How did John MacArthur die? What we know about pastor's cause of death
"Our hearts are heavy, yet rejoicing, as we share the news that our beloved pastor and teacher John MacArthur has entered into the presence of the Savior," MacArthur's media ministry, Grace to You, wrote on social media. "This evening, his faith became sight."
MacArthur, 86, was the pastor at Grace Community Church, a nondenominational congregation in Sun Valley, California, a post he held since 1969.
Tom Patton, another pastor at Grace Community Church, said at a July 13 service that MacArthur had been hospitalized after contracting pneumonia.
USA TODAY has reached out to Grace Community Church.
John MacArthur cause of death: What we know
MacArthur's cause of death has not been announced, though he had been hospitalized with pneumonia in his final days, Patton said.
"This week pastor John contracted pneumonia," Patton said. "He was admitted into the hospital and may be in the presence of the Lord soon."
A message on Grace Community Church's website noted the same about MacArthur's condition.
"Last week, Pastor John unexpectedly contracted pneumonia, and the Lord took him home on Monday, July 14," the message said.
A message on Grace to You's website said MacArthur died "after dealing with some significant health challenges dating back to early 2023."
"Just as the details of John's death are new to you, they are new to us as well. We probably have many of the same thoughts and feelings that you do," Grace to You's website said.
USA TODAY has reached out to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's office for more information.
Grace to You's website also said there are currently no details about services for MacArthur.
Who was John MacArthur? About his pastoral career
John MacArthur was a pastor and author known for leading Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and for his work with the media ministry Grace to You.
He was also the longtime president and chancellor of The Master's University, a private Christian university in Santa Clarita, California, and founder of The Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.
MacArthur became the pastor at Grace Community Church in 1969 after graduating from Talbot Theological Seminary in California, according to his leadership bio. Throughout his career, he also wrote nearly 400 books.
Like some other preachers across the U.S., MacArthur entered the public spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic when he hosted large gatherings despite local policies limiting congregations to small numbers outside.
"At the center of Dr. MacArthur's ministry was an unwavering commitment to declare God's truth, and Pastor John preached the Word in season and out of season," Grace Community Church's website says. "Even in recent years, though beset with health challenges, he persisted in teaching, leading, and investing in the ministries the Lord had entrusted to him."
In addition to his wife of 61 years, Patricia, MacArthur is survived by four children, fifteen grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Contributing: James Powel and Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY
Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at melina.khan@usatoday.com.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
4 dead after contracting 'flesh-eating bacteria' in Florida this year
The bacteria led to deaths in Bay, Broward, Hillsborough and St. Johns counties, the Florida Department of Health said. Four people are dead, and more than half a dozen are sick, after contracting a rare "flesh-eating bacteria" in Florida this year, state health officials confirmed. The Vibrio vulnificus bacteria, found in saltwater, brackish water and inside raw or undercooked seafood, led to deaths in Bay, Broward, Hillsborough and St. Johns counties, according to the Florida Department of Health (FDOH). So far in 2025, 11 people contracted Vibrio vulnificus across Florida, with four dying and seven becoming ill, the FDOH reported on July 11. The FDOH did not specify the source of the new cases or say where the ill contracted the bacteria. Vibrio vulnificus is a naturally occurring bacterium that lives in warm, brackish seawater. It's created when fresh water from a river or lake meets seawater, and people contract Vibrio vulnificus by swallowing water with it or getting it in a wound, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year in the Sunshine State, there were a record 82 cases and 19 deaths, most of them after October when large areas of the state were flooded by back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton. Vibrio vulnificus requires brackish saltwater to spread. USA TODAY contacted the CDC on Tuesday, July 15, to see whether people had contracted what it says media reports described as a "flesh-eating bacteria" in other states this year, but has not received a response Arizona accident: Therapist dies after hyperbaric oxygen chamber catches fire What is Vibrio vulnificus? Vibrios are bacteria that live in coastal waters, according to the CDC, and some Vibrio species, including Vibrio vulnificus, can cause severe and life-threatening infections. Infections are rare, according to the CDC. Nearly 80,000 people get vibrio infections each year, and about 100 people die from the infection annually in the U.S, the CDC says. 'Jaws' star Richard Dreyfuss sits out fan convention after viral bronchitis diagnosis Why is it called 'flesh-eating' bacteria? Vibrio vulnificus kills, but does not eat tissue. The bacteria cannot penetrate unharmed skin, but can enter through an existing break in it. If the bacteria enter the body through a cut or wound, they can cause necrotizing fasciitis, and the flesh around the infection site dies. The infected may need intensive care or limb amputations, according to the CDC, and about one in five who get the infection die, sometimes within 24 hours of becoming sick. Health officials warned people with fresh cuts or scrapes not to enter warm, brackish water because the bacteria can enter the body and cause an infection. Contributing: Gabe Hauari and Mike Snider/ USA TODAY Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund.
USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Medical debt remains on credit reports after Biden-era rule tossed by judge
Consumers were dealt a blow after a federal judge in Texas tossed out a Biden-era rule that would have banned the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports. In a move that advocates told USA TODAY eliminates a vital consumer protection, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan on July 11 granted a request from President Donald Trump's administration and two financial industry groups to vacate the medical debt rule. The medical debt rule, finalized in January before former President Joe Biden left office, would've banned medical debt on credit reports and prohibited lenders from using a person's medical debt history to make lending decisions. The rule was scheduled to take effect in March, but the two trade groups sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to halt the rule, and Jordan issued a stay, delaying the rule's start date. In late April, the Trump-appointed CFPB leadership opted not to oppose the lawsuit and filed a joint motion with the financial industry groups – the Consumer Data Industry Association and Cornerstone Credit Union League – to ask the judge to vacate the medical debt rule. Jordan, appointed during Trump's first administration, agreed with the trade groups that it was "fair, adequate and reasonable" to vacate the medical debt rule because it exceeded the CFPB's authority under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Medical debt 'will likely get worse' Patricia Kelmar, senior director of health care campaigns at the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, said rule was necessary due to protect consumers from medical debt errors on credit reports. Medical bills accounted for more than half of debt collection on consumers' credit records, according to a 2022 report from the CFPB. "The problem is still here and will likely get worse," Kelmar said. "Medical debt on credit reports is disputed nearly three times as frequently as credit card debt." She said many of the 15 million Americans with medical debt on their credit reports are "penalized with lower credit scores, not because they owe the bill, but because they are still fighting it, or the hospitals reported it wrong." But industry groups cheered the decision. The medical debt rule would've potentially dealt lenders an "inaccurate and incomplete picture when making lending decisions," Dan Smith, president and CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association, said in a statement. "Information about unpaid medical debts is an important element in assessing a consumer's ability to pay," Smith said. "This is the right outcome for protecting the integrity of the system." Paid medical debts, unpaid medical debts less than a year old and medical debts less than $500 already have been removed from credit reports by the three largest credit reporting companies. However, with the medical debt rule scrubbed, consumers can still expect larger medical debts to appear on credit reports. The decision comes as the Trump's sweeping tax cut and spending law could jeopardize health insurance coverage for millions of Americans in the coming years. The law would cut about $1 trillion from Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance plans, eliminating insurance coverage for 11.8 million people over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Another 5 million could lose health insurance because the law doesn't extend Biden's COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits that made ACA plans cheaper for consumers, according to a previous CBO analysis.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
This singer got sober at 25. How 'rock bottom' and recovery look different at that age
Is there such a thing as "too young" to get sober? At 25, Lauren McQuistin decided she needed to quit drinking for good. At the time, she was studying and performing opera at Yale School of Music. Many of her peers were deep in heavy, college-era drinking habits. But she was addicted, and as she used alcohol to cope, her life became 'unbearable.' There wasn't a 'rock bottom' moment like she'd always heard about. She hadn't been arrested, fallen into debt, lost her house or spouse or kids. She didn't even have any of those things. ('Who could afford a house, right?' she tells USA TODAY.) She thought she had to wait for something really bad to happen before getting sober and 'on the right track.' 'I didn't feel like I was ever on the track,' McQuistin says. This is one of the experiences with alcoholism and sobriety that McQuistin and other young people are eager to rewrite. In her memoir and guide 'No Lost Causes Club' (out now from Blackstone Publishing), McQuistin, now 32, writes that rock bottom 'doesn't have to be the worst things can get. It's the moment you don't want it to get any worse.' McQuistin runs the Instagram account @brutalrecovery, a page dedicated to memes that don't sugarcoat sobriety. It leads with humor, something that Gen Z is well-accustomed to in the face of difficulty or trauma. She started the account as a joke to share what she was struggling with or funny 'contradictions' about her sober friends – 'We're so tough, we can do impossible, impossible things, but we really struggle to brush our teeth,' she says, laughing. Now, she has 179,000 followers. Because getting clean can be a 'hard sell,' McQuistin says much of the language around it focuses on the after, not the during, of quitting drinking. On the low end, sobriety mitigates alcohol-related symptoms like headaches, stomach aches and anxiety from hangovers. Alcohol consumption is also related to a wide range of health issues, including certain cancers. Many get sober because, frankly, they could die if they don't stop drinking. But McQuistin wanted more people to talk about the hard parts of sobriety. When she got sober, she had to confront her self-harming behaviors, eating disorder, relationships, escapism and trauma. 'When you're talking about sobriety, you want to talk about the benefits. You don't necessarily want to talk about the things that you have to go through for those benefits to start metabolizing,' McQuistin says. 'I want to talk about the things that we don't talk about so much because I remember sharing that with other people and hearing them reflect that back to me, I felt so much less broken.' With @brutalrecovery, she can talk about all parts of sobriety – especially the ugly ones. One post rounds up 'early recovery experiences like confusion, disconnect, emotional deregulation, 'becoming an adolescent again' and feeling like 'everything hurts.' Another 'tag yourself' post boasts different types of sober people in McQuistin's signature humor: 'grandmacore sober,' 'cold shower, wild swimming sober,' 'overspending to feel something and fill the void sober' and '9 hours of playing the sims a day sober.' She also celebrates the things she doesn't miss from her days of addiction, like 'checking my bank balance after a mysterious force spent all my money.' 'We have this community of holding our past lightly. We take it seriously – I have to take my recovery seriously, but I can't take myself too seriously and that's why I really enjoy the community of laughter around that,' McQuistin says. 'We're really fun, we laugh in recovery. We don't get sober to be somber.' When McQuistin got sober, she needed to reevaluate the way she made friends and socialized with people her age. Some judged her. Now, she says, young people see her sobriety as a 'valid choice.' McQuistin thanks 'trauma-informed thinking' and greater vulnerability about mental health in a generation that's 'lucky enough that we have words to describe our experience.' Today, we know addiction is a disease and not a personal deficiency. There's a more holistic understanding that addiction doesn't exist in isolation – it can influence and be influenced by anxiety, depression, PTSD and eating disorders. As 'sober-curious' movements like Dry January gain traction, so does sobriety overall. Young adults, including Gen Z and millennials, are drinking less than in previous decades, a 2023 Gallup survey found. In January 2025, another survey found that 65% of Gen Zers said they planned to drink less in 2025 and 39% said they'd adopt a dry lifestyle this year. 'It's so indicative of how millennials and Gen Z are learning from what doesn't work in past generations,' McQuistin says. 'And rather than putting a stamp or a line underneath something to say 'This is it,' we get to investigate our choices. We get to be thoughtful and mindful about them and really work out what our path is because, as I say in 'No Lost Causes Club,' the path doesn't exist anymore.' This 'serial monogamist' gave up sex: What she learned surprised her Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Singer who stopped drinking at 25 says 'don't get sober to be somber'
