John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church, puts on a Shepherd’s Pastors Conference every year. It is usually a pretty good gathering and there are some pretty good lectures. This year John decided to start off the conference with a general session lecture called “Why Every Self-Respecting Calvinist is a Premillennialist.” It was, perhaps, the most uniformed, ignorant lecture I have ever heard in my life.
At the beginning of the lecture it was clear that MacArthur was not setting out to better understand Amillennialism but to create a characature of the view (from his own mind, apparently) and then continue to patronize and degrade everything about the viewpoint. He was not fair or accurate to what an Amillennialist believes. It was a poor display of Christian scholarship and discourse.
He begins his inaccurate description of Amillennialism by posing the question, “how many of you have attended an amill prophecy conference?” As if the deciding factor of the validity of a viewpoint can be detected by counting the amount of gatherings one has. If this was the case Benny Hinn and his charismaniac buddies would be leading the charge. He then ushers off his idea of Amillennial hermeneutics (which is not even close to accurate) to a sort of relativistic, postmodern language theory when he says, “they require a spiritualized or allegorized set of interpretations that says truth is somehow hidden behind the normal use of the words so that any idea of what it might mean is as good as any other idea of what it might mean since it doesn’t mean what it says.” Really John? Really?
He then makes the outrageous statement that Amillennialists and Postmillennialists are the same. Apparently John thinks so because he goes on to quote Loraine Boettner as an example of an Amillennialist….the same Loraine Boettner that wrote a book called Postmillennialism. Nice work John.
He then continues to butcher the hermeneutics of Amillennialists by saying that it is “mystical,” “replacement theology,” and “changing the rules of normal exegesis.” These are all statements that no Amillennialists would agree with or recognize as their own view. It is simply MacArthur building up a strawman, tearing it down, and leaving all in attendence with a false sense of victory.
The main point he wants to make in the lecture is that premillennialists are the only ones that take God’s sovereignty seriously. He says, “Leave Amillenialism for the Arminians….God elects nobody and preserves nobody.” He goes so far to say that Amillennialism should be the eschatology of the Open Theists and Process Theologians. This statement shows just how benighted MacArthur’s view of Amillennialism is.
His inaccuracies and blunders concerning the Amillennial viewpoint would take all day to recount….The bottom line is that John MacArthur has shown just how little he knows about Amillennialism and has chosen to stay that way. He did not, in any way, attempt to truly understand the view or explain it in a fair and educated way. His lecture was full of ad hominem (see the title of the lecture), utterly ignorant statements that have questioned his credibility.
The way to go about describing someone in a fair way, which I learned from Scot McKnight, is to describe them in a way where they would gladly say, “Yes, that is what I believe.” John MacArthur has completely failed in doing this. I am an Amillennialist Calvinist and nothing MacArthur said in his lecture is descriptive of my beliefs. His entire lecture is a waste of time because it does not rightly describe Amillennialist hermeneutics, beliefs, or exegesis. He should spend more time researching and less time patronizing.
Hey John, listen to this: I am a self-respecting Calvinistic Amillennialist who believes in a sovereign and electing God who sent his son as the climax and summation of Israel, through whom I am a son of Abraham and united with Christ as his co-heir. I am not an Arminian, Open Theist, or Process Theologian. I do not exercise “spiritualized” or “allegorical” hermeneutics.
All these things are true for every Calvinistic Amillennialist I have ever read or known….which is why I did not understand a thing MacArthur was talking about when he was referring to the Amillennial viewpoint which, I’m assuming, he concocted in his head. The entire lecture was ignorant at best and deceptive at worst. He came off as a person who wanted to play to the crowd and rally the troops as opposed to someone who seriously wanted to dive into another viewpoint and understand it.
I am completely disappointed in John MacArthur.
14 March 2007 at 6.01 am
I admire you’re saying it like it is. Amen.
14 March 2007 at 8.59 am
I hate it when premills act like asses. I’m still not sure what I am. I can almost buy amill, but growing up premill is hard to shake.
Anyway, I’m going to a 3-day conference with McCarthur tomorrow. It’s more apologetics, but I hope I don’t get a bunch of strawman/ad homenim arguments against the other side…
Keep up the good work my friend.
14 March 2007 at 3.56 pm
[...] Unless you are fasting from the theological web for Lent (and if you are, good for you!), you are probably well aware of the recent kerfluffle (one of my favorite Carl Trueman words) over recent statements by John MacArthur. Seems at a recent conference MacArthur said that premillennialism is the only consistent position for a Calvinist. Plenty of amillennial theologians much more capable than I have already issued detailed responses to this, so I am not going to add my own two cents (although my friend Art could not hold back!). [...]
15 March 2007 at 12.24 am
I really want to listen to the lectures. I’ve been going through some of the live blogging that went on during the conference. When I first heard things stirring I was really surprised. It’s so unlike JMac…or so I thought. Inviting guys like Sproul and Mahney to his conferences…I doubt that will happen anymore.
Thanks for your post. All in all I’m not sure what to think. I am, however, very fed up and tired of the Amil position being continually misrepresented. There are enough books and articles out there now you’d think people would get it right.
15 March 2007 at 11.42 pm
Hi Art this is David Mora. Here is the Grace Church website that some of the faculty at the Master’s Seminary post their blogs and responces pertaining to many subjects including MacArthur’s statement at the Shepherd’s Conference. Hopefully this may help to answer many of your questions or objections pertaining to the MacArthur’s General session in so far as what he said concerning Amillennialism. There has been a flood of emotion over what he said and answers have been given to those responces. Please feel free to write any comments you have concerning Dr. MacArthur’s lecture Maranatha!!
15 March 2007 at 11.42 pm
I apologize here it is
http://www.sfpulpit.com/
Maranatha!!
17 March 2007 at 3.45 pm
So I’m sitting here at Panera Bread like any cool person, listening to the MacArthur lecture. (They aren’t too busy….no one seems to mind.)
I keep wanting to yell at my computer: “WHAT THE HELL IS A *NORMAL* HERMANUETIC?!”
Gah.
6 March 2008 at 8.59 am
[...] I know some very intelligent people who believe in 144 hour creationism who both take other view seriously enough to actually understand them and who hold their viewpoint for solid, Biblical reasons. So I am not going after the 144 hour view. What I am going after is MacArthur’s lack of understanding of the actual issues and his continued tendency to attribute beliefs to a certain viewpoint that no one who holds that viewpoint actually believes. [...]
12 July 2008 at 10.35 pm
Why does anyone think this is not typical of MacArthur. Haven’t you been listening to him. This is an expected norm for him. Weigh his words against scripture. He’s been at this a long time, and he has the popularity to prove his way of tickling the ears.
Not Fair you say? Can salt and fresh water come from the same stream? Notice the tactics. Who is the father of these ways?
2 October 2008 at 12.02 pm
I really hate to say this. I do not know John Mac personally but I have listened to him enough to know that sadly… from a man of God… this has become the norm.
He seems to have an earnest heart longing after God. The only problem is he’s very lost in his version of it, and deems any other version not only wrong, but silly or even foolish and ignorant. Just check out the things he says about the EMC.
And a *normal* hermeneutic for John… here it is. Hermeneutic, from the greek word hermenua meaning “to interpret.” Read the text, and interpret what it says. – That is straight from John’s mouth, i forget what interview it was. I’m sure he’d include some Greek, but that’s it. Read it, figure it out, it says it, it shouldn’t be hard. He absolutely refuses to see the allegories, metaphors, and poetic devices used throughout scripture. Or at least it seems so to me…. please correct me if i’m wrong.
I do not intend to attack John MacArthur. He has led many people to Christ. He does good work for the kingdom, but also recently has been doing a lot of harm. I pray for him.
19 March 2009 at 6.03 am
[...] is going the way of John MacArthur in this article (MacArthur, as you probably know, thinks that Calvinists cannot be Amillennialists and that Amillennialists should also be Open Theists). It’s one thing to say you disagree [...]