RC Sproul Jr. Caught in Ashley Madison Hack!

[DomWackTroll]

“In August 2014, in a moment of weakness, pain, and from an unhealthy curiosity, I visited Ashley Madison. My goal was not to gather research for critical commentary, but to fan the flames of my imagination. There I found two gracious judgments. First, I felt the grace of fear. Second, I felt the grace of shame. I was there long enough to leave an old email address. And within minutes I left, never to return. I did not sign up for their service or interact with any clients. I have always remained faithful to my wife even after her passing.â€

rcsprouljr.com/blog/general/judgment-and-grace/

Responses on Facebook:

facebook.com/rcsprouljr/posts/866848513396678

ETA: He's "suspended" from Ligonier Ministries "until July 1, 2016."

[hoipolloi]

Whoa!

Wonder if this has something to do with Darby Sproul Stouffer taking her Twitter & Instagram accounts private in the past week.

[sawasdee]

And so it continues! Isn't it amazing that they all "never interacted" with anybody at AM :whistle:

[hoipolloi]

And so it continues! Isn't it amazing that they all "never interacted" with anybody at AM :whistle:

"Oh, no thanks, Ashley, I'm just looking."

[salex]

Sorry, but RC, Dude, it is better to marry than to burn, so maybe, since the wife has passed on, you should consider remarrying instead of prowling the internet.

Wonder what places he visited (and maybe joined) that haven't been hacked...

[blessalessi]

Aaaand another one compounds his infidelity with lies. :lol:

[Palimpsest]

So he didn't inhale. :roll: Pull the other one R.C., it's got bells on.

Is it wrong that I saw this thread title and laughed?

[DomWackTroll]

Look what this arrogant asshole wrote on July 22:

“I am 50 years old. Which means my understanding of the Internet and all that it does and how it operates is relatively new. I didn’t grow up with it. I have enough Internet skill to help my aging parents. But regularly I need to be helped and rescued by my own children to whom Internet is a second language. I hope, however, that my children still don’t know about Ashley Madison, a website that I only recently learned about… I suspect that there are a lot of people privately sweating.â€

rcsprouljr.com/jce/hacking-ashley-madison/

Why, the only time I go on the internet is to help my aging parents!

[blessalessi]

Yep! I was just coming back to post that too!

What the fuck do they make it so hard for themselves for?! : lol:

But the main thing is, God used AM as a means to bring redemption to the Sproulsprog. So alelujah for that... :geek:

[Marian the Librarian]

"I did not have sex with that woman." "I didn't inhale." "I have some prime oceanfront property in Nebraska I'd like to sell you."

Etcetera.

And, of course, the quibbling FB respondents are already hard at work (not that they get off on it, or anything...):

Norman Patterson Jr. Maybe I am missing something and need to understand more, but isn't there a difference between temptation and sin? To be tempted as you were is far different than putting in your full information and then meeting someone where you then actually engaged in breaking God's law with another person. Isn't sin breaking God's Law? It seems to me this was a moment of temptation and should be regarded and treated as such rather than being treated as if you carried out the actual sin.

Matthew Bedford Regardless of however brief his actions were, they still constituted action in pursuit of something wrong. Temptation is having the thought. Sin is when that thought is entertained or acted upon.

Brief? Yes. Still sin? Yes.

[Cleopatra7]

That anyone would join AM out of curiosity or for research purposes is ridiculous. First of all, it's a pay site, so if you have no intention of hooking up, you're just wasting money. Second, there's no real mystery about AM; it's about cheating, end of story. If you really want to study cheating, there are sociological studies you can look up, though I know many fundies claim not to believe in sociology. Making up these stories about being curious or just doing research just adds lying to the list of transgressions.

[blessalessi]

Look what this arrogant asshole wrote on July 22:

“I am 50 years old. Which means my understanding of the Internet and all that it does and how it operates is relatively new. I didn’t grow up with it. I have enough Internet skill to help my aging parents. But regularly I need to be helped and rescued by my own children to whom Internet is a second language. I hope, however, that my children still don’t know about Ashley Madison, a website that I only recently learned about… I suspect that there are a lot of people privately sweating.â€

rcsprouljr.com/jce/hacking-ashley-madison/

Why, the only time I go on the internet is to help my aging parents!

And worse.... before he was caught out, he tried to liken the use of adultery websites to ..erm... abortion.

The irony of the gospel is that our sins are only covered in so far as we expose them. In order for them to be covered by the blood of Christ, they have to be confessed by the ones committing the sin.

This is precisely what I remind people of when I have opportunity to preach at the local abortion mill in Orlando. “You are here to hide your shame. God in His grace has provided a way for your shame to be covered. And it is by the shedding of innocent blood, but not by the shedding of innocent blood of your child by your hands. Rather, by the shedding of Jesus’ blood Who laid down His life on His own.

[FundieWatcher]

I'm so confused. His wife has passed. He could, in good in conscious, go on a legit dating site to meet single women. Christian Mingle, Our Time, etc... And he wouldnt be doing anything wrong. Why go on a site for married people? Wonder what he will do for money now that he is suspended.

[browncoatslytherin]

what i don't understand is why he even went there, specifically. his wife died in 2011, and afaik he's still single, right? so why not okcupid or eharmony or something like that? i mean, since he admitted to it, obviously he did do it...i'm just not understanding his reasoning.

edit: fundiewatcher beat me to it!

[Palimpsest]

I'm beginning to think that AshleyMaddison.com is written on the walls of the men's restrooms at Fundie events.

And fuck that bullshit R.C. Sproul. I'm 60 years old and, while I didn't grow up with it either, internet use is neither new nor complicated. I've been online for 20 + years!

[ladyamylynn]

Seriously, this guy. Is there anything he can't fuck up?

[Whoosh]

OK - seeing as the only time I go on the internet is to help my aging parents I am confused here. :wink-kitty:

It sounds to me from some brief reading like Mr. Sproul is a widower. As a young(ish) widow, if I were to look for a little love and/or affection on the internet, Ashley Madison would be the last stop on my list as I do not really see how it is possible for me to have an affair at this point in time. I am trying to figure out why this gentleman was on AM rather than any other of the plethora of "relationship" sites and here is what I have come up with.

1. Unlike me, he not only believes in an afterlife, he also believes that "til death do us part" is not applicable and it is possible to cheat on your partner while you are on opposite sides of the veil.

2. He somehow found the idea of a "relationship" more enticing if it would be with someone who was cheating on a spouse or significant other.

3. He had accounts on multiple sites.

4. He believed that his activities on AM would be less likely to be "outed" than activities on another "relationship" site.

Logic is telling me to lean toward choice 4, but logic rarely helps me to understand the behaviors of people discussed on FJ. I am not sure if I am actually looking for an answer here as I think letting my imagination run wild is likely far more entertaining.

[Cleopatra7]

what i don't understand is why he even went there, specifically. his wife died in 2011, and afaik he's still single, right? so why not okcupid or eharmony or something like that? i mean, since he admitted to it, obviously he did do it...i'm just not understanding his reasoning.

edit: fundiewatcher beat me to it!

The only reason I can think of is that he wanted to cheat with a married woman, rather than find a long-term relationship.

[DomWackTroll]

I think he probably just liked the "porn-y" vibe of AM and wanted to have a few hook-ups while he was looking for someone "nice" to court in real life.

[blessalessi]

I'd forgotten he also wrote this piece, defending Josh. I love the new disclaimer at the bottom. :lol:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2015

Ask R.C.: How Should We Respond to the Recent Scandal Regarding Josh Duggar?

We shouldn’t. Sorry to burst the bubble, but unless you are his family, his employer, his elders or his church, it’s none of your business. I am none of those things. Yet I find myself reading about it, praying about it, thinking about it. I get that people are interested. This, after all, is quite a moral train wreck. Given both the high public profile of the Duggar clan, given their pubIlic espousal of counter-cultural sexual ethics, and given the previous scandal it is no surprise that the world is fascinated by this. Indeed perhaps the most discouraging fallout for me has been watching the world dance around Josh’s grave like a pack of hyenas. Some believers, though I have seen precious little of this, seem to be so invested in the Duggars that they are utterly disheartened, or worse, desperately seeking some excuse, some rationalization.

That Josh, as part of his family and to a lesser extent because of his work with the Family Research Council, was something of a “public figure†plays into our interest in the story, but such is not a just reason. It is the titillation of the story that attracts us I suspect, whether we are sheep or goats. For some it encourages a certain smugness-“Josh was a part of this family that served the world as a model of godliness and I haven’t done THAT.†For others it may just be drama for drama’s sake. We wring our hands, while sort of enjoying the fact that, even though it’s bad news, we Christians are in the news.

Sinners sin. Sinners sin spectacularly. Righteous indignation for the victims of our sins is right and fitting. Righteous indignation toward the sinner, however, is far more dangerous, as it carries with it a deep temptation to pride, to, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men…†When a professing believer sins our hearts are not to be warmed, but warned. There but for the grace of God go we.

The church, including the people of God in the Bible, is littered with adulterers, that which Paul says should not be named once among us. It is a grievous sin, a destructive one, an evil one. But it is born out of our own evil hearts, not out of either the enticements of the world, nor a sheltered upbringing. Speculations on some other cause than the fallen human heart are mere platforms for pride. Perhaps worse still they create a false sense of security- “if I don’t do this, or do do that I will be safe from the scourge of infidelity.†That such a posture is folly doesn’t mean wisdom is of no use, that precautions are not in order. Rather it means we must guard our hearts and pray for fidelity. I’m praying for a deeper passion for fidelity in my own heart, and a deeper compassion for the victims of adultery. Truth be told, “How should we respond to…†can likely always be answered well with, “Pray more.†More often than not, it can also be well answered with, “Mind our own business.â€

August 31, 2015 Update to This Article: in light of my public statement here, I believe I should have withheld comment on this matter.

[Palimpsest]

I'd forgotten he also wrote this piece, defending Josh. I love the new disclaimer at the bottom. :lol:

So do I! :cracking-up:

[Marian the Librarian]

He's made a similar disclaimer on his July 22nd post about the AM hacking (quoted in full below, in case he takes it down):

I am 50 years old. Which means my understanding of the Internet and all that it does and how it operates is relatively new. I didn’t grow up with it. I have enough Internet skill to help my aging parents. But regularly I need to be helped and rescued by my own children to whom Internet is a second language. I hope, however, that my children still don’t know about Ashley Madison, a website that I only recently learned about.

Ashley Madison, in some ways, is very much like other websites that I have heard of. Websites like match.com which purport to bring people together with the hope that one day they will get married. There are several categories and even smaller groups with more specific interests; there’s a match website just for farmers; there is one just for Christians; and there is even one just for Reformed Christians. While Ashley Madison does promise to bring people together, it does so by tearing homes apart. You see what makes Ashley Madison unique among all these other websites is that they specialize in bringing together, not people who hope to one day marry, but people who are already married to someone else. It is a website which exists to facilitate adultery.

It is in the news recently, not because it is a new website or a new concept; it is in the news because they have recently been hacked. The hackers who broke into their site were able to retrieve mountains of information including millions of names of people who signed up for this website. And they are not merely showing their computer skills, demonstrating what they can do. They’re actually threatening that if Ashley Madison does not shut down they will publicly release all the names of those who have sought the services of Ashley Madison.

I suspect that there are a lot of people privately sweating, 37 million of them, probably. I wonder how many are going to publicly object and declare the immorality of this hack and this threat. But in doing so, we miss the immorality of the site itself. This is not merely about the private behavior of private citizens, because we are dealing with married people. Marriage, friends, is never only private.

When we are asked to attend a wedding, we don’t merely go there to watch. We are not just an audience that gives an increased level of pomp and circumstance to the ceremony. Rather, we are called to go as witnesses to the wedding. We are there to publicly witness solemn vows being made between a man and his wife. So these folks who are using Ashley Madison are people who have publicly married and who are cheating.

The reality is that nothing that we do is private. Not because of the shocking reach of the Internet, not because of the devious skills of hackers, but rather because all that we do is known by the One who knows all things. The reality is that we all sin before the eyes of the watching God of Heaven and Earth. Not only that, but all of our sins will one day be publicly exposed. On that great day of judgment, there will be no delete; there will be no erase; there will be no way to hide all that all of us have done. It is my hope that this kind of cyber assault might wake us up to that reality.

My prayer is that we, even if we haven’t committed adultery, even if we haven’t flirted with committing adultery, even if we just learned about Ashley Madison, would just recognize and embrace the biblical truth that our sins will find us out.

The glory of the gospel is that, for believers, our sins are covered. The irony of the gospel is that our sins are only covered in so far as we expose them. In order for them to be covered by the blood of Christ, they have to be confessed by the ones committing the sin. This is precisely what I remind people of when I have opportunity to preach at the local abortion mill in Orlando. “You are here to hide your shame. God in His grace has provided a way for your shame to be covered. And it is by the shedding of innocent blood, but not by the shedding of innocent blood of your child by your hands. Rather, by the shedding of Jesus’ blood Who laid down His life on His own.â€

We are all sinners, and we are all, in ourselves, justly under the wrath of God, and we will all give an answer for all that we’ve done, all that we’ve said, all that we’ve thought, and for every website we have visited. It will all come out. But those of us who, by God’s grace, have been given new hearts, who’ve been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who’ve cried out to God for mercy in Christ, we will, at the end of that frightening day, hear these words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into thy reward.†Not because we have done well, but because Jesus did. And Jesus changes everything.

August 31, 2015 Update to This Article: in light of my public statement here, I believe I should have withheld comment on this matter.

[Howl]

Is this the same RC Sproul who spanked his late wife and likes to drink?

If so, not much mystery about what he was looking for on AM. :o

My prayer is that we, even if we haven’t committed adultery, even if we haven’t flirted with committing adultery, even if we just learned about Ashley Madison, would just recognize and embrace the biblical truth that our sins will find us out.

As one of the FJ commenters sometimes says, "Da fuq?"

[blessalessi]

When I first heard about the hack, I thought it was wrong.

Now, I can't wait to see which fundie fucker is next!

Dougie, are you sweating....? :lol:

[ladyamylynn]

When I first heard about the back, I thought it was wrong.

Now, I can't wait to see which fundie fucker is next!

Dougie, are you sweating....? :lol:

Meanwhile, Pa Botkin and Perry C. shift uncomfortably in their chairs...