John MacArthur is a conservative Protestant Baptist theologian so why don’t fundies support him? Some of them at Amazing Grace Baptist Church even burnt his books.
You make the mistake if thinking “Fundies” are some monolithic bloc. Like most ideologies, you have a spectrum, which include the more moderates and the truly whacked-out.
MacArthur is a very well-respected evangelical with fairly stock-issue evangelical leanings. Billy Graham, more or less. To some, no doubt, that makes him a fundamentalist nut. But in the eyes of others, he’s a liberal who will burn in the fires of hell for, say, using versions of the Bible other than the KJV.
There are people who say Dennis Kucinich is too conservative, who say Rush Limbaugh is too liberal, that Sam Harris is not hard enough on theists, etc.
This appears to be a fair summation of the controversy, such as it is, which appears to be based on a misunderstanding of something he once wrote about “Christ’s blood.” The precise bone of contention would be utterly ludicrous even if it was based on accurate understanding of MacArthur’s words, which it isn’t.
Fanatics always hate other fanatics.
That’s some of it, but it’s not just that. He’s also spoken out against Penticostalism and the whole “gifts of the spirit” thing, and also the idea of megachurches and outreach/what he considers cheap evangilism (He really slammed “The Purpose Driven Life”, and said “It will contribute to apostasy” and “does not warn of God’s wrath”). So, you know, good way to piss off both Pat Robertson and people like him on the one hand and Rick Warren and people like him on the other hand.
There’s also the “Lordship Controversy”, which is pretty much of his own making. MacArthur believes that modern evangelism is wrong headed, because it tells people that they need to accept Jesus as their savior, instead of telling people they need to accept Jesus as their “Lord and savior”.
Ever since I saw the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon of No More Kings, I haven’t been able to get my head around the whole “Lord and Savior” concept. 'Cos, you know, being an American, I don’t go in for having lords.
We don’t have a lord, we’re an anarco-sydicalist commune. We take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,but by a two thirds majority in the case of…
As long as we’re doing Python…
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: Fuck off! We’re the People’s Front of Judea!
Splitters!
I meant fundamentalist Protestants who are even less agreeable about Rick Warren.
They are competing for power and money. It is less about religion than they want you to believe. it is business, which makes all things possible. even the ugly , immoral and illegal.
nevermind