John MacArthur

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Plug-In: Around 100 Million Super Bowl viewers saw new commercials -- about Jesus?

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Plug-In: Around 100 Million Super Bowl viewers saw new commercials -- about Jesus?

Good morning!

After a week on the road that took me from Oklahoma to Texas to Arkansas to Tennessee, I’m back in the driver’s seat at Weekend Plug-in.

The Big Game was this weekend and it included some prominent religion-news stories. With that in mind, let’s kick off our scrimmage of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

‘He Gets Us’: Jesus is coming to the Super Bowl — to the commercials, that is.

Two ads. Ninety seconds. A $20 million price tag.

The Associated Press’ Holly Meyer, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and the Washington Times’ Mark Kellner delve into the pricey campaign and its backers.

The bottom line, as AP explains:

They hope to counter the notion that religion is used to divide people, spending about $20 million to reach more than 100 million viewers at a time when the nation’s Christian population — and religious affiliation of any kind — are in decline.

Because religion is a touchy subject and prime-time advertising is so expensive, it is rare for faith to be promoted alongside the Super Bowl ’s perennially buzzed about beer and fast-food commercials. But the backers of the “He Gets Us” campaign see it as a great opportunity to reach so many people at once.

Faith and football: For the first time, two Black quarterbacks — Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs — will face each other during a Super Bowl.

Hurts and Mahomes have something else in common: They’re both “practicing Christians not afraid to publicly talk about their faith and how it helps them succeed at the highest levels,” as Clemente Lisi explains at ReligionUnplugged.

‘God of Sod’: George Toma is preparing the field for the Super Bowl for the 57th straight year. “When I’m in heaven, I’ll be looking at your beautiful field,” the 94-year-old Toma tells the New York Times, “or I’ll be in hell looking up what kind of root system you have.”

A final football note: Lifeway Research’s Aaron Earls provides four guidelines to keep your church Super Bowl party legal.


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Top 10 religion-news stories of 2020: Coronavirus pandemic touched almost everything

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Some years, picking the No. 1 religion story is a real challenge.

This year? Not so much.

Give the global pandemic credit for making at least one thing easy during 2020.

Let’s count down the Top 10 stories, as determined by Religion News Association members (including yours truly). I’ll sprinkle a few links to related stories into the RNA summaries:

10. “Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. resigns amid controversies including a risqué photo and an alleged sex scandal. Claims of sexual misconduct also made against late evangelical apologist Ravi Zacharias and Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz.”

9. “Pandemic-related limits on worship gatherings spur protests and defiance by Hasidic Jewish groups and evangelicals led by pastor John MacArthur and musician Sean Feucht. Supreme Court backs Catholic and Jewish groups' challenge to New York's limits.”

8. “A Vatican investigation into defrocked ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick found that bishops, cardinals and popes failed to heed reports of his sexual misconduct. Debate ensues over the legacy of sainted Pope John Paul II, who promoted him to cardinal.”

7. “Dozens of nations decry what they term widespread human-rights abuses by China against predominately Muslim Uighurs and others in Xinjiang region, many in detention camps. New U.S. law authorizes sanctions against Chinese officials deemed complicit.”

6. “White evangelicals and other religious conservatives again vote overwhelmingly for President Trump, despite some vocal dissent. Protestants fuel his gains among Hispanic voters. Some religious supporters echo his denials of the election results.”

5. “Police, using tear gas, drive anti-racism protesters from Lafayette Square in Washington, clearing way for President Trump to pose for a controversial photo with a Bible at historic St. John’s Church. Episcopal, other faith leaders express outrage.”


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Pastor John MacArthur and California church closings: Why isn't this a national story?

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One of the more interesting church-state fights during this COVID-19 crisis has been one involving Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. John MacArthur, its 81-year-old revered pastor, has become an unlikely government foe during this time, as he’s refused to close down his church all along.

Readers may recall that I wrote about him a year ago when he told noted Southern Baptist Bible study leader Beth Moore to “go home.”

Yes, that guy. Coverage has been spotty at best, although this is not necessarily reporters’ fault. The church isn’t known for answering media calls. When I tried contacting them this past summer, I got the cold shoulder as well.

That said, a lot more reporting is needed on why California has the strictest restrictions in the country against indoor church services — to the point that even the Catholics are rebelling. In September, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone organized a “free the Mass” event involving three eucharistic processions that first went to city hall, then to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption where the archbishop held an outdoor Mass.

Indoor worship services are banned in California, a state of megachurches. You don’t have to be a religion expert to know that restriction wasn’t going to fly, especially when stores and other businesses had no similar restrictions. Outdoor rites? California may have more sunny weather than many other states, but it still gets cold there.

It’s been very confusing to figure out what's going on with this church, as the story resembles a large elephant that appears differently depending on the observer. For instance, the Christian Post says that Grace Community had been released of all restrictions.

Public health officials in Los Angeles have lifted all outbreak-related requirements and restrictions on Grace Community Church, which were put in place last month after three cases connected to the California church were confirmed.

“We are glad to announce that we received a notice from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health … saying that we have been cleared of COVID-19 outbreak,” the church says on its website.


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Lies, damned lies, statistics: Shifts in religious voting were crucial for Joe Biden — maybe

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In the 2020 election, what happened with the religious vote that was seen as so crucial to President Donald Trump’s upset win four years ago?

Take your pick:

* Not much changed, according to Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron.

* A small decline in Trump support among White Catholics represented a slight but significant change, NPR’s Tom Gjelten proposed.

* President-elect Joe Biden “swung the religious vote” just enough to defeat Trump, Politico’s Gabby Orr reported.

* White evangelicals “stuck by” Trump and, despite Biden’s win, “still took heart in their strong presence at the polls and the GOP’s success in down-ballot races,” according to The Associated Press’ Elana Schor and David Crary.

* Biden closed the gap among White evangelicals to the tune of “well over four million votes nationally,” Biden supporter Michael Wear proclaimed in a New York Times op-ed.

Wait, what?

“I think there's been a bit of, ‘I'm going to read whichever exit polls make my efforts seem fruitful,’ among a certain group of people in the post-election time period,” said Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S.

The problem, according to Burge, is that exit polling “is very unreliable.” He pointed to a USA Today column by Robert Griffin making the case that more time is needed for reliable analysis.

“The only data that I am trusting right now comes from the CCES. Which is not an exit poll but is the gold standard for political science now,” Burge said, referring to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.


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Global COVID-19 parables: What responsibility do faith groups have to the larger society?

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I’m a great fan of a magical sense of awe, that heightened state of awareness during which the transcendent feels most palpable. However, I am decidedly not a fan of magical thinking that denies the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

I consider the latter delusional at best. The pandemic will not end because some — particularly those in positions of authority — wish it away. It can only be tamed, I believe, by limiting its spread until medical researchers develop a dependable vaccine or cure.

Until then, our responsibility as members of a highly interdependent society is to protect ourselves and each other via responsible social distancing and by always wearing a mask when adequate distancing is impossible. Anything less, in my book — speaking as someone who due to age and preexisting medical conditions is at great risk — is selfish and irresponsible.

Nor do I care whether the deniers are bikers in South Dakota, frat boys on any number of university campuses who can’t resist a keg or political libertarians who insist that their individual choices are at least as, if not more, important than the communal good in a national health emergency.

Ditto for the most sincerely devout of fatalistic religious believers who think their faith will protect them and their co-religionists. Or who insist that government — any secular government — lacks the authority to limit their religious expression in any way.

My news feeds have been replete with such examples. Here are three that have particularly aroused my pique. I consider each a clear example of self-aggrandizing, potentially deadly religious entitlement.

One story is from Israel and concerns a group of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews who have insisted on making their annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to a Ukrainian city where their deceased spiritual leader is buried. This, despite the probability that they’re likely to bring the pandemic with them.

A second from, South Korea, tells the tale of a megachurch that found itself at the center of a coronavirus cluster, which it blames on misleading figures released by government opponents.

The third involves the Rev. John MacArthur of Los Angeles’ Grace Community Church, who recently claimed that the number of American COVID-19 deaths is way below the generally accepted figures reported by mainstream news outlets. MacArthur claimed that there is no pandemic.


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A religion (and business) question: Why do we have so many different Bibles?

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THE QUESTIONS:

Why are there so many Bible translations in English on the market? Should there be?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (click here) is an international forum where conservative Protestant experts chew over what’s stirring with ancient manuscripts and translations of the Bible. It’s esoteric stuff for the most part, but some items carry broad interest.

This week’s top posting, worth pondering by everybody, begins with this biblical bang: “It’s time for someone to stand athwart American Christianity and yell ‘STOP.’” The piece pleads with publishers and scholars to no longer turn out ever more new Bible translations because this “rising tide sinks all boats,” causing confusion that undermines trust in the Scriptures. The writer is Mark Ward, academic editor of Lexham Press, which publishes Bible study materials that include its own Lexham English Bible (LEB) translation, with textual detail for “specialized study,” not everyday use.

The article takes direct aim at the newly announced Legacy Standard Bible (LSB) that is being translated by an influential California pastor Ward greatly respects, John MacArthur, and colleagues at The Master’s University and Seminary. MacArthur has long favored the very literal (and thus rather wooden) New American Standard Bible, issued in 1971 and now available in a 1995 update. Another NASB update is due within a year but the pubisher will keep the 1995 rendition in print also. Ward says MacArthur’s Bible is in the same tradition, so soon we’ll have three variants of one Bible on the market.

He is not pleased about that. And he “simply cannot bear” MacArthur’s “marketing slogan” that his Bible will be “absolutely accurate.” Legitimate views on what that means with a particular passage will never agree, he says, and “there is no possibility — none” that the new Bible is more accurate than the major translations already available.

This debate deals with only the actual text of the Bible translated into English, not the host of study editions that add explanatory footnotes, sidebars, maps, charts and articles, some pitched to particular audiences such as women, youth, or recovery groups. Those variants are one answer to the “why” question above. Another is that Protestants and Catholics have different Bibles because their Old Testament has a slightly different list of books. And — let’s be honest — there’s money to be made from the novelty of a new translation, especially if it catches on.


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When it comes to John MacArthur, Beth Moore and Russell Moore, let's ask tougher questions.

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By now, many of you may have heard of the harsh comment that the Rev. John MacArthur, an extremely conservative evangelical pastor, made about Beth Moore, possibly the most famous woman in Southern Baptist life today.

MacArthur, who is very old school even among evangelicals, has led Grace Community Church north of Los Angeles for 50 years. To say he dislikes women preachers would be an understatement.

There are a lot of people out there protesting his unkind comments, including Relevant magazine, which produced an article listing several leaders across the theological spectrum critical of MacArthur.

MacArthur, by the way, has been even more scathing about charismatics over the years, so the Beth Moore crowd may be getting an idea of what the Pentecostal/charismatic crowd has been putting up with for a number of years.

First, according to Religion News Service, here’s what MacArthur said.

During the “Truth Matters Conference,” held Oct. 16-18 at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where he is pastor, MacArthur and other panelists were asked to give their gut reactions to one- or two-word phrases.

Asked to respond to the phrase “Beth Moore,” the name of a well-known Southern Baptist Bible teacher, MacArthur replied, “Go home.”

Sounds of laughter and applause could be heard in response during a recording of the session, which was posted online.

MacArthur — a leading proponent of Reformed theology and of complementarianism, the idea that women and men have different roles to play in the church and in society — was apparently responding to a controversy this past summer when Moore noted on Twitter that she spoke at a megachurch on a Sunday morning.

Her tweet led to accusations that Moore was undermining Southern Baptist teaching, which bars women from holding the office of pastor in churches.

One voice that has been absent on this latest flare-up has been the Rev. Russell Moore (no relation to Beth) who is the head of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The last interview with him that I saw occurred in August when Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh called him the “rebel evangelical.”

It was a very weak, even clueless, interview. The questions were vapid and Moore, who is no fool, slid past them with little difficulty. Most of the questions were about racism and sex abuse within the SBC, but they weren’t tough questions by any chance.

Meanwhile, is Russell Moore really a “rebel evangelical?” For that matter, so is Beth Moore? Are we talking about doctrine here or politics?


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