A Classic Case Of Too Little Too Late

When Frank Vance retired from blogging, he turned over to me his list of contacts. Some of those contacts are Ligonier “insiders.”

John MacArthur Grace To YouThose sources recently told me that some prominent ministry leaders, including John MacArthur, have attempted to have some behind-the-scenes dialogue with RC Sproul, urging him to take responsibility for the incompetence and duplicity of his senior management, particularly over the Ligonier Ministries vs. Frank Vance lawsuit. For many months RC Sproul has been hiding behind his senior management, and for months some of his closest personal ministry friends have urged him to quit you like a man.

John MacArthur went on the record a long time ago about the folly of Christians suing Christians and, apparently, he still takes what he’s said about it seriously enough to confront his friend RC Sproul about it. However, in spite of the good counsel he’s received, RC Sproul has been slow and reluctant to do much of anything.

Now RC Sproul has decided to do something, but what he’s done can only be described as too little too late.

On July 23, RC Sproul, as Chairman of the Ligonier Ministries Board Of Directors, met with fellow Board members, including his wife Vesta Sproul, to discuss crisis management and damage control.

RC Sproul with Tim Dick

The past year has been a difficult one for Ligonier Ministries, and as is so often the case, when a company’s bottom line suffers, someone has to pay for it. The sacrificial lamb is Ligonier’s President/CEO/CFO, Timothy A. Dick. On July 24 Timothy A. Dick was relieved from his position as Ligonier’s top exec. An official announcement from Ligonier Ministries is expected soon.

However, no one should be surprised if Ligonier never makes an announcement about Tim Dick at all. No doubt it would be better for Ligonier, and for RC Sproul in particular, if the memory of Tim Dick quickly faded into obscurity. Everything about The Dick has been a colossal embarrassment to RC Sproul, and it could very well be that even just announcing The Dick’s firing would only bring further embarrassment.

It has yet to be determined if Tim Dick will remain on in any capacity at all at Ligonier. If Tim is offered any other Ligonier position at all, even stockroom boy, he’d probably have to take it, since he’s unlikely to be able to obtain employment anywhere else.

From all accounts, Tim Dick was an utter failure in business, prior to being hired by his father-in-law, RC Sproul. Tim Dick never had any business or ministerial credentials of any kind that could have qualified him to do anything at Ligonier (other than perhaps mail-room boy), let alone be Ligonier’s top executive. Clearly, there is only one reason why Tim Dick was ever appointed as Ligonier’s top executive — he married RC’s daughter, Sherrie Sproul. Needless to say, this calls into question RC Sproul’s own judgment. Regardless of family connections, why would RC Sproul appoint such a profoundly inept and unethical man to such an important position?

Just because Tim Dick has lost the position of top exec doesn’t mean that nepotism is still not alive and well at Ligonier. More than likely, a new position will be created especially for Tim, where he can continue to receive a lavish salary for doing what he’s always done — nothing. Since it wouldn’t look right to pay a stockroom boy a $200,000 plus salary, Tim will likely be given a corner office in the back of the building, along with some kind meaningless position with no authority of any kind, so that he can’t cause Ligonier any further injury. He’ll probably be given some kind of nondescript title. The door of his office might soon say something like, “Assistant Executive Vice President of Ancillary Protuberances”.

RC Sproul's grandson and Ligonier Ministries employee Ryan DickI haven’t heard yet what is to become of Ryan “Partyboy” Dick. Even though he too has proven to be a major embarrassment to Ligonier Ministries (like goldbrick father, like goldbrick son), grandpa still has a tender spot in his heart for Ryan Sproul-Dick. Just like his daddy, Ryan wouldn’t be capable of finding employment that would pay him anywhere near the generous paycheck he’s come to enjoy, let alone permit him to come in hours late to work each day, just to sleep on his desk. So Ryan is likely to remain on at Ligonier for years to come, drawing a generous donor-funded salary and benefits package, in order to fuel his reprobate lifestyle. Ryan also continues to believe that one day he shall “inherit” Ligonier Ministries.

Tim Dick’s termination as President isn’t likely to affect the employment arrangements of any Dick family members. Sherrie will remain on at Ligonier, as will Tim and Sherrie’s children, Ryan and Kaki, as well as Kaki’s husband, John Cobb. The only thing that will change is that Tim Dick will no longer be President. However, the nepotistic practices will continue unaltered, all with RC Sproul’s blessing. As Frank Vance noted several times, the combined annual Ligonier compensation for the Sproul-Dick families exceeds one-million dollars, and that’s not likely to diminish much, if any, even if Tim Dick is no longer President.

Also left unaltered are the Dick family’s living arrangements. They will continue living in the gated-community manor of RC Sproul. Tim moved into the Sproul home shortly after marrying Sherrie Sproul twenty-plus years ago, and he’s been goldbricking it there ever since. He’s also raised his three children there. Tim is the goldbrick among goldbricks. From all accounts, even when he does “work” at Ligonier, he only makes an appearance for about three hours a day. Much of the rest of his day is spent sleeping at home. When Tim is not sleeping he spends much of his time online, posting weird comments all over the internet. For a man who has been paid a lavish $230K salary, plus a generous benefits package, he hasn’t done a thing to earn it. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how Ligonier donors have seen their support funds squandered.

The expectation is that the Ligonier board will announce Tim Dick’s departure was due to health considerations. True, Tim Dick does have health problems. That’s to be expected with anyone who has to lug around over 400 pounds of flab. However, Tim Dick had serious health problems long before RC Sproul promoted Tim to President. Tim Dick’s promotion to Ligonier’s senior executive was obviously in no way hampered by his preexisting health considerations, and his removal wasn’t necessitated by health considerations either.

If Ligonier attempts to use Tim’s health problems as a cover story for his removal, as I suspect they will, that’s all it will be, a cover story. Furthermore, if Ligonier puts out a story that Tim Dick resigned, rather than they terminated him, that will be just another cover story. Regardless of how they spin the announcement, no one should expect it to be the straight story.

The truth is that Tim Dick has been an immense liability to Ligonier Ministries, ever since RC Sproul appointed him to be President in November 2004. From all accounts, Tim Dick’s public relations, interpersonal relations, and business management skills are abysmal, not to mention his grievous ethical problems. Tim Dick has cost Ligonier dearly. Because of Tim Dick’s reckless and unethical actions, Ligonier suddenly experienced a dramatic loss in donor support.

Tim Dick is also responsible for personally ruining the lives of many godly men and women who had labored selflessly and sacrificially for Ligonier Ministries for many years. In order to make room for his own family members, The Dick fired multiple godly and gifted Ligonier employees who were vastly more qualified for the positions than those he replaced them with. In one case, a person that he fired had to be replaced with four new employees, in order to accomplish the same work load that that one employee had been doing for over a decade. The Dick also fired a dozen long-term employees, due to “budget shortfalls,” immediately after he squandered $8 million in 2005 on “the Ligonier mansion.”

The Dick celebrated this truly spectacular profligacy, on a property that sits vacant to this very day, by immediately going out and buying himself a new Lexus. Needless to say, all those fired Ligonier employees weren’t impressed with The Dick’s expensive new car. For such squandering of donor funds Ligonier Ministries received a Free Good News “Hall of Financial Fame and Shame Award.”

RC Sproul Ligonier MinistriesRC Sproul stood by and watched it all happen, never once intervening to prevent the unrighteous firings of those who had presumed that RC was a just and godly man. Under Tim Dick’s leadership, employee morale at Ligonier has reached an all-time low.

Tim Dick’s single greatest public relations disaster was his suing Christian blogger Frank Vance. Frank had written a great deal about the duplicities of Tim Dick, including his story that Tricky Dick orchestrated the theft by deception of Don Kistler’s Soli Deo Gloria Ministries. Tim Dick and Ligonier Ministries sued Frank Vance for Defamation for, among other things, calling Tim Dick a “nincompoop”.

The lawsuit completely backfired on Ligonier. But rather than admitting how wrong they had been to sue a brother in Christ, they covered up the lawsuit, including with members of even their own Board Of Directors. Not only was Tim Dick at the center of the lies and cover ups, senior manager John Duncan (brother and rap-artist homeboy to Ligon Duncan) also directly participated in and aided and abetted the lies. Ligonier Ministries employees were instructed by Ligonier “senior management” to lie to callers. Ligonier Ministries and its senior management lied, and lied and lied again. Rather than just acknowledging to their donors and supporters that they’d sinned, they fabricated one cock-and-bull story after another. A recap of those events can be found here.

The fact that Ligonier Ministries ultimately got rid of Don Kistler only served to confirm what Frank had been saying all along. Ligonier Ministries “acquired” Soli Deo Gloria Ministries by deception, and when Kistler no longer served a useful purpose to them, they discarded him, and this only a matter of weeks after he’d suffered a serious stroke, no doubt brought on in part by the massive stress he’d been put under by having to work in such egregious circumstances.

The removal of Tim Dick as Ligonier’s President will do little to nothing to salvage Ligonier’s badly tarnished image, especially since it took months for RC Sproul to get around to doing it. Given what an asset that Ligonier had been for so many years to the promotion of Reformed theology, this is all a great tragedy, and one from which Ligonier may never recover.

John Duncan Ligonier MinistriesThat will especially be true if all that is done is to replace one unethical man for another unethical man. For example, there has been a great deal of speculation that John Duncan, Ligonier’s Executive Producer, will succeed Tim Dick as President. John Duncan is brother to Mel Duncan, who serves as Ligonier’s Director Of Church Relations. The two Duncans are also brothers to J. Ligon Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi, and a regular speaker at Ligonier conferences.

If John Duncan does in fact succeed Tim Dick, it’s not likely to help Ligonier’s credibility one bit, especially since John Duncan aided and abetted Tim Dick’s lies and cover ups. John Duncan also made at least as many bizarre appearances on the internet as Tim Dick did, posting irrational comments here on Ministry Watchman, and numerous other blogs, as “Passerby,” and under other aliases.

Another possibility could be that J. Ligon Duncan may be asked to take over as Ligonier’s President. Frank Vance discovered months ago that Ligon Duncan is RC Sproul’s hand-picked successor. What this may mean is that when RC Sproul passes on, Ligon Duncan will take over as head minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ligonier Ministries. However, until that happens, Ligon Duncan may be asked to step in as Ligonier’s President. From all accounts, Rev. Ligon Duncan is a very gifted and competent man. No doubt he would be imminently better qualified than Goldbrick Dick. However, it remains to be seen if his ethics are any better than his brother, John Duncan.

Regardless of any shuffling of positions, what really needs to happen is for RC Sproul to do what his friend John MacArthur has apparently been urging him to do — repent and accept responsibility.