California, LA County both to pay $400,000 settlement to John MacArthur’s church
“The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday (Aug. 31) voted to authorize a $400,000 payment to settle a legal battle with Grace Community Church over lead pastor John MacArthur’s defiance of COVID-19 restrictions in the early months of the pandemic. Under the agreement, which the board unanimously approved without discussion, the state of California will also pay the church $400,000.” - RNS
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Regarding the requirement to report suspected cases, yes, I believe LA County and the state required reporting at the time. Here’s the guidance now. Now the effectiveness of that requirement can be debated—I haven’t seen much at all positive about contact tracing and all—but it is a fact that it was required.
Glad for the victory here, but I’ve got some big misgivings about how GCC handled this. Our church had a great time doing outside services and radio services to allow congregants to come together with much lower risk, and it generated a huge amount of creativity and “how can we do this better?”. What a shame if GCC missed out on this.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
The ends do not justify the means. So that is why I push back against JMac, GTY, The Founders Group, Voddie Baucham, the G3 Folks, James White, Sovereign Nations, and etc… that are fighting a culture war with a shallow foundation of personal and social ethics. I also find it quite strange that we are praising JMac for taking a stand for religious liberty and freedom when back in March stated, “I told our congregation a few weeks ago that I could never really concern myself with religious freedom. I wouldn’t fight for religious freedom because I won’t fight for idolatry. Why would I fight for the devil to have as many false religions as possible and all of them to be available to everyone?”
This was extremely well said. Thank you for that, friend.
Jim, Julie Roy’s is a legitimate journalist that has taken on (and later been vindicated on):
- Moody Bible
- James MacDonald
- John MacArthur
- Mark Driscoll (2x!)
- John Piper
- Ravi Zacharias
etc. She’s under the auspices of Judson University and has her own Board that she is accountable to. You may not like her or her stories but she is continually reporting truth. To smear her as a “discernment blogger” is to give discernment bloggers like Enemies Within The Church and Pulpit and Pen (now Protestia) FAR more credit than they deserve. Roys has a string of high visibility stories while someone like JD Hall has a literal body count on his hands.
Give me a break.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
John MacArthur has systematically downplayed COVID as a disease, had refused to report the cases of COVID infections in his church and seminary to LA County, and has mocked both victims and other believers for trying to comply with the many different policies and regulations related to COVID. He deliberately has scheduled at least two high profile conferences in LA county (Shepherds Conference and a smaller one a few weeks later) even though he knew that large events like that were illegal during the height of the pandemic. Three people have attended GCC affiliated events, contracted COVID, and died as a result. Dozens contracted COVID because of sitting under John’s teaching. Last I checked, he was telling people that GCC was “supernaturally protected” from COVID because they were obeying the Bible. This isn’t some arcane point of infralapsarianism we’re arguing over here.
Celebrate your big “religious liberty” win if you like, but that “win” is built on a foundation of spin and misdirection. I’d prefer to keep my personal integrity instead of a SCOTUS win, thank you.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
I am so, so weary of major Evangelical leaders running their mouths and profiting handsomely off of things like this as they leave their followers to pay the consequences for their arrogance and stupidity. MacArthur is just the latest of a long string.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Was it Taylor Swift that sang, “Haters gunna hate”? (or something similar) I haven’t seen any evidence that Mac Arthur has “profited handsomely” from this, or anything else by use of questionable or unethical means. It is my understanding that years ago, when the Grace to You tape ministry was established (yup, remember cassette tapes?), it was suggested that Mac be given a 10 cents per tape royalty to acknowledge that his labor produced the messages that drove the demand for tapes. Mac Arthur turned that down and accepted no royalties. Millions of tapes were “sold”. That alone could have made Mac Arthur a very wealthy man. I have no doubt that he has become wealthy through the books and commentaries he has produced, but I have seen no evidence that he is greedy. None.
I’ve attended three Shepherd’s Conferences over the years, and witnessed Mac Arthur drive up in his personal car, a three or four year old Oldsmobile. (Yup, remember Oldsmobiles?) He could easily have afforded something grander, but he gave no appearance of coveting wealth. It’s one thing to question a person’s actions, but quite another to impugn his motives.
G. N. Barkman
GN, apart from the number of homes MacArthur owns (why bother with the hassle when supporters will loan you their much nicer homes?), I’d agree that MacArthur’s been pretty good on avoiding the habits of excess that so many pastors have not avoided. He’s also been a bulwark of sanity in terms of theology, and I appreciate that.
That said, the question here is whether his approach to COVID was responsible, and he did appear to fail to report known cases, held events in violation of state and local rules/laws, and downplayed the epidemic. Now there is some defense in that some of the rules are not really quite laws, and then you’ve got the first Amendment issues, but the overall look here is that it is at least questionable whether he was taking this seriously. That’s at least a blind spot on his part here.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Not all profit is financial, GNBarkman. GCC and John MacArthur leveraged their “brave stand for religious liberty” into interviews with the media and even a personal phone call with the President. I’m also fairly sure GTY got some new donors out of that, which is why they pushed the Canadian pastor they way they did as well.
I’m not going to debate that he could be much wealthier than he is. But he did milk the media attention for all it was worth and was glad to do so even as he knew COVID was harming his own flock, and Phil was more than happy to punch down at anyone (like Roys) who spoke truth to the powers that be in Sun Valley.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
It’s one thing to question a person’s actions, but quite another to impugn his motives. Whether the “profiting handsomely” was financial or otherwise, nobody but God knows the motives of the heart. We are on shaky ground when we proclaim that someone did so and so for this or that reason, when such a motive is known only to God. Examine Mac Arthur’s actions all you want. That’s fair game and discussing the right or wrong, wisdom or not of various actions is helpful when done with a charitable spirit. But ascribing motives belongs to God alone, and we sin against our brother when we thus overstep our bounds.
G. N. Barkman
We should be able to acknowledge the good accomplished by those willing to stand up while also acknowledging that some things they did may have been wrong. Unfortunately, the stereotypical fundamentalist mindset still exists among many that people have to be judged harshly and any perceived malfeasance taints whatever good might have come about.
Personally, I find it troubling that the government would ask to report people who attended a religious service for any reason and I would find it equally troubling if a religious institution complied with that. As a pastor, it is not my job to tell the government who was in church.
As it turns out, those who objected to the COVID church mandates have been vindicated almost completely. The courts have pretty consistently come down on the side of churches in the big issues. It is, IMO, unfortunate that some churches too easily gave up and that so-called Christians are attacking other Christians for living by their conscience. It seems a very unbiblical things to do, almost as if Romans 13-14 has been removed from the Bible.
a bad look for Christians
This reminds me of a thought I have had that many have outsourced the church to outsiders to base actions on whether or not something is a “bad look” to those who do not share our commitments. While I do think testimony matters and we should try to do things honorably in the site of all men, what actually happened is that church’s were fearful both of obedience to God and of legitimate civil action because those outside the church might think we are bad. What happened is that many showed our friends and neighbors that we weren’t really serious about our faith.
Discussion