R. C. Sproul facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
R. C. Sproul
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| Born |
Robert Charles Sproul
February 13, 1939 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| Died | December 14, 2017 (aged 78) Altamonte Springs, Florida, U.S.
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| Education | Westminster College Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Whitefield Theological Seminary |
| Occupation | Professor, pastor |
| Spouse(s) |
Vesta Ann Voorhis
(m. 1960) |
| Children | 2, including R. C. Sproul Jr. |
| Theological work | |
| Tradition or movement | Reformed |
| Main interests | Classical apologetics Systematic theology Biblical Inerrancy |
Robert Charles Sproul (/sproʊl/ sprohl; 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. 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, of which Sproul, alongside Norman Geisler, was one of the chief architects. Sproul has been described as "the greatest and most influential proponent of the recovery of Reformed theology in the last century."
Education and personal life
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 obtained degrees from Westminster College, Pennsylvania (BA, 1961), Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (MDiv, 1964), the Free University of 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. 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.
He married Vesta Voorhis in 1960 and had two children, Sherrie Dorotiak and Robert Craig Sproul.
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.
Career
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. 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".
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.
Health and death
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).
See also
In Spanish: R. C. Sproul para niños
