Monday, February 3, 2014

#901: John MacArthur


John MacArthur is an insane fundamentalist Baptist, hyper-Calvinist and dispensationalist endtimes preacher, known for leading the Grace Community Church, for his radio program Grace to You, as author of several fundamentalist tracts, and for being on the Council of Reference for the British creationist organization Truth in Science (though he is American), which – as the name implies – is vigorously opposed to both truth and science. Of evolution, e.g. in his book The Battle For the Beginning, MacArthur has said that that Christians “ought to expose such lies for what they are and oppose them vigorously.”

He is also an advocate of Nouthetic Counseling, which stresses the Bible as a sufficient tool for counseling people with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Indeed, MacArthur rejects psychological theories and techniques, considering psychology and psychiatry to b contrary to the Bible. Our Sufficiency in Christ: Three deadly influences that undermine your spiritual life, for instance, rejects psychology, claiming that “[s[uch a thing as a ‘psychological problem’ unrelated to spiritual or physical causes is nonexistent,” and of people who seek out secular mental health professionals that “Scripture hasn't failed them – they've failed Scripture.” To emphasize, he points out that “True psychology [i.e. “the study of the soul”] can be done only by Christians, since only Christians have the resources for understanding and transforming said soul. The secular discipline of psychology is based on godless assumptions and evolutionary foundations and is capable of dealing with people only superficially and only on the temporal level ... Psychology is no more a science than the atheistic evolutionary theory upon which it is based.” His stance has, needless to say, caused some controversy, the most notable of which was the first time an employee of an evangelical church had ever been sued for malpractice. MacArthur has, needless to say, no background in or knowledge of psychology (nor evolution).

Equally needless to say, perhaps, is that MacArthur is not particularly open to theological disagreement. Catholicism, for instance, is “a Satanic religious system that wants to engulf the earth,” and Roman Catholic “priests are broken, shattered, tragic, sad, disconnected people; no past, no present, no future.” He is furthermore offended by the fact that atheists celebrate thanksgiving since he finds it incomprehensible how atheists can be thankful for anything – the fact that they seem to be grateful must thus mean that they really know that God exists, and that makes them not atheists but worshippers of (or at least deluded by) Satan. (He is still offended.)

His stances on politics are pretty much what you’d expect. The fact that people’s sexuality is not controlled by the church down to the most intimate detail is evidence that God has abandoned America (“You know a society has been abandoned by God when it celebrates lesbian sex”). Apparently Obama is also evidence of God’s judgment, and so is the Democratic party (the “party of sin”), because that’s what counts as a political argument to wingnuts such as MacArthur (as so many other wingnut pundits, he is pathologically unable to see that arbitrary and negative attempts to classify political opponents as evil are not quite equivalent to offering a reason for disagreement based on fact, analysis, or argument).

Diagnosis: Belligerent, hateful madman whose lack of aptitude for truth is only matched by his narrow-mindedness. A breathtakingly dense fellow – and a dangerous one, for MacArthur seems to have quite a few followers.

8 comments:

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  2. The m section has a large collection of loons

    Michelle Malkin (Science denialism, anti-immigration reform hysteria, the Rachael Ray "terrorism supporting scarf" incident)
    Michael Moriarty (born in America but moved to Canada, never renounced US Citizenship so I think he counts)
    Mike Malloy (9/11 truther, the moonbat equivalent of Glenn Beck)
    Kevin Martin (HAARP Conspiracy nut of infowars/Alex Jones variety)
    Dennis Markuze is stark raving mad, but doesn't qualify because he's Canadian
    Henry Makow (like Jeff Rense and Alex Jones, this guy believes in every conspiracy out there and has even gotten into some amusing internet wars with the former; however, he also doesn't count because he's British)
    Andy Martin (birther who thinks Obama's father is Frank Davis, harmless but obnoxious media whore)
    Daniel J Mitchell (pushes the thoroughly debunked "Rachael Carson's DDT ban is responsible for Malaria in Africa" talking point and claimed that the British NHS starved 1165 of their patients)
    Steve Milloy (denies all scientific evidence that doesn't fit his worldview)
    Marc Morano (an apt name!)
    Michael Medved (epically clueless to how genetics work, a bizarre theory as to how Ernst Rohm died (using Scott Lively's book as evidence to boot!), incredibly stupid comments about slavery that somehow manages to sympathize with the slavers, and wingnut reviews of movies such as Happy Feet "subtly promoting" homosexuality)
    Emily J Miller (Moonie Times nutball)
    Joseph "Doc" Marquis
    Jon McNaughton (Another fundamentalist "US was founded as Christian Nation" guy)
    Andy McCarthy (sees the Jihad almost as much as Joe McCarthy saw the Soviets)
    Ron McVan (white supremacist Neo-Pagan)
    Robert Stacy McCain ("racial realist")
    Josh McDowell (writer for Christian Post who has uses an impressive slippery slope regarding the dangers of porn)
    Jake McMillan (a quote: "Half of the murders in large cities were comitted by homosexuals")
    Michael McKeon (another "racial realist")
    Mary Sue McClurkin (Alabama state represtative who opposes abortion because a baby is the largest organ in a woman's body. Seriously, I didn't make that up.)
    Pastor Jon McTernan
    Brion McClanahan (advocating that people on food stamps be disenfranchised)
    Jinx McHue (of Shock & Blog, for actually managing to refute his own argument using circular reasoning and being completely oblivious to the fact that he just owned himself. He's pretty much the human embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect)
    Kevin McCullough (wingnut pundit extraordinaire)
    Judi McLeod is one of the most insane pundits I've ever seen, but she's Canadian so she doesn't qualify



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  3. all right i been waiting for this one for a VERY long time! could you guys do Donna and David Carrico for an entry?

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  4. MacArthur tries to emulate the love of Jesus by telling Christians to shun gay children.

    He also asserts that gay-affirming Christian denominations "have no relationship to scripture, they are the apostate church, they are Satan’s church.”

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  5. What other church can affirm and encourage any kind of sin among its members that the church of Satan who is himself father of lies and sin?

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  6. Love this blog. In the same vein as MacArthur, you should do a profile on RC Sproul and son.

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  7. He uses lies to spread homophobia

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  8. MacArthur is not Baptist. His church is part of Independent Fundamental Churches of America (who's churches often use the name "Bible Church" in their name).

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