Rev. R. C. Sproul died of pulmonary disease (COPD) on December 14.
Who was he? His Wikipedia entry is a good introduction. So is this. He wrote 90 books. He produced over 300 lecture series. As I like to say, he cranked it out.
He left several legacies. He was a successful pastor. He was an even more successful apologist for Protestant Christianity, and specifically historic Calvinism. By "apologist," I do not mean someone who says he is sorry. In Christian academic circles, apologetics means an intellectual defense of the faith. He created a ministry, Ligonier Ministries, which was devoted to a philosophical defense of the faith. A lot of people went through the program. He was also a popular speaker at Christian conferences.
I knew him for over 20 years. I am part of a rival apologetics movement known as presuppositionism. The founder of that movement was a professor of mine in seminary, Cornelius Van Til. Sproul and Van Til had very different approaches to the philosophical defense of the faith. He was an inductivist, meaning an a posteriorist. I dedicated a 1994 book to him: Leviticus: An Economic Commentary.
Of all the modern defenders of Calvinism, Sproul was by far the most proficient technologically. His DVD's circulated widely.
He had a disarming approach. It was similar to the approach used in the mid-1950's by the Catholic bishop and philosopher, Fulton J. Sheen. Of course, no Christian apologist ever had an audience as large as Sheen did. He had literally tens of millions of viewers. His weekly TV show sometimes out-pulled Milton Berle's variety show. No theologian ever matched Sheen's Nielsen ratings. But Sproul had a large audience, at least when compared with other Protestant apologists.
His videos were low-cost productions, as were Sheen's. He simply sat in a chair and talked. He talked really well. Here is an example. He is standing up. You should watch five minutes of it. This will give you a good sense of what somebody who knows how to talk well can do in front of an audience.
He was not well known in Christian circles for his clear understanding of business. He wrote an important book on business: Stronger Than Steel: The Wayne Alderson Story (Harper & Row, 1980). I wanted to use this book in my Business I course for the Ron Paul Curriculum. The book is long out of print. I wanted to produce a PDF. I contacted him about this. Sadly, he did not own the copyright for the book.
Here, I want to introduce you to Wayne Alderson. Sproul was convinced that Alderson was a pioneer of successful business management. Alderson took a company that was close to bankruptcy and, with no infusion of new money, restored the company to profitability. The story of how he did this deserved to be told, and Sproul told it well.
If you have the time, you should watch this documentary. First, here is a promotional video about the documentary. This will let you know if the full documentary is worth your time.
The second video is the complete documentary. Unfortunately, it is a copy of a copy, and it may be a copy of a copy of a copy. It is a low-quality video visually, but the quality of the message is worth putting up with. The visual quality of the video improves a little after the introduction. The introduction is presented by Ben Kinchlow, who was the co-host on Pat Robertson's 700 Club.
What impressed me about this story is the fact that Alderson designed and then implemented a program of applied Christianity in the workplace. It was not a form of evangelism to join a specific church. It was unquestionably a practical application of fundamental principles of morality that are taught by Christianity. This is why R. C. Sproul was the ideal theologian to write the book.
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