The Essential Church: A Review

David Morrill

The Essential Church by Grace Productions chronicles the fight of three churches to maintain Christ’s authority over Christian worship in the face of government persecution as told through the story of Grace Community Church (GCC)’s John MacArthur, Fairview Baptist Church (Calgary) pastor Tim Stephens, and GraceLife Church (Edmonton) pastor James Coates. The film makes a direct and strong case for both the authoritative headship of Christ over Christian worship, and the fact that God both chastens and protects Christians (and local churches) whom he loves.

Featuring narration by Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary President Ian Hamilton and including interviews by multiple GCC elders, the film draws an important connection between historical Christian protests with the refusal of a minority of present-day churches to submit their worship practices to the authority of the state.

At Protestia, we are encouraging everyone to go see this movie in the theater if possible. It was certainly a blessing to hear fellow moviegoers cheer God’s victory in the face of overwhelming odds. We likewise encourage you to take your lost friends, as the film provides historical, scriptural, and scientific evidence demonstrating the tyranny of local governments and the clear Gospel message that is the core validation for all truth. It is no secret that we have been vocally and steadfastly supportive of churches that asserted the lordship of Christ over the church in opposition to government restrictions, whether or not the restrictions targeted churches specifically or tyrannized citizens more broadly. We have written, podcasted, and contended on social media for the exact position now heralded by The Essential Church since well before 2020 (here is an example from April 2020, and JD Hall back in 2015), and we are thankful to God to see steadfast brothers and sisters at these churches who were willing to stand and fight for truth when so many others faltered. Our brothers and sisters at GCC, GraceLife, and Fairview are truly God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (Ephesians 2:10), and living proof that God upholds, corrects, and disciplines those who are his (Hebrews 12:6). It is no exaggeration to say that Protestia/Pulpit&Pen walk the theological path that ministries like GCC/Grace to You and pastors like John MacArthur have cut before us, and even when we criticize them we are walking in their footsteps of obedience to Christ.

What follows is a discussion of the theology behind the film, additional context we believe to be important, and fact-checking we have found useful. As both Tim Stephens and James Coates are graduates of The Master’s Seminary (GCC’s partner school for pastoral training), we will assume the three churches are doctrinally aligned. Even though much of the outcome of this saga is known, we will try not to spoil the best parts and we strongly encourage our readers to see this film.

The Three Questions

As churches in early 2020 scrambled to both understand the truth of COVID-19 and apply it to the context of gathered worship, the internal debate among professing Christians and external debate in the secular political context centered around three pivotal questions:

1. What is the reality of the risk of COVID-19? In other words, is COVID-19 a providential hindrance akin to a hurricane about to level our churches?

2. What authority – if any – does the civil government have over the gathering and worship practices of the church? This question and debate centered around the interpretation and application of Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17.

3. Are Christians required by God to attend church? What is the nature of the obligation of believers to physically gather together for worship?

The film focuses primarily on the issue of jurisdictional authority over the church. This is a welcome focus, as GCC’s pre-COVID understanding and application of Romans 13 was basically “Since God institutes all authority (Romans 13:1), Christians are required to unquestioningly obey anyone in a government position.” This shallow and unworkable understanding had yet to present a problem for present-day Americans and Canadians, as governments were hands-off in terms of religious practice and the separation of church and state rightly kept the magistrate in its place. Yet in March 2020, churches were forced to confront a potentially historic health calamity while applying whatever theology they had regarding the jurisdictional relationship between church and state. Most failed initially. Many have never corrected. Fortunately and by the grace of God, the three churches chronicled answered the three questions correctly.

The Risk

The wild-eyed predictions of doom and gloom coming from politicians and their fellow institutionalists painted a picture of unavoidable COVID calamity, with millions quickly dead and the lesser of two evils (“stop the spread”) necessitating everyone staying apart for (at the time) two weeks. The film discusses this confusion in explaining the churches’ initial decision to cease gathering – MacArthur compares the decision to close to what they would have done if a hurricane was heading for the church. Apocalyptic estimates of death were sourced largely from the fraudulently unscientific Imperial College Model, and its authors’ recommended “nonpharmaceutical interventions” like distancing, masks (which Anthony Fauci famously discouraged in March only to tell people in May to wear them as a symbol and “sign of respect”), and of course, lockdowns to prevent gathering, which the world was assured would “slow the spread” and prevent an overrun of hospital capacity with COVID patients (the film notes that several doctors on the GCC board were supportive of the “flatten the curve” strategy).

It is worth noting (especially for those who compared the lockdowns to biblical examples of quarantine) that these nonpharmaceutical interventions were not intended for the sick, but the well, particularly the undetectables known as “asymptomatic carriers.”

It took little time for careful observers to notice that the risk was nowhere near what officials were making it out to be. The traditional epidemiological framework of infections (a person carrying a delectable level of a pathogen), cases (a person needing medical treatment due to sickness from a pathogen), hospitalizations (a person admitted to hospital care to treat sickness from a pathogen) and deaths (a person dying primarily due to sickness from a pathogen) had been replaced with a one-label-fits-all novel reporting system that reported every infection and case as the same thing (non-sick people who test positive for the virus are reported as the same as those who get seriously sick and require medical care), labeled anyone who happened to have been admitted to a hospital and was positive as a “COVID hospitalization,” and called anyone who died while testing positive for the presence of the virus (within 30 days) a “COVID death.”

Children were demonstrably at minuscule risk from COVID. The elderly were at the highest risk. The relative risk from COVID infection (unsurprisingly) tracked almost exactly with a person’s overall risk from any other respiratory illness. Those who had recovered from infection and sickness demonstrated broad-spectrum immunity. While these factors and the overblown nature of COVID had become known to MacArthur in April, he held fast to the “easy call” of obeying the government’s church shutdown order unless faced with “persecution of the church,” which he curiously said would violate the fact that “God says we must meet.”

The Fourth Commandment

The film largely ignores the question of whether Christians are commanded to gather for worship on the Lord’s Day, choosing instead to describe the benefits and essential obedience to God fulfilled by gathered worship, as well as the spiritual damage done to believers through the prohibitions on gathering. MacArthur does describe the “true church” as “the gathering of people who belong to God by faith in Jesus Christ. We meet to worship God, to give him honor, to give him glory, to praise him. We speak in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We sing. We read the scripture. We preach and proclaim the scripture.”

Those of us who do not believe the Lord’s Day to be the “Christian Sabbath” (with varying degrees of requirements pulled from Mosaic Law) still believe that the instructions given to the gathered church are specific and required outworkings of loving God and loving our neighbor, and we have committed before God and one another to show up on Sunday together to fulfill these instructions. This places us in the position of those who are “fully convinced in our minds” that Sunday is a “day above another” and that we “observe the day for the Lord” (Romans 14:4-6). Christians like those who lead GCC, GraceLife, and Fairview Baptist have certainly committed before God to gather for worship on Sunday. Not doing so is a sin.

In practice and (apparently) now in conviction, GCC seems to have taken the position that, while Christians are not mandated to gather due to a church-age continuation of the Sabbath commandment, regular worship gathering is the primary vehicle by which believers follow all of the elements of worship required of them, and is, therefore, a requirement for believers.

Romans 13

Perhaps the most remarkable portion of the film – especially for readers of Protestia and other similarly-observant discernment websites – was the description of the GCC’s change in position on the issue of submission to the governing authorities. Church elder Mike Riccardi describes the challenge presented to him (and later to the elder board) by an unnamed friend, beginning with a text message on the screen stating, “There’s more to Romans 13 than you think.”

Not long ago, John MacArthur and GCC promoted an unworkable, Erastian (to quote Riccardi’s realization from the film) theology of government submission that found them arguing against the American Revolution (along with misquoting 1 Peter 2:14 as “reward” rather than “praise”), and that Christians must “surrender to every secular authority that is placed over us” (this quote is from the now-deleted article referenced in the Capstone Report post). Yet the events of March-May 2020 – particularly when GCC went from closing down explicitly in March because a governing authority said so to opening up in May because the government told them they could, to closing right back down when yet another governing authority weighted in – all within the span of a week.

Yet God not only protects those who are his, he corrects those who are his. Not only that, he provides fellow believers to aid in the corrective process, and by June it was church members – not the elders – who insisted on “stir[ring] up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24), “not neglecting to meet together” (Heb. 10:25), and they started showing up to church despite the continued closure. This display of obedience took place even as some in church leadership had gone so far as to offer novel interpretations that “forsake the gathering” in Hebrews 10:25 referred to apostatizing and not avoiding gathering for regular church worship. As church elder Chris Hamilton notes about the church membership in the film, “They led us to reopening the church.”

Sadly, as this process played out and GCC was being forced by tyrannical government officials to confront the reality that Romans 13 requires application (Who/what is a rightful governing authority? Where are the jurisdictional boundaries between different authorities?), John MacArthur’s position and GCC’s closure were being weaponized against churches and pastors that had not ceased to gather. By the end of July, MacArthur had rightfully concluded that the church had a duty to remain open.

The Threat to Churches Continues

At the risk of spoiling the end of the movie (even though the results of the case are known), GCC elders describe their insistence that the case go to trial (with the requisite ability to depose and/or subpoena witnesses), resulting in the authorities immediately moving to settle the case out of court. True to their oft-stated desire to practice biblical submission to governing authorities, GCC let Los Angeles off the hook and settled the case prior to trial, which amounted to the county paying $800,000 for the church’s legal fees (half from the Los Angeles Public Health Dept. and half from the state of California), ceasing retaliatory actions (like canceling the long-standing lease for the parking lot), and agreeing to never again enforce “coronavirus pandemic” regulations against the church.

It appears that this victory, however, is restricted to Grace Community Church. It is undeniable (and the film alludes to this) that Los Angeles County and the state of California paid the church and granted them immunity from future enforcement in order to avoid a trial exposing their anti-religious bigotry and corruption. Sadly, pushing for a trial might have had the effect of winning protection for many or perhaps all churches in California from future intrusive persecution. Instead, the result of this very real victory seems to be protective only for GCC. Of course, GCC does not have an obligation to other churches in this regard, and we sincerely hope that the order that accompanied the settlement can be used if necessary to protect churches in the future.

Again, even as we’re disappointed the film skipped over the primary evidence of GCC elders’ need for repentance on Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17, we are glad to see the film discuss the fact that they did repent. The real blessing of the account is not that the churches and pastors involved persevered against the state this time (as praiseworthy as that is), it is that God never fails to sustain and continue the sanctification of his children. God used GCC, GraceLife, and Fairview Baptist because of their faith and despite the continued need for growth in understanding. We all should be so blessed.

Find tickets for The Essential Church here.