Honor As A Defining Principle Of Life: What Should Ligonier Leaders Do?

During this year, much has been written on the topic of honor in Reformed circles. In fact, in May of this year, Ligonier Ministries Chairman RC Sproul spoke at a conference on the fifth commandment and honor, hosted by his son, RC Sproul, Jr. The conference was entitled “Generations: Giving Honor to Whom Honor is Due.”

Ironically, just shortly prior to the conference RC Sproul, Jr. had been defrocked for a number of dishonorable and remarkably unpastoral acts, including ecclesiastical abuse against several families in Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, stealing and illegally using another church denomination’s tax identification number, and a list of additional charges constituting insubordination and vow breaking against the Presbytery that ordained him.

Many were deeply offended that a newly defrocked Presbyterian minister was hosting a conference on “honor” when he had just received the military equivalent of a courts martial and dishonorable discharge.

Unfortunately, some of the recent writing and teaching by several Reformed leaders on the subject of honor has focused almost exclusively on the responsibility of the sheep to act honorably to their shepherds, while largely ignoring the responsibility of the shepherds to lead as honorable examples. Several of these Reformed leaders have openly and publicly sided with the defrocked RC Sproul Jr, not the least of whom was his father.

Frank Vance was ultimately sued by Ligonier Ministries in an effort to silence his criticisms of the dishonorable way that Ligonier Ministries has conducted itself, as well as Ligonier’s obvious lack of accountability. Based upon the Ligonier Ministries lawsuit against a man who professes Christ as Savior, filed only three months after the Honor conference, perhaps it is time to correct the balance of the teaching on this subject by focusing on honor as it applies to leaders.

As one blogger on the subject of the Ligonier Ministries lawsuit noted, America’s future military leaders (whether saved or unsaved) are expected to adhere to an Honor Code (a code that begins with the words “a cadet will not lie”), while receiving a taxpayer-funded education at our country’s military academies. If unbelieving leaders are expected to uphold such a standard, should not we have even higher standards and expectations of our religious leaders?

The answer to this question is a resounding “Yes.” We should expect more from our religious leaders because the very nature of spiritual leadership involves entrusting the leader with the care and concern for our very souls.

So what is wrong at Ligonier? There are many problems, but one thing in particular especially stands out: a lack of accountability. There is apparently no genuine accountability at Ligonier Ministries, and certainly no accountability comparable with what we would expect to see were Ligonier an integrated ministry of a church denomination, such as the PCA where RC Sproul parks his ordination. One has to wonder why RC Sproul believes his PCA ordination has any real value at all (other than perhaps strictly for image purposes) when he’s done nothing to make himself accountable to the PCA, either through his ministry, or even in the independent nondenominational church that he pastors. In PCA vernacular, RC Sproul is “ministering out of bounds.” In RC Sproul’s case, “Presbyterian” is an impressive label with no real substance.

Just as apparent with Ligonier is the lack of accountability that’s in any way comparable to what we find in our country’s service academies. That begs the question: Why do the unsaved recognize the necessity for accountability in a secular Honor Code, but the ministry led by one of the elder statesmen of Reformed theology has no genuine accountability system in place?

The first part of this answer begins with the rejection of biblical standards: Ligonier’s leaders have tossed aside the Holy and Infallible Word of God. The best current evidence for this is that they filed a lawsuit against a fellow believer. After the fact, when their phones started ringing off the hook with angry calls from their own financial supporters, then they started practicing a form of Pharisaical contortionism in order to justify their unbiblical action. Had Ligonier Ministries been under some form of genuine accountability, it’s unlikely that they would have been able to file the lawsuit in the first place. Until such time as they are brought under biblical accountability, it’s very likely that there will be additional abuses in the future.

During the Exodus, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, suggested a solution to dealing with the disagreements of the Hebrew slaves recently liberated from Egyptian bondage. The system that spared Moses from settling every dispute personally ensured multiple levels of review and accountability. This pattern of biblical accountability, including appeal to higher church “courts” (with “appellate review” capability), is healthy for the church, and for church ministries, for it establishes a hierarchical system of decision-making review.

Again, the secular legal system incorporates just this type of process to protect the rights of either the criminal or civil defendant. Interestingly enough, a good deal of our nation’s Constitutional Republic system of checks and balances, accountability, and right of appeal came as a direct result of the influence of the Presbyterian clergyman and Founding Father, John Witherspoon. Yet the church in America in recent years has, on the whole, largely abandoned these principles of justice that made America the envy of the world, principles that originated back in the time of Moses.

From all appearances, it seems the lack of decision-making review in the Ligonier vs. Vance lawsuit is responsible for the ministry’s failure to examine the second and third order effects of suing Frank Vance. One has to ask “why” no one in Ligonier saw the obvious repercussions associated with suing a fellow believer. The failure to consider fully the ripples emanating from the filing of a lawsuit is a failure of leadership at the highest level of Ligonier, not just the CEO and senior management positions, because it exemplifies the aforementioned lack of accountability and review process.

Moreover, to suggest the organization did not believe Vance to be a Christian is disingenuous at best and, at worst, a lie. Vance has referred to his elders on his website which, by definition, means he is a member of a church with elders and thus should be a presumed believer. If Ligonier had any doubt, they should have just emailed and asked him: “Are you a Christian?” before filing suit. Regardless of Vance’s eternal state, the mere filing of a lawsuit by a Christian ministry is a serious matter, and RC Sproul, Tim Dick, and senior management (John Duncan) should have considered the full range of possible ramifications, as it pertained to their stakeholders (donors and fellow Christians) before acting in such an unchristian manner.

Another serious failure that must be placed at all the leadership’s feet is the lack of a dismissal of the lawsuit while simultaneously reporting the suit was dropped via email to a select group of bloggers. Who is in charge at Ligonier – management or the lawyers? The lawyers work for Ligonier, and any senior manager could have easily picked up the phone (even in the middle of the night) and told their attorneys to draft the requisite paperwork for a dismissal and file it when the court opened the following morning. This could have and should have been initiated before releasing a statement claiming that the lawsuit had been withdrawn.

At the very least, Ligonier could have honestly stated, “We have requested our attorney to submit the appropriate paperwork; it is in process, and will be completed soon.” Instead, every member of senior management is now further suspect in light of the blatant distortions surrounding the alleged dismissal, as well as that Thursday’s maneuvering by Ligonier’s lawyers seeking a way to legally serve Vance and thereby prolong the lawsuit.

So what is the solution to the debacle at Ligonier?

To answer this question fully we need to review the chronology of the lawsuit.

• Ligonier Ministries and Tim Dick, filed a lawsuit against Frank Vance, a professing believer in Christ and author of the Contending for the Truth website, on August 25, 2006, for alleged defamation. (Note that the suit was filed before Vance posted about Don Kistler, so the statement released by Ligonier on this subject is not related to the lawsuit.)
• Ligonier and Tim Dick requested from the court as relief (1) monetary damages of at least $15,000 plus costs and attorney fees, and (2) an injunction to stop Vance from posting more critical comments on his website in the future (this is known as prior restraint).
• Along with the lawsuit, Ligonier and Tim Dick filed an “emergency” motion with the court without Vance present (an “ex parte hearing”) to try to obtain an immediate temporary injunction to shut down Vance’s website. The lawyer who signed the emergency motion certified, as an officer of the court, that Vance need not be present to present his side of the story because there was no way to contact him. This, of course, was a lie.
• Ligonier Ministries personnel repeatedly changed their stories as to the existence of and the nature of the lawsuit. Some even went so far as to deny the existence of the suit, even though it had been reported in the Orlando Sentinel (does anyone read USA Today at Ligonier?).
• Tim Dick sent an email to a select group of bloggers after close of business on Friday, September 22, 2006, with links to two statements on a private part of the Ligonier website, statements which had been posted two days prior on September 20. Those statements, issued nearly a month after the filing of the suit, included a claim that the complaint had been “withdrawn” which, as we know now, was a blatantly false statement. However, the statements did not include any language of repentance for filing the lawsuit in the first place or for false statements made subsequently.
• Not only had the lawsuit NOT been dismissed by September 20, 2006, but, based on a court hearing in the case file at the court, Ligonier’s lawyers were petitioning the judge about how to advance the pace of the lawsuit as late as Thursday, September 21, 2006 (the day after Ligonier’s public statements announcing that they had withdrawn the lawsuit).
• Ligonier ultimately did withdraw their lawsuit, but not until September 27, a full week after they had posted their public statements stating that the lawsuit “had been withdrawn.”
• Ligonier withdrew their lawsuit, but also stipulated that they did so “without prejudice,” meaning they reserved the right to sue again. Based upon an interview that Ligonier’s attorney, Daniel Brodersen, gave to the Orlando Sentinel, suing Frank Vance again does indeed appear to be their intention.

Regardless of when the lawsuit was finally withdrawn, it is clear that Ligonier management has been the source of too many conflicting accounts and outright lies about the lawsuit. This isn’t just a failure of leadership, it’s a crisis of leadership. No one else is to blame; the lawyers cannot be blamed, the junior-level employees cannot be blamed, the customer service representatives do not share the blame. It is solely the failure of the Ligonier management – including Dr. RC Sproul, Sr. – to provide Christian leadership and to conduct their actions in a biblical and Christ-honoring manner.

So what is the succinct answer to the problem at Ligonier? The leadership needs to do the honorable thing – they need to resign.

If the CEO (Tim Dick) and the General Manager (John Duncan) of a Christian parachurch ministry don’t know the Sacred Text well enough to know that Christians do not sue Christians; if the CEO and General Manager can’t inform the ministry’s lawyers (who allegedly recommended the lawsuit) that Christians do not sue Christians (Are Ligonier’s lawyers professing Christians and if not, why not? And if they are not, then why is Ligonier concerned about Frank Vance’s relationship with the Most High God?); and if the board members are not willing to hold the CEO and General Manager responsible by demanding a public apology (not an unrepentant, self-justifying apology hidden in a special link on the Ligonier website), as well as public repentance, and public contrition on behalf of the ministry; then all the leadership has but one choice: They are duty bound to do the honorable thing, and the honorable thing in this situation is resignation.

A Final Word Concerning Dr. RC Sproul

One of the definitions for honor includes “a keen sense of ethical conduct.” Not only do the machinations associated with Ligonier’s lawsuit demonstrate a complete lack of ethical conduct, the resultant obfuscation, “spin,” and morally bankrupt blame-shifting on the part of Ligonier’s management team demands these individuals do the honorable thing in this instance – resign en masse and spare Christendom any more pain and embarrassment.

However, even if all of Ligonier’s senior managers resign, including Tim Dick and John Duncan, there is still the issue of Dr. Sproul’s, as well as America’s other Reformed leaders’, silence. These men and women (Joni, do you hear this?) need to publicly repent for their poor examples of leadership and failure to hold their fellow leaders at Ligonier accountable for their gross public sin and besmirching of Christ’s visible church. If they do not, then perhaps we need to worry more about the state of their eternal souls than we do about whether these leaders were responsible for filing an unbiblical lawsuit or providing tacit approbation by their silence.

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