MacARTHURISM
100 (8½" x 11") page book, covering 20 chapters:
The first three chapters (in white text) are available as samples. Click the link.
- An Open Letter to John F. MacArthur Jr., FAITH WORKS - The Gospel According to the Apostles
- John MacArthur, Jr. - Dispensationalist?
- "The Gospel According to Jesus"
- "Kingdom Living Here and Now"
- "Saved Without A Doubt"
- Conference Confrontations
- One-Naturism
- The Death of One-Naturism
- Church Membership
- The Blood
- MacContradictions
- History-onics
- Eternality of the Son
- Lamentable Leadership
- "Our Sufficiency in Christ"
- "The Vanishing Conscience"
- "New Testament Commentary - Romans 1-8"
- "New Testament Commentary - Matthew 1-7"
- "Biblical Counseling"
- "Parables of the Kingdom"
Also:
FAITH WORKS - The Gospel According to the Apostles - A review of the book
THE FREEDOM & POWER OF FORGIVENESS - A review of the book
FREEDOM FROM SIN - A review of the book
THE GRACE AWAKENING - A review of the book
IFCA - MacARTHUR ABERRATIONS
John MacArthur received his divinity degrees from the interdenominational Talbot Theological Seminary. Talbot was the extension of Biola College, La Mirada, California, which was founded by the holiness-by-faith proponent, R(euben) A(rcher) Torrey. It is John MacArthur's attempted efforts to offset the negative and widespread influence of Torrey's theology which helps explain his emphasis and ministry during the later half of the twentieth century.
Torrey, a graduate of Yale College and Seminary, was a Presbyterian evangelist and bible scholar who ministered in fundamentalist circles and also help establish Moody Bible College, Chicago, Illinois, with the Arminian revivalist Dwight L. Moody. The evangelist Geo. T. B. Davis wrote, "Torrey was, after Wesley and Finney, the most influential figure in the pre-history of Pentecostalism"--as well as Arminian/Wesleyan interdenominationalism!
Stanford writes:
"The Torrey problem concerns the filling with the Spirit. He taught that one was to be filled by faith, that it was a crisis experience, and that it had to do primarily with power for service. And he insisted upon referring to the filling as 'the baptism with the Spirit'.
"There are those who insist that Dr. Torrey's teaching concerning the filling with the Spirit was correct, but that his terminology was incorrect. Actually, neither his teaching nor his terminology was scriptural when it came to the filling of the Spirit. Dr. Torrey taught that the 'baptism with the Spirit' (wrong terminology) was to be received through faith and the fulfilling of a long list of conditions, and that it had to do with supernatural power and gifts for service rather than grace of character. It is this Torrey formula of filling by faith and conditions followed by Dr. William Bright that causes the problems extant in the Campus Crusade for Christ, International ministry.
"It is not generally known, although the Pentecostals are prone to proclaim it, that it was none other than the evangelical Dr. R.A. Torrey who supplied most of the 'theology' upon which Pentecostalism bases its 'baptism with the Holy Ghost'."
It is from this context that John wrote his exposé of Pentecostalism, Charismatic Chaos.
But John MacArthur has not been alone. Behind the scenes, is the Moody graduate and now polemic Reformed Calvinist, Phil Johnson. Johnson is currently executive director for MacArthur's tape, radio, and now Web ministry, Grace to You. Autobiographically he states, "Phil has been closely associated with John MacArthur for the past fifteen years and edits most of MacArthur's major books. Phil is an elder at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, CA, as well as a trustee of The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust in England."
Due to the deficient Talbot and Moody backgrounds, both John MacArthur and Phil Johnson failed to become solidly established in a strong Pauline hamartiology. Consequently, in an effort to redress the wreckage of the Torrey/Moody legacies so prevalent in American evangelicalism, both men have progressively assimilated the soteriological errors of Covenant/Calvinistic theology.
Unfortunately throughout this process, MacArthur has also sought to redefine dispensationalism while claiming, to groups like the IFCA, that he adheres to historic dispensationalism. Today, he and his Master's Seminary are for the most part Covenant/Reformed in orientation, in spite of claims to the contrary. Not surprisingly, John MacArthur today sits on the "reformed" Executive Council of the anti-dispensational Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (ACE).
For the past several decades, Master's graduates have been establishing churches which are fully Reformed in doctrinal perspective. Further, MacArthur has been unable to maintain his earlier stance regarding the charismatic and has progressively enter into fawning ecumenical fellowship with individuals like the hyper-charismatic Jack Hayford. See Jack Hayford & John MacArthur. DRS