The Rev. John MacArthur, an influential and exacting evangelical preacher, died Monday at the age of 86.
He led Grace Community Church in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sun Valley for more than five decades. His ministry announced his death on social media. On Sunday, Tom Patton, one of the church’s pastors, told the congregation MacArthur had been hospitalized with pneumonia.
MacArthur made news during the coronavirus pandemic for flouting Los Angeles County’s health orders by holding indoor services for hundreds of congregants and refusing to enforce masking and physical-distancing requirements.
Well before then, his influence had spread far beyond Southern California, where he grew up and took the helm of his nondenominational congregation at age 29.
His Grace to You broadcast ministry circulated his theologically conservative teachings while his many books, including the popular MacArthur Study Bible, were translated into dozens of languages.
“His legacy as a pastor and