About Joshua McArthur
I write about gospel fidelity, pastoral accountability, self-defense, and institutional health. I also write constructively on pastoral care and the health of the Church — these areas often overlap. While I have many passions, I have a particular concern with fighting against abuse and caring for and empowering anyone who has been subject to abuse.
In Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, he compares the proper response to false teachers to a parent driving off a dog attacking their child. I extend that image to leaders who oversee and enable bad teaching to persist in the Church — they too are letting the dog bite the child. The predatory image is apt, even though I draw different conclusions about what to do with the dog. Luther says to drive off the dogs and console the children, and that is good as far as it protects the children, but we want all teachers and leaders to be restored to the Church. So I say it’s better to grab the dog’s leash and bring the teachers and leaders back to the One they’ve strayed from, and encourage and equip the children. It’s a more humane approach, even if the dogs get kicked a little in the process.
Like most people, I prefer to be gentle and nice towards others — even when they are not kind or are doing wrong — but the reality of defense is that when unreasonable and stubborn people go too far and are unyielding, gentleness and charity have limits, and it is right to meet them in kind. In true physical defense, a defender will have to be momentarily more aggressive and forceful than the threat to prevail. This might look particularly ugly and aggressive as the defender is overpowering the threat, but it is situational and ultimately for the sake of protection and restoration — not the defender’s permanent posture.
All of my controversial and aggressive writing is a demonstration of these practical and theological realities, but there is constructive writing and work intertwined as well.
My collection of that work is here. Read The Foreword first and then engage the rest of my work.
Also, read this if you are interested in a more brief and traditional theological piece — I can write those too.
I ask readers to test everything against Scripture, reason, and the fruit it bears.
