I’ve written before about John MacArthur and his Grace Community Church in southern California. In case you don’t remember, here’s a brief refresher.
Late last year and early this year, MacArthur and Grace had a protracted battle with the state of California over mandated COVID restrictions. MacArthur and his followers are devoted to many of the conspiracy theories about the virus.
MacArthur has openly criticized “prosperity gospel” preachers within the evangelical sphere. (Those prosperity gospel preachers need to be criticized.) But while MacArthur is criticizing those who openly and brazenly preach get-rich-quick sermons, he was quietly amassing a $14 million fortune for himself.
So, here’s the latest MacArthur mendacity: In a YouTube video—which the person who posted it hyped, “WATCH and SHARE before its deleted”—this most-prominent evangelical pastor recounted his advice to a gathering of teens at a Christian camp. He said he told those teens to think critically. Lack of critical thinking is the problem with our nation today, he said. Then, right after he told his audience that lack of critical thinking is the nation’s biggest problem, he casually tossed out the widely believed but false claim that 99.9 percent of COVID-infected Americans survive the virus. “That’s a fact,” he boldly emphasized. But if MacArthur really was a critical thinker, he’d do at least a little research and see that this claim is an urban myth (see https://fullfact.org/health/Covid-recovery-vaccine/).
If MacArthur really was a critical thinker, he’d do at least a little research and see that this claim is an urban myth.
After that he took on COVID vaccines. He said, “So you’re saying to yourself, well, let’s see, they lied about Russia; the FBI lies; the CIA lies; the National Health Organization lies; the World Health Organization lies; the CDC lies; the director of all of this [he didn’t say who the director is] lies.” But then he moved on to his next point without providing any evidence of the lies he accused all these agencies of telling. And that next point was, “All these lies, and then they say to you, ‘Get vaccinated.’” So, he lies about all these agencies lying, and then he ties his false claims to agencies’ pleas for people to get vaccinated. This, folks, is pure evil.
MacArthur goes on: “You can’t keep lying and expect people to believe you.” Yet he believed and trusted Donald J. Trump—a man who told more than 20,000 documented lies and/or intentional misstatements in four years. MacArthur once went so far as to proclaim that one could not be a Christian and not vote for Trump for president.
“You have to think critically, and thoughtfully, and carefully. You have to realize CDC report said death rate from the normal flu last year was 99 percent lower. … What happened to the flu? Where did it go. It went into the COVID statistic,” MacArthur said. And again, he was wrong. (See https://fullfact.org/health/flu-covid-phe-not-combined/.) Either he was intentionally lying or he failed to think critically by doing a bit of research.
“They,” MacArthur then said, without identifying who they are, “don’t want you to think critically. But we think critically because we have the mind of Christ.” And his followers ate it up, never bothering to examine any of MacArthur’s claims. Here, for example, are a few of the comments below MacArthur’s video:
great video message. Pastor MacArthur a real man of God.
The world wants us to drink the koolaid, Jesus wants us to drink His living water.
100% accurate! All they do is LIE.
They're not after the truth, they're about pushing a narrative.
Yes, finally someone who speaks common sense.
On and on they went like that. Most of these people just listened to their leader tell them to think critically, and they did nothing more than praise his diatribe without examining anything he told them.
Thankfully, a few folks chimed in and pointed out the irony of this man exhorting his followers to think critically while he clearly was not doing so, and neither were most of his devoted followers. Here was my comment on the video:
So many problems here. Let's look at three of them: First, the video that was going to be deleted is still here, four days later. Second, where's MacArthur's evidence of all these agencies lying? He makes the claims but provides no evidence. Yet millions of folks take his claims as gospel. Third, he decries all these "lies" and exhorts his followers to reject lying and embrace truth, yet he wholeheartedly endorsed Donald Trump--a man who told more than 20,000 documented lies and/or intentionally misleading statements in just four years.
Okay, go ahead and label me a heretic for challenging the great John MacArthur. But when you're finished doing so, reflect on MacArthur's advice to think critically. Try it. Don't just take MacArthur's word as gospel. Look critically at everything he said. For example, regarding his claim that flu stats were added in to the COVID stats, look at this site: https://fullfact.org/health/flu-covid-phe-not-combined/. Read it; do some research of your own rather than simply accepting what your leader tells you.
MacArthur and his Grace Community Church are deceiving millions of Americans. The irony is palpable and perilous. While John MacArthur—and hundreds of other white evangelical pastors like him—are railing against the establishment boogeymen as liars, it is they—the evangelical leaders—who are lying to their gullible congregations and in the process killing thousands of Americans. One more thing: The YouTube post that folks needed to hurry and see before it is deleted is still there, four days later.