Robert Craig Sproul, better known as R. C. Sproul Jr., (born July 1, 1965) is an American

Calvinist Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Protestantism, Continenta ...

writer,

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

, and pastor, and the son of

R. C. Sproul Robert Charles Sproul ( ; February 13, 1939 – December 14, 2017) was an American Reformed theologian, Christian apologist, and ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, and ...

Life

Sproul holds degrees from

Grove City College Grove City College (GCC) is a private, conservative Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1876 as a normal school, the college emphasizes a humanities core curriculum and offers 60 majors and si ...

(Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Literature, 1986) and

Reformed Theological Seminary Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) is a theological seminary in the Reformed theological tradition with campuses in multiple locations in the United States. Founded by conservatives in the Southern Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Churc ...

(Master of Arts in Theological Studies, 1991) and received his D.Min. in theology from

Whitefield Theological Seminary Whitefield Theological Seminary is an unaccredited distance education Reformed theological seminary in Lakeland, Florida, United States. A conservative confessional institution, it teaches from the Reformed perspective of Protestant Christianit ...

(2001). In 1989 Sproul began working for

Ligonier Ministries Ligonier Ministries (also known as simply Ligonier) is an international Christian discipleship organization headquartered in the greater Orlando, Florida area. Ligonier was founded in 1971 by R. C. Sproul in the Ligonier Valley, Pennsylvania, o ...

in Orlando, Florida. In 1996 he moved to Meadowview, Virginia where he founded Highlands Study Center (later renamed Highlands Ministries). Sproul served as executive editor of ''Every Thought Captive'', a monthly magazine published by Highlands Ministries. Sproul planted Saint Peter Presbyterian Church in Bristol, Virginia in 1996 serving as senior pastor until 2001, then as Associate Pastor of Education until 2010. From 2009 to 2010, he worked as a teacher for Veritas Press, which specializes in Christian educational texts.. In 2010, Sproul was appointed a Teaching Fellow and Associate Professor of theology, philosophy, and apologetics at Ligonier Academy in both the Bible college and D.Min. programs. In 2014 he was named Rector a
Reformation Bible College
as well as the Chair of the Department of Theology and Philosophy. In August 2015, Sproul wrote in his personal blog that he had briefly visited the

Ashley Madison Ashley Madison, or The Ashley Madison Agency, is a Canadian-French online dating service and social networking service. It was launched in 2002 and marketed to people who are married (or people in relationships) who are looking for affairs. T ...

website in 2014. As a result,

suspended him until July 2016. Sproul had addressed the recently announced

Ashley Madison data breach In July 2015, an unknown person or group calling itself "The Impact Team" announced that they had stolen user data of Ashley Madison, a commercial website billed as enabling extramarital affairs. The hackers copied personal information about the ...

in a July 22, 2015, blog entry that highlighted "the biblical truth that our sins will find us out", but without the acknowledgment made in August. On November 29, 2016, ten days after his ecclesiastical wedding ceremony, Sproul was arrested in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for drunken driving with two of his minor children in the car. He posted a $5,000 bond and was free under a "monitored conditional release." On June 2, 2017, Sproul filed a plea agreement in which he pled guilty to one felony count, 9-30-5-3(a)(2)/F6: Operating Veh. While Intox or Controlled Substance: Passenger Under 18. He was sentenced to a prison term of 1 year 183 days. Under the terms of the plea agreement his prison sentence was suspended and he was remanded to 1 year supervised probation. On December 9, 2016, days after his arrest, the board of directors of Ligonier Ministries and Reformation Bible College received and affirmed Sproul's resignation request. Ligonier Ministries posted a statement on their website on December 12, 2016, saying that Sproul resigned "for personal reasons". In early 2019, Sproul briefly worked as website manager for Bucs Dugout, SB Nation's community for

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...

fans.Sproul Jr., R.C.
Permission to Board
, BucsDugout.com, 2/20/19. His contract was terminated the morning after Deadspin's piece criticizing the hire.Wagner, Laura.
SB Nation Hired A Disgraced Pastor To Lead A Team Site And, Hoo Boy, Readers Have Questions
, Deadspin.com, February 21, 2019.SB Nation Staff,
An update on Bucs Dugout management
, BucsDugout.com, February 22, 2019. Later that year he became ordained through Logos Ministries and formed Dunamis Fellowship (details under ''Church allegiances'').

Personal life

Sproul has been married twice. Sproul's first wife, Denise Elizabeth Sproul (née Rocklein), died in 2011, age 46, of cancer. They have seven surviving children, a disabled daughter died in 2012. On October 14, 2016, Sproul married Lisa Carol Ringel (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Porter) in a civil ceremony. On November 19, 2016, his father R. C. Sproul, Sr. officiated the church wedding ceremony. Ten days after his ecclesiastical wedding ceremony, Sproul, Jr's

DUI Driving under the influence (DUI) is the crime of driving, operating, or being in control of a vehicle while one is impaired from doing so safely by the effect of either alcohol (see drunk driving) or some other drug, whether recreational or ...

occurred. Lisa, a nutritionist, legally adopted the four youngest Sproul children on July 12, 2018. Combined they have twelve surviving children, eleven grandchildren and currently reside in Indiana. Several years after his father's death, Sproul, Jr filed a

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust (law), a legal relationship in which one person holds property for another's benefit * Trust (bu ...

complaint In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

against the RC Sproul Trust Agreement

trustee Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, refers to anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the ...

, mother Vesta Sproul; and the successor trustee, his sister. The Seminole County Florida

probate In common law jurisdictions, probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased; or whereby, in the absence of a legal will, the e ...

case was filed in 2021 and, after a number of motions, voluntarily dismissed July 11, 2023.

Church allegiances

Sproul was first

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

in the

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC) is a theologically conservative denomination in North America. The ARPC was formed by the merger of the Associate Presbytery ( seceder) with the Reformed Presbytery (covenanter) in 1782. It is one ...

(ARP). After a failed attempt to transfer to the

Presbyterian Church in America The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the second-largest Presbyterian church body, behind the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the largest conservative Calvinist denomination in the United States. The PCA is Calvinist, Reformed in theolog ...

, he was ordained in the

Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly The Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly (RPCGA) is a Presbyterian church body and conservative denomination in the United States established in 1991. The RPCGA was founded by members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United Stat ...

(RPCGA) in 2000. In January 2006, Sproul and the Session of Saint Peter Presbyterian Church (SPPC), its governing body, were deposed from office by the RPCGA under charges including "abuse of authority in an inexcusable manner" against several families, alleged illegal use of the ARP's

tax identification number A Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) is an identifying number used for tax purposes in the United States and in other countries under the Common Reporting Standard. In the United States it is also known as a Tax Identification Number (TIN) ...

, planting a church without authority, and practicing

infant communion Infant communion, also known as paedocommunion, refers to the practice of giving the Eucharist, often in the form of consecrated wine mingled with consecrated bread, to young children. This practice is standard throughout Eastern Christianity, whe ...

. The SPPC Session issued a letter of apology and asked to be released from general membership in the RPCGA, and the denomination granted their request. SPPC requested pastoral oversight from the CREC, which accepted the congregation as a full member in October 2007. The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) examined the case and accepted Sproul as an ordained minister in good standing in 2006. In 2010 Sproul transferred his ordination to the denomination Covenant Presbyterian Church (CPC). On March 27, 2019, Sproul announced, "I am a member in good standing at Pine Hills Church here in Fort Wayne. It is a part of the Federation of Evangelical Churches." The FEC is an Anabaptist denomination of Amish Mennonite origin. July 2, 2019, Sproul became ordained through Logos Ministries of Florida and formed the business entity Dunamis Fellowship. February 14, 2021, Sproul planted his newest church, Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sproul announced April 3, 2021, he would launch the Shepherd’s College, August 30, 2021, as a pastors college for training and mentoring men nationally and internationally.

Publishing

Sproul has written twelve books, including ''When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling,'' ''Bound for Glory,'' ''Biblical Economics,'' ''Almighty Over All,'' ''Eternity in Our Hearts,'' and ''Tearing Down Strongholds.'' He has edited four books, including ''After Darkness Light: Distinctives of Reformed Theology'', and contributed to several others. He was a regular columnist for ''

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

'' magazine, ''Homeschooling Today'' magazine and the Covenant Syndicate. He was featured in the film ''BIRTH CONTROL: How Did We Get Here?'' which was runner-up to the Best Sanctity of Life film in the 2013

San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (SAICFF) was a film festival located in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded and organized by Doug Phillips. The ''Best of Festival'' or ''Jubilee Award'' carried a $101,000 cash prize. The festival w ...

organized by Doug Phillips. For eleven years he was the editor of ''Tabletalk'' magazine, a publication of Ligonier Ministries. In ''Almighty Over All'' Sproul takes the position that God created man to have an object worthy of his wrath: "God is as delighted with his wrath as he is with all of his attributes... What I’ll do is create something worthy of my wrath, something on which I can exhibit the glory of my wrath" (p. 52). Sproul goes on to state that God is the author/creator of sin: "I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that He created sin" (p. 54).

Books

* ''Money Matters'', 1985. Reprinted as ''Dollar Signs of the Times: A Commonsense Guide to Securing Our Economic Future'', 1994, and ''Biblical Economics: A Commonsense Guide to Our Daily Bread'', 2002. Supplemented with ''Biblical Economics Study Guide'' in 2010. * ''Almighty over All: Understanding the Sovereignty of God'', 1999. * ''Quothe the Prophet'', 2000. * ''The Brave Monk'', 2000. * ''Eternity in Our Hearts'', 2002. * ''Tearing Down Strongholds: And Defending the Truth'', 2002. * ''Bound for Glory: God's Promise for Your Family'', 2003 * ''When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling'', 2004. * ''Believing God: Twelve Biblical Promises Christians Struggle to Accept'', 2009. * ''The Call to Wonder: Loving God like a Child'', 2012.

References

External links

Saint Peter Presbyterian ChurchRC Sproul Jr
RC Sproul's blog. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sproul, R. C. Jr. 1965 births Living people 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians American Calvinist and Reformed theologians American male non-fiction writers American Presbyterian ministers American religious writers Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Calvinist and Reformed writers Grove City College alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Presbyterians from Florida Presbyterians from Virginia Presbyterian writers