Has Ligonier Ministries President Tim Dick Lost It?

Ligonier Ministries President Tim Dick recently posted another peculiar blog comment. For being such an important guy who gets paid a lavish salary ($230,098.00), Mr. Dick seems to have an awful lot of spare time on his hands.This time Mr. Dick’s blog comment appeared on Post Tenebras Lux. There he claims that the “mention” of various web sites on Post Tenebras Lux “astonishes me.” Yet the alleged web sites which so offend Tim Dick had never been “mentioned” on Post Tenebras Lux, either by me or by anyone else.

Tim Dick keeps popping up in various places on the internet to defend himself where no one has even been talking about him! This hasn’t been the first time that Tim Dick has done this, and it probably won’t be the last. It would seem that Tim Dick must be hearing voices:

David,

Wow, you are a breath of fresh air. What a novel approach you present to evaluate how the Church situation with Saint Peter should be handled. That is a difficult, and delicate situation to work through and the last place to look for accurate information is the web, especially the blog world.

I’m impressed with your one rule that anyone is free to attack [you], but not others.

The fact is that the sites mentioned to you for the best information astonishes me. The discussions of so called “facts” about me personally, and Ligonier Ministries, are as far from the truth as they could possibly be.

Again, let me emphasize, as to the posts that speak specifically to me and Ligonier. This is to not “alarm” anyone.

Personally, I will gladly sit down face to face with anyone who wants to discuss any of the allegations made against me and my proported gross mismanagement of the affairs of Ligonier Ministries.

For anyone who has had any concern because of the unabashed slander on the web, please contact me to clarify any concerns.

Thank you again for the calm, sound approach to these matters and this will now be my second, and only post to a blog and I assure you that I won’t respond electronically to this post.

I will also speak to you David if you want evidense of the facts that I have to refute the allegations that have been made prior to your posting this, if you choose to do so.

Also, on another post on your site, Ligonier Ministries introduced a new Publishing division called “Reformation Trust”. We will focus on new projects with authors other than just R.C., in fact we have one being released this fall by Dr. Steve Lawson, with many more in the works. I hope it takes a while for us to become “established” so that we maintain credebilty for many years to come.

Sincerely,

Tim Dick

9:36 PM

I responded to Mr. Dick with the following:

Mr. Dick, I’m surprised to see you posting here. I’m especially surprised to see you say this, “The fact is that the sites mentioned to you for the best information astonishes me.” Was Ligonier Ministries even mentioned here? Was your name mentioned here? Did anyone mention any web sites or links to anything where you or Ligonier are discussed? No, they didn’t.

If you’re concerned about defending yourself as President of Ligonier why not make an appearance on those blogs where you actually are being discussed, say like Ligonier President Tim Dick Honors Me or Clearing the Air About Ligonier Ministries. There’s no value in trying to defend yourself on this blog, especially when you haven’t even been discussed. All you’re doing is drawing attention to yourself when no one was even talking about you in the first place. Are you really sure that’s what you want to do?

10:10 PM

The moderator promptly removed my response, while at the same time also confirming that Tim Dick hadn’t even been discussed on his site:

Frank,

I deleted your post regarding Mr. Dick. As you noted in the post that I deleted, Mr. Dick was not even being discussed on this site.

My blog is largely intended to be constructive (which can include your raising questions about the CREC), but I do not intend to allow my blog to be a forum for negative personal comments.

David

11:03 PM

Is Tim Dick delusional? Is he suffering from symptoms of paranoia? Is he hearing voices? Why does he show up in places to defend himself when no one was even talking about him there? Very strange.

Had Tim Dick never emailed me to complain about blog articles that had nothing to do with me, or in the one case where it was an article that I wrote it had nothing to do with him, Tim would have stayed completely off my radar. I didn’t know who the President of Ligonier Ministries was, and I didn’t know he was RC Sproul’s son-in-law, or RC Sproul Jr’s brother-in-law, and I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have known about Hammerman’s blog (or at least it would have probably taken me a lot longer to stumble across it myself). I never would have said a thing about Tim Dick. Instead he emailed me for no other reason than to vent his spleen over foolish things like this:

“I would consider posts that do not have the courage to do so under a ‘real name’, i.e. Hammerman. Were is the courage, this cowardly approach leads to loose lips, per se, where the author says anything with out accountability to substantiating the underlying truth to support slanderous comments.

“There basically was no truth to the post about Jr.’s being deposed by his family. If the author wanted to be truthful about his content he simply could have called, I would give him the true answer, which is that I made the decision and I’m not on the board and the author has no clue what is required to produce a monthly 64 page devotional magazine.”

Such juvenile behavior is wholly unbecoming of a President of a respected multimillion dollar parachurch ministry. Doesn’t an important guy like Tim Dick who’s pulling down a fat six-figure salary and living in the Ligonier “mansion” (paid for courtesy of Ligonier Ministries donors) have better things to be doing with his time than blogging?

It’s never made any sense to me why Tim Dick has repeatedly complained to unrelated parties about the exposés about him, rather than going directly to the sources of the exposés. In the case of the Hammerman article I verified that Mr. Dick has never contacted Hammerman. Yet Mr. Dick feels perfectly justified in venting his spleen to me about a blog that I didn’t even know about at the time. The places that Tim Dick shows up to defend himself often haven’t ever mentioned a word about him or Ligonier Ministries at all. It’s as though he’s hearing voices coming from everywhere — people taking about him even when they’re not.

Dr. R.C. Sproul, you’re risking your life’s work by continuing to entrust it in the hands of a man who’s showing all the signs of being mentally unstable. It’s well known that your health isn’t good, and it’s well known that Tim is the “heir apparent” of Ligonier. Tim is a novice in Reformed theology and he doesn’t share your passion for Reformed theology. As one who’s admired your work for years I’d urge you to get rid of Tim, or at least put him in a position where he can’t cause you and your ministry any further harm. The world still very much needs the teachings of Ligonier Ministries, and Ligonier can’t survive your own passing if it’s left in the hands of a man of such poor character as Tim Dick.

---

Rules For Posting Comments: Your comments are welcome. All comments are moderated. There are very few comments that I reject, unless they’re off-topic to the subject of the article, or if it’s an issue or a question that I’ve already answered elsewhere. However I especially don’t appreciate Anonymous posts because of the confusion they cause. Use your real name or use an alias, but use a name and continue using the same name if you post here again later.

---