Colorado Home School Conference--Part 2
R.C. Sproul, Jr. was the second person we heard speak at the home school conference. Now, I know he's said and done some controversial things recently. I was a bit skeptical myself after reading various internet blogs and sites. But, I listened to him with an open mind, and was pleasantly surprised with both his message and demeanor.
He based his talk upon I Peter 2, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't write down the specific verses to which he referred, but these two seem to relate to his message.
Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps.
1 Peter 2: 17, 21
Sproul preached that a covenant community needs both the love of family and the law of authority. Problems occur when things become too lop-sided on either the covenant side or the community side.
A recurring theme that permeated all of his talks was introduced in this first one. He stressed that we need to love our neighbor and walk humbly with God. We have to guard against thinking we have all the answers, that our church is the only church that is true to the faith. (He was NOT advocating embracing churches that don't adhere to the fundamentals of the faith.) His stress on being humble seemed, to me, to be heartfelt and serious. I have never heard him speak in person before, but I get the sense that he has been humbled by the firestorm he's been through, and that he's learned valuable lessons as a result.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say that R.C. has been diagnosed with cancer. He began chemotherapy just days after he returned to Virginia from Colorado, and thankfully the type he's got is highly treatable. He did not, in any of the talks I heard, mention anything about it. I just learned of it while reading the Highlands Study Center website.
(The above photo comes from this website of family photographs taken in the early 1900s in Texas.)
3 comments:
Deb that's really sad to hear about R.C.'s medical problem. Let's pray he pulls through. Call me a cynic but I've read about so many preachers getting themselves into trouble over abusing their flocks. It's easy to tell if they're sincerely repentant because they'll openly confess their abuses. Has R.C. done that? Anywhere at all? He has made public statements about certain unnamed people stabbing him in the back, but as far as I know he hasn't ever publicly repented of his abuses and he hasn't even done it with the families that he's abused, with the one exception of a family by the name of the Austins. But there are other families that are named in the defrocking document. There's been some lively discussion about that on Doug Wilson's blog, and the CREC, which took Sproul in after the RPCGA defrocked him, has refused to answer questions about R.C.'s repentance. Wilson has even inferred that those four other families are "false witnesses." None of that strikes me as the least bit pastoral. Humility which only is expressed through speeches behind a pulpit can sometimes just be an act.
Stephanie,
Thank you for writing; you have raised some salient points. A few months ago I followed the mouse trail (whatever the equivalent is to a paper trail) and read the apologies that weren't apologies. I looked at the Austins' blog and the defrocking document at that time. I decided then that I wasn't going to spend any more time on it. I needed to spend my time on my family. How could one ever hope to know all there was to know about the situation? I'll probably take a look at Doug Wilson's blog since I am writing about Sproul. But, I want to be careful about jumping to conclusions, either for or against.
John,
Thank you for taking time to comment and provide the links.
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