Reformed Champion
We desperately miss R.C. Sproul (1939-2017). There are so few men like him.
As I grow older (I’m 45) and labor longer in the ministry (23 years) I appreciate more and more those rare, faithful men who make it to the end of their career, having held fast the faith. So few remain orthodox. So few remain faithful to their wives. So precious few die without causing the church to stumble in a moral or financial scandal. Sproul was such a man.
I met Dr. Sproul four times in my life, and we shared laughs together each time we spoke. He had hundreds (probably thousands) of similar encounters with his readers and radio listeners over the years. He was truly “a gentleman and a scholar.” A whirlwind of orthodoxy, charm, and brains.
Not only did R.C. Sproul make it to the end of his journey without a major scandal, he seems to have excelled in everything he did. He could teach. He could preach. He could write. He could laugh heartily. He launched a veritable movement of renewed interest in Reformed theology. He packed out conferences, and launched new institutions. He combatted heresy, loved people well, and stayed true to his college sweetheart.
Oh Lord give us a few more men like this in our day!
Stephen J. Nichols worked closely with R.C. over the years, not only as a teaching fellow in Ligonier ministries, but also as the institutional head of the Reformation Bible College, which Sproul founded, and so seemed in a good place to write this new biography, R.C. Sproul: A Life.
Local History
One of the reasons that I wanted to dive into this new biography by Nichols is that Sproul touched my own life deeply. Well do I remember listening to Renewing Your Mind on my commutes to Bible college in the 1990’s. His books The Holiness of God and Chosen by God were so fundamental to my education as a Presbyterian-in-training, that I can still remember the smell and feel of the paper in each book. I read them 20 years ago.
Now, ministering in a local church in Western Pennsylvania, I regularly meet people that knew Sproul intimately. His shadow looms large here. His footprints can still be seen in the grass on the rolling hills and on the steep streets of Pittsburgh. I couldn’t wait to hear some of the stories of Sproul’s earlier years, as Nichols names specific churches and neighborhoods within a few minutes of my position here in Butler County. Nichols wrote, for instance, about Sproul’s brief stint in a church in Lyndora that I drive past every time I pick up my daughter from school (65-67). I had no idea!
I gobbled up the local history that Nichols presented with eagerness. I would have liked to hear even more such anecdotes from Nichols about the Presbytery of the Ascension which R.C. Sproul helped to found; the same presbytery that I serve in today. But as much as I loved hearing about the bridges and boroughs of Pittsburgh, Nichols had to take us beyond them.
From Pittsburgh to the World
Though Sproul loved the Steel City, and his passion for Yinzers never faded, the Lord had bigger things for this gifted servant. Eventually, R.C. was lifted from a local phenom to a global celebrity. Nichols takes the reader deftly through the story of Ligonier’s rise to prominence as a discipleship ministry, leaping too quickly perhaps at times, when I wanted to linger. He surveys the initial placement of each of R.C.’s well-known landmarks: Table Talk magazine, the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast, the editing of the Reformation Study Bible, the planting of St. Andrews Church, and the founding of Reformation Bible College.
Part of the challenge that Nichols faced in writing this biography is the difficulty of telling the Sproul narrative in a fresh way. Many of the stories were told over the years by Sproul himself. So I felt for Nichols as he attempted to tell us again of Sproul’s conversion experience at Westminster College, or of Sproul’s conversations with John Gerstner, or of his love for Moby Dick. If you had ever been to a Ligonier Conference or watched Sproul’s tapes, you probably have already heard Sproul growl in his characteristic style through his trademark exegesis of Uzzah and the Ark. Nichols covers all of this material accurately enough as a biographer, but really shines as a writer when he fills in the gaps between the stories we already know so well. For instance, Sproul’s letter to a dying James Montgomery Boice is worth the price of the book itself (234-235).
Ardent fans of R.C. Sproul—those who attended his conferences and subscribed to the tape ministry from the early days—will greatly enjoy the ride. In this sense, it is a sentimental stroll down memory lane, as we smile approvingly through Nichol’s laudatory account of the growth of Sproul’s ministry.
The Luther of Our Age
Throughout the book, Nichols does something rather clever as an author. He also tells the story of the Reformer Martin Luther too at various points along the way (208-213; 270-273). Though Nichols never comes out and says “Sproul was the Luther of our day,” readers will pick up on the comparison implicitly, and see Sproul as Nichols undoubtedly does: as a Modern Reformer, posting Gospel-rich materials through modern forms of media rather than upon oaken church doors.
Time and again, Sproul is presented as a man who stood his ground against the errors and heresies of his day. Like a stalwart knight of the faith, Sproul took up sword and buckler against modernism, Arminianism, and secularism; but did so with charm and aplomb, even when his stand caused him to break ranks with his colleagues. The Evangelicals and Catholics Together controversy, which roiled Sproul greatly, is a quintessential example (197-203).
Critique
I would have liked more inside information on some of the internal debates — both formal and informal — that Sproul had participated in. His friendly sparring matches with men like MacArthur (on baptism) and with Bahnsen (on presuppositional apologetics) were electric. It would have been fun to have been taken into the locker room before and after the joust. But that this part of the story is left out is not a significant complaint. My bigger concern is with another part of the story that it does not tell. There are very few, if any, accounts in which R.C. is presented as a mere mortal. Nichols presents Sproul as Achilles without the vulnerable heel. He has the gift of Midas in which everything he touches turns to gold. Everything that Sproul attempts is ultimately successful in this biography. Every institution that he founds, thrives. His ministry is ever advancing, and never retreating. No endeavor fails.
As Nichols tells the story of Sproul’s life, the Venerable Presbyterian hits a home run in every game, and a hole-in-one from every tee (see pages 29 and 284). We are even told that he wrote out his books in full—in perfect form—in the first draft on yellow notepads, “without edits or cross-outs or false starts” (298).
Sharp readers know for a fact that there is more to the story of his controversial son R.C. Sproul Junior leaving the Ligonier teaching fellowship. But tellingly, Nichols’s only reference to the Ashley Madison debacle is a footnote citing a broken-link statement, which Ligonier scrubbed from the internet before the publication of this book (footnote #27, page 270).
We know that Luther lost his temper and cursed his rivals, Edwards owned slaves, Spurgeon struggled with depression, and Bunyan battled with suicidal thoughts. But the man that Nichols presents in the pages of this work never even stubs a toe. The reader asks, Is this even possible? Is this what we are to expect from our ministers too? Is this what we should expect from ourselves?
Biography, in its best form, presents the protagonist as one whose struggles are those that are shared by the reader. Biographies stir the soul inasmuch as the hero of the story must fight tooth and nail to overcome his dire circumstances, inspiring the reader to do likewise. But this book contains no struggle. No fight. There is no battle with Apollyon, no Swamp of Despond, no Giant’s Castle. We are left to conclude either that Sproul rarely faltered as mortals do, or perhaps that Nichols wrote too soon, from a position too close, with too much to lose.
Conclusion
Overall, it will be hard to dispute the case that Stephen J. Nichols is making throughout: that R.C. Sproul was a great man who ably defended the faith, winsomely presented Christ to a large audience, inspired myriads to dig deeper into Scripture, and refused to bury his “five talents” in the sand (Matthew 25:14-30). Famous or not, through many failures or few, may we go and do likewise, and may God give us a new generation of champions.
Dr. Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Gospel Fellowship PCA. He is an enthusiast for Biblical Greek, and a Jonathan Edwards scholar. His newest book, “Holy Living: Jonathan Edwards’s Seventy Resolutions for Living the Christian Life”(Hendrickson, 2021) is now available in print.
