With regard to state mandates directed at churches, I completely
support the rejection of state authority. The state has no business in the
affairs of the Church but unfortunately the Church (generally speaking) has
confused the issue on at least two fronts.
One, the whole conversation regarding Coronavirus
restrictions has and continues to be confused and convoluted by constitutional
issues, lawsuits and questions of rights. These shouldn't even be part of the
discussion. Again, the state has no business dictating anything to the Church.
It has no say in our polity, our finances, how or when we meet, nor does it
need to know who is at our meetings or who our leaders are. The US Constitution
has no bearing on this question. The question of rights is moot. We don't
appeal Enlightenment-fashion to 'rights' and other categories born of Classical
Liberalism. This isn't about political rights. We're the Church. We're
commanded to meet and obey God. We do that regardless of what the state says we
can or cannot do. The Church may decide not to meet for a season or to take
protective measures but that's the Church's decision to make – not the state's.
We do not bother with the legal system. We do not file
lawsuits. We follow God and if we're persecuted for it – we can flee, go
underground or we can suffer persecution. As per Paul's teaching we do not go
to the courts and seek vengeance or redress. We do not look for righteousness
or vindication from the state. There is no example of this in the New
Testament. Many will try to read these notions into the text but they're guilty
of sloppy exegesis or in other cases blatant eisegesis – often reading and
imposing Classical Liberal categories on the text. And let's be frank, there's
a big emotional issue to a lot of this. Patriotism plays no small part as does
a strong commitment to mammon – both deviations from New Testament doctrine and
ethics.
From the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak and social
crisis churches should have responded independently and taken measures as they
saw fit. They could meet outside, break-up the services, call for people to
wear masks – whatever. That's what church leaders were supposed to do but
instead they've become entangled in a morass of pedantic legalities and have to
varying degrees let the state dictate to them what they should do. Or in other
cases they have engaged in a confused two-step – bowing to the state while at
the same time seeking to circumvent its authority – not so much on the basis of
Scripture but over questions of rights and legality. What we have is chaos.
As I've said before the whole 501c3 system, the registration
with the IRS, the churches being plugged into the financial system along with
insurance and regulatory authorities (such as building and zoning) – and even
in recent years the judicial system (background checks and the like) has meant
the Church (again generally speaking) has already compromised its testimony on
this point. Church leaders for a variety of flawed and corrupt reasons have
invited the state into the Church and given it a place at the table (as it
were). They have already compromised the Church's testimony and laid the
groundwork for the events of 2020.
John MacArthur's stand (refusing to suspend services in defiance of the governor) is in reality a case of too little too
late – and laying it on a bit too thick. He's already compromised, because he's not
so much running a church but a lucrative institution with a significant
financial, legal and social footprint.*
Then in addition to the likes of MacArthur there are the many
churches and 'ministries' that are taking pandemic related subsidies. Those
that have done so have lost their prophetic authority as they must necessarily
give the state considerable standing when it comes to how they operate. Again,
it's one thing for individuals to pay taxes and take credits – it's Caesar's
coin and Caesar's system – but the Church (as the Church) should not be looking
for subsidies from the state and that's really what the entire 501c3 system is.
It allows churches to register as charitable businesses or non-profits and thus
they receive special exemption from the general tax burden (which others must
take up). For the most part churches are happy to do this and are willing to
allow the state to create offices (trustees, treasurers, auditors and the
like), collect financial information, dictate polity (requiring bylaws,
meetings and minutes) and even subject leaders and workers to criminal
background checks. It's really outrageous but everyone wants to run the church
like a business or institution – with insurance, bank accounts and the like and
so they submit to these things. It all seemed innocent enough until now.
But Church is different – it shouldn't be run like a
business. If MacArthur made that stand, he'd have something to say but
MacArthur is actually terribly corrupt – a collector of obscene amounts of
money and a zealous promoter of the US system. I was not surprised to read
about his son being caught up in financial scandal and facing indictment – the same
son that's plugged into his 'ministries'. It's the logical outcome of the
values MacArthur teaches. He may decry activism but he supports his own variety
in that he is effectively an activist for Wall Street, the police, the
military, the Right-wing – in other words for the American order, including its
empire.
He has no standing as far as I'm concerned.
And again it must be understood that all of these dilemmas
are compounded by flawed ecclesiological models which generate new problems
over unrealistic size of congregations (built around the celebrity-consumer
model), buildings (and thus building codes and occupancy issues) – and the
financial burden of maintaining a staff and payroll.
These models drive a different set of questions and concerns
but they have nothing to do with the New Testament. But they become the focus
of attention when something like the Covid-19 crisis takes place with its
sundry restrictions.
New Testament-based polities would not run into trouble over
Covid-19 because in terms of the US legal system they wouldn't exist. Sacralism
envisions buildings with steeples on every corner. That's not the New Testament
ethos nor does it reflect its doctrine. The Church is comprised of
congregations of the faithful. While it's permissible to meet in a designated
building, the very notion begins to generate not just practical but theological
difficulties. Ideally the Church would not tie itself to a building and all the
associated costs. There are other options and as such individual congregations
can meet or not meet and yet in terms of political and legal society – they don't
actually exist.
We don't look for the state to sanction us or legitimise our
validity. Our status as a church is not dependent on an occupancy permit, a tax
form, a bank account, a code-approved building, post office box or some
politician telling us we're 'essential'. Our validity, our charter comes from
God and His Word as revealed in the New Testament. We must be careful not to
confuse these categories.
I understand you can't build huge institutions and develop lucrative
and politically impactful models when you're meeting in homes, in a building on
someone's property or in a rented space. Obviously the discussions over
aesthetics and so-called sacred architecture and the like are moot when one
builds the Church on a New Testament basis. And of course you can't build an institution
that pays its leaders salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars either.
But of course no right-minded, sober and God-fearing New Testament-grounded
Christian would even dream of such a thing. Where that leaves multi-millionaire
MacArthur, I'll leave to the readers to decide.
Again, the ecclesiological models drive the problem. The
Church doesn't need vaulted ceilings, pews, projection screens, computers, sound
systems, special lighting, musical instruments, nurseries, Sunday School rooms,
various staff, baptisteries, pulpits, choirs, stained glass windows, crosses, steeples,
roadside signage, vestments, candles, bulletins, landscaping, flower
arrangements, licenses, bank accounts, mortgages, tax identification numbers,
government clearances, insurance policies, attorneys, security guards,
denominations or denominational offices – it doesn't need any of these things.
A few of these things can be used but for the most part they are just
distractions and represent grievous financial waste and misappropriation that
takes money away from the things the Church is actually called to spend money
on and usually doesn't. Some of these accessories most certainly represent a
less than sound theology and an ecclesiology that does not reflect a respect
for Scriptural authority.
My rule is generally this – the more building there is, the
more things seen up front – the farther away from New Testament worship and
life the congregation has been pulled. But even those churches that try to keep
things simple – most have still succumbed to the larger systemic problem with
regard to bureaucracy and institutionalisation.
We need the Holy Writings, bread, wine and sometimes water.
And that's it. As such we can meet anywhere.
And so I find these discussions to be somewhat maddening. I
realise most will quickly dismiss all I've said as absurd fantasy – pie in the
sky words and categories divorced from reality. So be it. I understand that a
bureaucrat cannot exist without his bureaucracy. He cannot even imagine
existence without it and so such discussions strike them as fanciful even
insane. They have no interest in such paradigms and explorations as it would
result in their undoing. I too am uninterested in their models and it's my hope
that the events of 2020 will play a part in fostering a climate within the
larger Church that will – God willing – lead to reformation and a return not to
the faux-glory of the Magisterial Reformation but to the New Testament and the
testimony of some of the Medieval dissenters and what was found in the
ante-Constantinian Church. And if this leads to the undoing of some
denominational bureaucracies and so-called ministries – then all the better.
Finally, I'm sorry for cynicism but I have a feeling this
would be less of an issue for MacArthur if the governor wasn't former San Francisco
mayor Gavin Newsome. If Pete Wilson, George Deukmejian or Ronald Reagan were
governor, I think the response would be different. The politicisation of the
virus has just added another layer of confusion to these questions and MacArthur
in particular is responding to this and also (I suspect) reacting to the
'Leftist' identity politics-driven activism that's taking place on the streets
at present. He like many others is upset over the lack of forceful response on
the part of Democratically run states and jurisdictions and it has both
provoked and emboldened him to make a stand – even though it is a rather
confused one and one that really shouldn't involve the Church. Our
interpretation of today's civil unrest should be a little more sophisticated
and nuanced – but that's impossible when you're invested in the system as
MacArthur clearly is.
And that's what we have – confusion. While I do not believe
that Pelosi et al. rubbed their hands together and decided to use Covid-19 as a
means to wage war on the Church, I do believe spiritual forces have done so and
thus far they're having a field day. And make no mistake the chaos that's being
generated is coming from both the Right and Left and the confusion is being prolonged
and amplified by the misguided leadership that's currently steering the ship of
the Christian Right and the larger Evangelical world. We have some who are
quick to capitulate – as good middle class folk they would never want to be
less than respectable and others are determined to rebel on the basis of
libertarian rights and fanciful narratives about the US Constitution and a
false notion of American history and heritage. And of course once these
misguided impulses are theologised we are confronted with rank heresy – and it
can be both spiritually and even physically dangerous.
MacArthur's stand (while a hint of light in some respects) is
in the end just light shining through fog – fog MacArthur has helped to create
by his first response, his confusion regarding the Church's relationship to the
state – including the police, military and Wall Street. It's all further
confused by his extra-New Testamental pro-institutional and mammon-oriented
ecclesiology and ethics. He's certainly not alone and he's certainly not as
rogue or courageous as some make him out to be. After all it's easy to be bold
when you have chests full of gold as a back-up. Do you think MacArthur is
afraid of a few nights in jail? He's hardly a working-class guy that's afraid
of being unable to pay his rent or electric bill. He already has more money
than he could spend in his remaining days.
All of these questions need to be seriously re-thought. I
have been pained as I've watched these developments over the past five months
and yet I also am hopeful – I continue to hope this will be part of a larger
turning point and a return to the doctrine, polity and ethics of the New
Testament.
----
*As of 2015, Grace to You (his radio programme) paid him a
salary of $249,000 a year which is down from the almost $400,000 he was making
a few years earlier. Phil Johnson (his institutional sidekick) is paid about
the same ($239,000). The radio show as of 2015 was sitting on a pile of about 8
million dollars and almost 15 million in assets. Yes, business is good.
As of 2017 MacArthur's Master's Seminary – one wonders what
'master' is being referred to – paid him (as president) another $70,000 for
what is reported to be 15 hours per week of work. That's not a bad part time
job! Of course this doesn't even begin to cover all the rather dubious financial
goings on in these institutions and all the other ways MacArthur and others are
compensated. First class travel is pretty standard for these folks and while I
don't know if this is the case with MacArthur – most of the time a vehicle,
gas, lots of meals and even a lot of costs associated with your house can be
included. So not only do they make all this money – they're really making a lot
more and don't have to pay half the bills the rest of us do.
And in addition to the over $300,000 MacArthur makes running
his radio show and school, there's his church salary. This is not public but
it's not unreasonable to believe it's well in excess of $100,000 per year –
probably closer to $200,000. And then of course there's the royalties from his
books – which his other 'ministries' grant him the time to write and also help
to promote. Everything is related and more or less feeds the MacArthur empire.
There are also conference speaking fees which can be considerable. All told my
guess is that MacArthur is pulling in well over half a million dollars per year
and yet given bonuses and the like, the actual number might be considerably
higher. When you make over $40,000 a month you can throw your weight around and
hob-nob in circles that give you a voice.