R.C. Sproul

Robert Charles Sproul (February 13, 1939 – December 14, 2017) was an American Reformed theologian and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America.

He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries (named for the Ligonier Valley just outside Pittsburgh, where the ministry started as a study center for college and seminary students) and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally.

He married Vesta Voorhis in 1960 and had two children, Sherrie Dorotiak and Robert Craig Sproul.

He obtained degrees from Westminster College, Pennsylvania (BA, 1961), Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1964), the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Drs., 1969), and Whitefield Theological Seminary (PhD, 2001).

He taught at numerous colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando and in Jackson, Mississippi, and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale.

One of Sproul's mentors was John Gerstner, a professor of his at Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary.

He was ordained as an elder in the United Presbyterian Church in the USA in 1965, but left that denomination around 1975 and joined the Presbyterian Church in America.

He was also a Council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Sproul was an advocate of Calvinism in his many print, audio, and video publications, and advocated the Thomistic (classical) approaches to Christian apologetics, less common among Reformed apologists, most of whom prefer presuppositionalism.

A dominant theme in his Renewing Your Mind lessons is the holiness and sovereignty of God.

Sproul taught that headcovering should be practiced in churches as the ordinance is "rooted and grounded in creation".

Under Sproul's direction, Ligonier Ministries produced the Ligonier Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which would eventually grow into the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Along with Norman Geisler, Sproul was one of the chief architects of the statement.

Sproul has been described as "the greatest and most influential proponent of the recovery of Reformed theology in the last century."

Sproul was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the second child of Robert Cecil Sproul, an accountant and a veteran of World War II and his wife, Mayre Ann Sproul (née Yardis).

Sproul was an avid supporter of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Pirates as a youth, and at the age of 15, he had to drop out from high school athletics in order to support his family.

He signed the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which affirmed the traditional view of Biblical inerrancy, and he wrote a commentary on that document titled Explaining Inerrancy.

He also served as the general editor of the Reformation Study Bible (ISBN 0-87552-643-8), which has appeared in several editions and was also known as the New Geneva Study Bible. In addition, Sproul was executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.

The two of them, along with another of Gerstner's students, Arthur Lindsley, co-authored the book Classical Apologetics in 1984.

Sproul's ministry, Ligonier Ministries, made recordings of Gerstner teaching various courses on theology and the Bible.

Sproul was a passenger on the Amtrak train that derailed in the 1993 Big Bayou Canot train wreck, and sometimes gave firsthand accounts of the story.

Ligonier Ministries hosts several theological conferences each year, including the main conference in Orlando, FL, at which Sproul was one of the primary speakers.

Sproul served as co-pastor at Saint Andrew's Chapel, a congregation in Sanford, Florida.

Sproul, a staunch critic of the Catholic Church and Catholic theology, denounced the 1994 ecumenical document Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

In 2003, a Festschrift was published in his honor.

After Darkness, Light: Essays in Honor of R. C. Sproul (ISBN 0875527043) included contributions from Robert Godfrey, Sinclair Ferguson, O. Palmer Robertson, Michael Horton, Douglas Wilson, John F. MacArthur, and Jay E. Adams.

On April 18, 2015, Sproul suffered a stroke and was admitted to a hospital.

Five days later, on April 23, Sproul went home from the hospital, suffering no ill effects.

He was, however, diagnosed with a diabetic condition "that [would] be addressed through diet and regular medical attention."

A longtime heavy cigarette smoker, Sproul had long suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and was hospitalized on December 2, 2017, because of difficulty breathing, the result of an apparent infection, an “exacerbation of his emphysema due to the flu” (“not pneumonia”).

After a twelve-day period of intermittent fever, and sedation and ventilator-assisted breathing, with effort given to restore his respiratory function, Sproul died on December 14, 2017 (at age 78).

Some of Sproul's best-known books are The Holiness of God, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, and What Is Reformed Theology? He is also well known for Chosen by God, a book about predestination and the sovereignty of God.

Through Ligonier Ministries and the Renewing Your Mind radio program and conferences, Sproul generated numerous audio and video lectures on the subjects of history of philosophy, theology, Bible study, apologetics, intelligent design, and Christian living.

In addition, Sproul wrote more than 100 books and many articles for evangelical publications.