John MacArthur, Megachurch Pastor and Voice of ‘Grace to You,’ has Died

MacArthur, who struggled with health issues this past year, contracted pneumonia last week

(RNS) — John MacArthur, megachurch pastor, culture warrior, author and longtime voice of the “Grace to You” radio program, has died.

Pastor John MacArthur speaks at Grace Community Church, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2020, in Los Angeles. (Video screen grab via Vimeo/Grace Community Church)

He was 86.

“John MacArthur went to heaven at 6:17pm California time,” Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You,” told RNS in a text message.

During a Sunday (July 13) service at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, Tom Patton, one of the congregation’s longtime pastors, announced MacArthur had been hospitalized and was near death.

“You need to know that this week, Pastor John contracted pneumonia,” Patton told the congregation, according to a livestream of the service posted on social media. “He was admitted into the hospital, and may be in the presence of the Lord soon.”

Patton then asked the congregation to pray for MacArthur, the church’s longtime senior pastor, his wife, Patricia, and the couple’s four adult children and their families.

On Sunday, Johnson told RNS that doctors had done all they could for MacArthur and that he was on “the precipice of heaven.”

“He has suffered much in recent weeks,” Johnson said in a text message on Sunday evening. “His mind is still sharp but his body is spent.”

Known for both his preaching and his penchant for controversy — especially his feuds in recent years with public health officials in Los Angeles during COVID-19 shutdowns, his critique of women in ministry and his criticism of pentecostal pastors — MacArthur had been ill for much of the past year after having surgery in 2024 to replace a heart valve.

The son and grandson of preachers, MacArthur was born June 19, 1939, in Los Angeles, where his father, John “Jack” MacArthur, was pastor at Manchester Baptist Church. His father became a traveling evangelist, and the family lived in Chicago and Philadelphia before returning to Los Angeles, where his father led the “Voice of Calvary” radio ministry.

After graduating from high school, where he played football and baseball, MacArthur spent two years at Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist school in South Carolina, where he got his first taste of preaching during a student mission project. During a cross-country trip as a student, MacArthur was thrown from a car while traveling in Alabama, which left him with painful abrasions and burns on his back. After that experience, he felt a call to the ministry.

He then transferred to Los Angeles Pacific College, where he played three sports, then attended Talbot Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1964.

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In 1969, he was called to pastor Grace Community Church as successor to the Rev. Richard Elvee, who had died the previous year. MacArthur’s first sermon, entitled, “How to Play Church,” claimed that most churches in the country were dead spiritually. The idea that few Christians — especially those outside his corner of evangelicalism — were real Christians would become an ongoing theme in MacArthur’s ministry.

“Probably the majority of them don’t even know what it is to be a Christian, and they’re dead spiritually,” he said in 1969.

MacArthur’s arrival led to a long period of renewal and growth at Grace Community, which became known for active church members. In 1972, Moody Monthly, then a prominent evangelical magazine, described it as “The Church with 900 ministers.”

He would become known as one of the nation’s foremost expository preachers, committed to preaching verse by verse through the Bible, rather than the more topic-driven approach taken by most megachurch pastors. MacArthur’s sermons were also broadcast by “Grace to You,” the radio ministry he founded the same year he arrived at Grace Community Church.

MacArthur also churned out more than 100 books as an author or editor but perhaps was best known for the study Bible he edited as well as his Bible commentary published in 2005. In 1985, he became president of the Los Angeles Baptist Theological Seminary, changing its name to The Master’s College, later The Master’s University, now a nondenominational school. He also hosted the annual Shepherds Conference, a gathering for Calvinist-leaning evangelical pastors.

Unlike many evangelical megachurch pastors, who adopted casual dress, rock-band driven worship, and TED talk-style sermons, MacArthur was known for preaching long sermons in a suit and preferring hymns and more traditional music.

Matthew Avery Sutton, a Washington State University professor who studies evangelicals, said MacArthur showed the widespread influence of evangelicalism.

“This isn’t a guy in the Bible belt,” he said. “This is a pastor in the wealthy Los Angeles suburbs. He shows that the influence of the religious right is urban and Western as much as it is Southern and rural.”

Ed Stetzer, dean of Talbot School of Theology, said MacArthur was “a towering figure” and that his passing marked the end of an era.

“His theological impact is global, far beyond what most American observers might think,” Stetzer said. “In addition, he’s been a voice for the revived religious right on almost every hot-button issue. MacArthur’s influence is widespread, with few evangelical pastors untouched by his teaching or influence — even those who did not fully align with all of his views.”

MacArthur was also an institution builder, running not just a megachurch but also a university with its own seminary and a radio ministry.

“Nobody else was ever doing anything that was good enough for him,” Sutton said. “He had to create his own institutions because no one else lived up to his standards.”

MacArthur’s insistence that church members live up to his expectations of true Christianity led at times to controversy, especially in a case where the church disciplined a church member who divorced her husband after discovering he had abused their children. For years, church leaders sided with the husband, even though he was convicted for abuse. The church has been repeatedly criticized for its approach to church discipline — and earlier this year was sued by a former member who said church leaders shared confidential information about her during a public instance of church discipline.

MacArthur clashed with evangelical leaders he saw as being too politically or theologically liberal. He was particularly critical of Pentecostal and charismatic leaders, who he accused for decades of leading millions of Christians around the world astray.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in the summer of 2020, MacArthur and other leaders at Grace Community Church decided to hold in-person worship with no social distancing or masks — despite public health orders to the contrary. Church leaders said government officials had no authority over worship services, a claim that landed the church in court.

The United States Supreme Court would eventually rule that California officials could not bar churches from meeting in person. That led to Los Angeles County paying $400,000 to settle its legal dispute with the church. After the settlement, MacArthur claimed natural immune responses had kept church members safe during the pandemic.

“God has a way of taking care of us as we love each other and share our germs,” MacArthur told congregants. The church’s legal battle over COVID shutdowns were the subject of a 2023 documentary entitled “Essential Church.”

On Sunday, the focus was not on politics or controversies. Instead, the church set out to honor its beloved pastor and pray for him and his family as he faced his final hours.

“We ask for the greatest expression of your kindness to be bestowed upon our pastor now as he grows ever nearer to the completion of the mission that you had granted him before the beginning of time,” Patton prayed.

“Our hearts are heavy, yet rejoicing, as we share the news that our beloved pastor and teacher John MacArthur has entered into the presence of the Savior,” read a Grace to You post announcing MacArthur’s death. “This evening, his faith became sight. He faithfully endured until his race was run.

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