activists and public health officials.
MacArthur’s legacy is thus genuinely mixed. His Calvinistic, dispensational, cessationist, complementarian and fundamentalist theology, which relied entirely on a strictly literal reading of the biblical text, remains the prevailing ideology of countless evangelical churches among independent and so-called “Bible” churches. It even has made inroads into denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention, as MacArthur was perhaps the person singularly most responsible for the resurgence of Calvinism among evangelicals.
However, MacArthur publicly distanced himself from the so-called “Young, Restless and Reformed” movement of the 2000s and 2010s, which gave birth to organizations such as The Gospel Coalition and the Acts 29 church planting network. His immense influence notwithstanding, MacArthur’s ministry was constantly surrounded by fights, controversy, accusations, tweets, statements, counterstatements, counter-counterstatements and more. Indeed, controversy is endemic to fundamentalism, and MacArthur and Grace Community Church were not exempt from this time-tried principle.
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