WINSTON-SALEM (NC)
Baptist News Global [Jacksonville FL]
July 15, 2025
By Mark Wingfield
As many of our readers know, I officiate a lot of funerals. In addition to nearly 17 years as pastor with responsibilities for such things, I officiate pick-up funerals for families who do not have a church or a minister. Thus, I have been to and led hundreds of funerals.
It is rare for anyone to stand up at a funeral and speak ill of the dead — unless maybe in jest. But sometimes truth must be told that is hard to hear. I’ve been to those funerals, too. Ones where family members stood and said, “He was difficult and distant” or “He worked more than he spent time with family.” Painful truths, to be sure.
But sometimes, when a public figure dies who has harmed many people, the truth needs to be told anyway.
You may recall that when Paul Pressler died, his family hid his death and his funeral arrangements and the fact that he had died was made public only by a BNG news story. Clearly, the family did not want protesters at his funeral — realizing the credible charges of sexual abuse levied against him and the number of lives he had wrecked leading the “conservative resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention.
SBC officials said exactly nothing about his death. Even those who admired his politicking but recognized the evil side of his actions must have followed the old adage that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
But that adage is flawed.
When someone who has harmed real people over and over again dies, we need to pause and consider that reality. In part because those who are tempted to harm others need to understand they will have a payday someday, and in part because it is so painful for those who were victimized to hear others heap laurels on the person who harmed them.
Upon the death of John MacArthur yesterday, BNG published two articles — one a traditional obituary and one an analysis piece that used MacArthur’s own definition of a false prophet to assess his ministry. That second piece has stirred a hornet’s nest, particularly with MacArthur’s vast fan base but also with some friends of BNG who think we went too far in speaking ill of the dead.
Let me reiterate: John MacArthur did more harm to the cause of Christ than Paul Pressler — and that’s saying a hell of a lot. Pressler took control of one denomination; MacArthur influenced pastors and lay leaders across evangelical Christianity and taught them to be mean-spirited, divisive, judgmental and absolutely certain he alone held God’s truth. That is the definition of a cult leader, not a pastor.
“Just because someone dies doesn’t mean they suddenly turn into a saint.”
MacArthur’s theology was and remains toxic. It was and remains abusive. It was and remains cruel. It was and remains untrue to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Not to say so — especially at his death — is to be complicit with allowing that theology to go unchecked.
BNG and others routinely castigated MacArthur during his lifetime, and there was plenty to comment on. But just because someone dies doesn’t mean they suddenly turn into a saint.
Recall the words of Shakespeare in Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
All around us now, newspapers and online news outlets are publishing obituaries praising MacArthur for his vast influence without noting how toxic that influence was to women, the LGBTQ community, abuse survivors, people with COVID, children and Black people. If we’re going to note his passing, we must tell the full story because the evil lives on.
There are two kinds of people upset with us right now.
One is the group of people who believe MacArthur was a saint and preached the whole truth. To them, we are besmirching a hero. And there’s not much I can do to persuade them.
The other is a group of people who didn’t appreciate MacArthur’s theology or influence but think we ought to just let him rest in peace. That’s fair, but it’s not sufficient. To these folks, I ask: When is the right time to tell the truth about a prominent figure who has passed? A week later, a month later?
Back to my funeral officiating experiences. An important part of a funeral is allowing those present to assess the life that has passed before them. Not to sugarcoat it but to acknowledge the real truth. In part because the rest of us need to learn from that person’s experience — learn what to emulate or learn what to shun.
When we try to bury the evil a person did with their bones, we leave behind horrible ghost stories.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of five books, including Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves.