Pastor John MacArthur
- Annette Watson
- Aug 3
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 30
On Monday, July 17, 2025, Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, CA, died from pneumonia. MacArthur is known for his work on the radio, television, YouTube channel, and media ministry known as Grace to You. He wrote and edited over 150
publications, including the MacArthur Study Bible. For those paying attention to the news in
2020 and 2021, MacArthur was the California pastor that kept his doors open during Covid-19 and faced a lawsuit with the County of Los Angeles. This controversy put him on the pages of the Los Angeles Times, Christian Post, Christianity Today, Epoch Times, and more.
Pastors around the world watched the legal battle in suspense. On July 29, 2000, the County of Los Angeles demanded that MacArthur’s church cease having in-person meetings. The Grace to You media posted online showed the world—sitting at home—that this church was not following California’s lock-down orders in favor of God’s orders, “Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together,” which is an order to meet in person for worship regularly (Hebrews 10:25). With politeness and grace, MacArthur and his church refused to bend. By August 28, 2020, the county moved to cancel the lease for the Grace Baptist Church’s parking lot—in the hopes that Grace Baptist would fold. They did not.
The Thomas More Society has kept a legal record of portions of this case, which you may find quite fascinating. The church argued that it had a fundamental right to meet for services on the principles of religious freedom, on the unequal treatment of churches from secular businesses, and eventually on Supreme Court precedent (Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 2020). While the New York churches landed in the Supreme Court first (and one), their case provided a legal basis for the other churches to continuing worship according to their conscience. Therefore, MacArthur’s church won in court with the county paying their legal fees.
Besides providing American churches with vision for keeping their doors open during national crisis, John MacArthur provided the world with biblical insight on political issues such as social justice, two genders and their roles, racism, and many others. That is not to say that MacArthur never faced controversy over his statements. Nonetheless, he practiced biblical exegesis,walking through each verse of the Scriptural text and explaining each in its context. In this, he covered Christian living and cultural issues from his view of an authoritative Scripture.
We hope that his philosophical and theological thoughts on government will continue to refine our thinking on how to protect and promote America. If you have interest in knowing more about what MacArthur’s biblical theology on government is, please enjoy one of his video sermons: “When Government Rewards Evil and Punishes Good.”
Thanks for the information! Well done!