When Giants Fall
The deaths of Jimmy Swaggart and John MacArthur highlight the passing of two of the most influential movements of the last fifty years of American Christianity.
Swaggart was one of the pillars of the the traditional Pentecostal movement from which sprouted the charismatic movement, MacArthur, one of the foundation stones of resurgent Calvinism.
Both movements are in decline, both contributing to the warped and heretical movement that is Christian nationalism, both spawning odd variations of the traditions.
Reaction to the deaths online have been extremes…the true believers of both men writing of their grief, others thanking God both are gone.
Both mens legacies will be a combination of Christian achievement and base scandal.
Maybe all of our legacies will be…maybe not.
This takedown of MacArthur is brutal, but hard to refute.
Swaggart has been a punchline since the 80’s…
I was caught up in my own grief at the Swaggart passing until yesterday…his family buried him Saturday…Monday morning they were doing a “Share-A-Thon” with his ancient widow working the grift with vigor.
MacArthur baptized authoritarianism and simple mean spiritedness as Christian virtues and many of his followers exemplify both.
Both men claimed the Bible as inerrant and their sole authority…and missed the parts about love and grace and truth.
The ministries they built will be minimal going forward with out them…neither business has anyone with a modicum of the charisma the founders had to carry on with.
Both produced Bibles with their name on them and both will live on in YouTube videos forever.
As it is everywhere else in our society, the guard is changing…it is yet to be determined if the change is for the better…
The [insert favorite celebrity preacher here] Bible is one of my least favorite marketing gimmicks — and I’ve seen Patriot and Princess-themed Bibles out there. “I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos” indeed…
Oddly enough, I’m almost convinced that MacArthur helped the hyper-charismatic circles out with his scorched-earth approach: It was easy to point them to his teachings and say “look, THIS is what our critics sound like – it sounds miserable, right?” It’s easy to make an US-vs-THEM dismissal when the “Them” seems to act like Spiritual Gifts ended with the last words of Revelation.
I have shared my opinion of John MacArthur several times on PP over the years.
The quote: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Has been used often on PP. In my opinion, that quote rings true with MacArthur. In 1965, MacArthur, fresh out of college, brought a gospel team to my church. I was impressed with his stories of his football career at L.A. Pacific College. It has always interested me that his undergraduate degree was from a Free Methodist college. In the years that followed, his fame and popularity continued to grow.
Years later, during my early years as a pastor, my library included most of his books. Without a doubt, MacArthur was a student of the Word of God. Eventually, my opinion of his teachings would change. He attacked, without proof, the denomination that I served for 25 years. After sending proof of his errors, he declined to retract what he had taught.
There are different interpretations of Scripture. We often see this on this blog. I have my opinions, as do you all. Like MacArthur, I will someday stand before God to find out that my opinion was wrong. I believe he has already found that out. But that’s just my opinion.
DavidP,
I hope to talk about spiritual gifts later in the week…
Bob,
I don’t care if he was right or wrong…he was mean as a snake.
I think where all of us can get into trouble is when we become so dogmatic, that we cannot possibly consider that we might not correct in our understanding of doctrine. It becomes the lens through which we read the Bible, and we interpet through that perspective rather than spending time understanding the context of what we are reading. Where this becomes tragic is when we harden our own souls because of our need to be right and establish inner boundaries that we refuse to cross. Our curiousity dies and we settle into our position. At some point, we become so ridgid that it can be next to impossible to change. What we fail to understand is such closed thinking stymies our spiritual growth as well and we remain more like ourselves and less like Jesus in the process. i think this is the true danger of being a teacher.
We need the whole, ugly truth.
Navigating Grace and Truth: Addressing John MacArthur’s Legacy with Love
https://julieroys.com/navigating-grace-truth-addressing-john-macarthurs-legacy-with-love-in-his-final-days/
Sigh…the good and bad of JMac. He almost tore my first church apart in the mid-70s with the doctrine of Lordship salvation. Basically, if Jesus wasn’t Lord of your life (if you didn’t show obedience to Christ and fruit), you probably weren’t saved at all. The church where I came to faith taught as long as you professed faith, you were saved forever, no matter what you did. I actually found that a bit hard to swallow, and MacArthur’s view made sense to me. Then, there were my friends who had been disappointed by several churches, found MacArthur, and were very happy there-until they had to move. For years they were never able to settle down comfortably in another church, and they often preferred to stay home and listen to his sermons on casette tape (both walls of their living room were lined with shelves of MacArthur’s sermons in boxed sets.)
So, I think he had some good things to say to the church, but I think, especially with age and the changes in the church, he became overly impressed with himself. JMac became hardened in his theological views, especially in applying them in a very unloving way. Jimmy Swaggert, in a different way, became hardened in an entitled view of himself as an evangelist, despite his womanizing and substance abuse issues. My personal take-away: fall more in love with Jesus and less in love with his flawed servants. Obviously some of His servants are much more flawed than others, but God will amazingly choose to use them. There are consequences as well, both to the church and those outside of it. I wish that churches would exalt God and His Word more than they exalt their particular pastors. It would do the church and believers a world of good.
Last thought, I was a huge fan of Ann Kiemel Anderson and her books in the 70s and 80s. I had all of them and I could recite them by heart. Then, Ann printed a book in which she confessed to an affair, addiction to pain killers, and a very troubled marriage. I was devastated. I had actually made her thoughts and values that important in my life, effectively turning her into an idol. Back in the 2010s I found her again on line-poor, unable to work due to illness, and later, terminally ill with cancer. She had also matured in her relationship with God and her theology, which bordered on rose-tinted glasses and small acts of kindness saving the world. When she died in 2014, I realized that God had used her in my life despite my disappointment in her actions when I thought she was out doing all of these wonderful things for the kingdom. It also brought me back to my own flaws. We are all imperfect vessels, and we all make mistakes. I think the sad part is when anyone becomes so settled in their sins/mistakes that they can’t see past it and let God change them.
I sure appreciate your post, Linn.
I have zero sympathy for grown adults who abandon reason and common sense to follow a man that is mean as a snake (as Michael said).
So we have to thank both these men for helping create the blight and cancer that is Christian Nationalism. In that case, I will read both their obituaries with great pleasure.