The evangelicals who are saying the most and talking the loudest these days about what’s referred to as “social justice” seem to have a very different perspective. Their rhetoric certainly points a different direction, demanding repentance and reparations from one ethnic group for the sins of its ancestors against another. It’s the language of law, not gospel—and worse, it mirrors the jargon of worldly politics, not the message of Christ. It is a startling irony that believers from different ethnic groups, now one in Christ, have chosen to divide over ethnicity. They have a true spiritual unity in Christ, which they seem to disdain in favor of fleshly factions. – John MacArthur
John MacArthur launched his first (and presumably not his last) volley toward Rauschenbuscism, the Social Gospel movement that has masqueraded under the term justice and taken over a large swath of evangelicalism (especially among the Young, Restless and Reformed). Throngs of conservative Calvinists were thrilled to see the elder theologian weigh into this battle. Others were less than happy, and had no shortage of slams and insults to a man who’s been preaching since before their fathers were in diapers. We wrote about that post at Grace to You in our article here.
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One such critic of the indomitable JMAC is Kyle J. Howard, the Marxist change-agent and former Southern Seminary student who gained fame for saying he was afraid to be left alone with James White, who he was sure was racist. Howard claims to have spent a secret period of his teenage years in a violent Atlanta street gang and identifies as a black man who has had to survive struggle and climb his way up from the streets and is now fighting against bigotry, poverty, white privilege, and “racial trauma.” In reality, Howard is as much Caucasian as black, was raised in an upper-class suburban home with two attorney parents, and was on the high school debate squad, not the Crips. He also claims his wife (who is also not black) was afraid to be on the campus of Southern Seminary because of the fear of racial violence. You can read more about Howard here.
Howard posted his video response to MacArthur here. In the video, Howard argues that MacArthur is guilty of arguing with strawmen, misrepresenting the social justice position. Howard said:
The thing that’s interesting to me though, is I don’t know he’s talking about. He talked about those demanding reparations from other believers…I wasn’t sure who he was talking about. To me, it seems he was talking about ghosts, no one who actually truly exists. As I’ve been following and I’ve engaged in these conversations for some time now, I’ve never known anyone who actually believes the issues or concerns John MacArthur had in that article. – Kyle J. Howard
Is he seeing ghosts?
Old man MacArthur must be totally out of his gourd, Howard presumes. After all, Howard is an expert in such things and heavily involved in the conversations and he’s never heard somebody equate something like reparations with the Gospel.
Except this guy?
Hughes is a student at Wake Forrest Divinity School. He also thinks that JMAC is a White Supremacist, at least if a RT and pinned tweet is any indication of endorsement.
MacArthur isn’t seeing ghosts. Even though Kyle J. Howard is Caucasian, he’s not quite as white as Casper. As Paul Washer might say, “I don’t know why you’re guffawing, I’m talking about you.”
