 this if their church isn’t predominately African American or doesn’t want to become a “social justice” church?
Here’s a portion of MacArthur’s answer:
[Christ] has already predetermined before the foundation of the world the racial mix of His church… so all I want to do is preach… the Gospel, with the same love that God has already determined to shed on every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation on the planet. So there’s a sense in which this is a non-issue… I can’t fix racial injustices… my responsibility is to realize that in Christ there’s neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, we’re all one in Christ… The object of life is no longer to fix past injustices. The object of life now is to proclaim Christ to whomever. And I just will not give that up for another agenda… once [you] come to Christ, all other issues… disappear and the Gospel takes prominence.
I expected a larger view of the Gospel from a man like MacArthur. While he explains the Gospel as preeminent, his overall position says otherwise. My husband explains it best:
To suggest that social issues become spiritual issues for believers or that social issues “disappear” once saved actually has the reverse effect: rather than making it clear that believers can hope amidst the reality of sin and suffering because our gaze is fixed on a coming King, MacArthur’s answer amplifies the voice of every… heckler who ever claimed Christianity as merely mythical panacea or elusive escapism.
I’m surrounded by black Christians for whom racial issues have not disappeared with salvation. Dr. MacArthur’s position is disrespectful to those battered by the blows of discrimination. If nothing else, his response is very insulated. Not many pastors in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Ferguson, Baltimore, or Chicago could sit today and claim that salvation erases racial issues.
Answers like MacArthur’s tend to scoot too close to Luke 11:42: “For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” As someone whose understanding of the Gospel has been shaped by teachers like MacArthur, I would’ve been encouraged to see his bold passion for the Gospel extend to touch current issues rather than avoid them. I would’ve rejoiced in his acknowledgement of ugly racial injustices while heralding the power of the Gospel to reconcile enemies (Ephesians 2:14-19). His ability to preach and leave us in awe of a big God would’ve been a gracious gift to the Church in these divided times. Instead, he condenses the Gospel to a message that denies current racial issues.
John MacArthur’s words were disappointing, as was his timing. The Master’s Seminary chose to release this video on the topic of race just three days after the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, by white officers of the Baton Rouge Police Department. The shock of Sterling’s death was barely absorbed when a second black man, Philando Castile, was shot and killed by an officer in St. Paul, Minnesota on July 6.
The days following 2016’s Independence Day were difficult ones for America. We watched families grieve the unexpected end of loved ones in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas and were reminded, not of our unity, but of our land’s abiding fragmentation. Our Fourth of July celebrations this year ended with cries.
And as we mourned, many, particularly African Americans, were reminded of other reasons to weep. We remembered men and women killed hastily and seemingly without due process of law. Our tears over those killed in July were also for Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin. We cried for Amadou Diallo and Emmett Till. We cried for Laura and L. D. Nelson, a mother and son lynched together in 1911 over a railroad bridge in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. We cried over the terrors of chattel slavery and the dehumanization of Jim Crow segregation. And yes, we even cried for Olaudah Equiano and 12.5 million Africans captured, packed, and shipped through the transatlantic slave trade.
In Genesis 1:27, the B