Ligonier Ministries
American Christian organization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ligonier Ministries (also known as simply Ligonier) is an international Christian discipleship organization headquartered in the greater Orlando, Florida area. Ligonier was founded in 1971 by R. C. Sproul in the Ligonier Valley, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh.[1] Ligonier is distinguished by its teaching of Reformed theology.[2]
 | |
| Formation | 1971 |
|---|---|
| Founder | R. C. Sproul |
| Founded at | Ligonier, Pennsylvania |
| Type | Non-profit |
| Headquarters | Sanford, Florida |
Chairman | W. Robert Godfrey |
President and CEO | Chris Larson |
| Website | www |
Ligonier operates Reformation Bible College,[3][2] which offers an unaccredited[a] Bachelor of Arts in Theology as its flagship program, which is recognized by Westminster Theological Seminary, an accredited organization.[5][6] Ligonier also runs annual national conferences on various topics.
Teaching fellows
As of March 2026, the teaching fellows at Ligonier Ministries are the following:[7]
- Sinclair Ferguson (Chancellor's Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary)
- W. Robert Godfrey (president emeritus, professor emeritus of church history, Westminster Seminary California)
- Joel Kim (president, assistant professor of New Testament, Westminster Seminary California)
- Burk Parsons (senior pastor, Saint Andrew's Chapel, Sanford, FL)
- Michael Reeves (president, professor of theology, Union School of Theology)
- Derek Thomas (Chancellor's Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary)
Fellowship history
In early 2010, working to prepare for leadership succession, Ligonier founder and chairman R. C. Sproul[8] appointed Sinclair Ferguson, W. Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, and R. C. Sproul Jr. as the first members of a new teaching fellowship.[9] In 2013, Stephen Nichols was appointed as a fellow,[10] where in 2014 he was named president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer for Ligonier.[3] In 2015, an email address belonging to Sproul Jr. was leaked as part of the July 2015 Ashley Madison data breach. Sproul Jr. claims that he visited the website in August 2014, two and a half years after the death of his wife. After informing the board of Ligonier, Sproul Jr. was suspended from ministry for a year.[11][12][13] In late 2015, Albert Mohler and Derek Thomas were appointed as fellows.[14] In December 2016, Sproul Jr. contacted Sproul and the Ligonier board to resign from his positions at Ligonier and Reformation Bible College, citing "personal reasons."[15][16][17] In 2017, Burk Parsons was appointed as a fellow.[18] After Sproul's death in December 2017,[1] Mohler concluded his fellowship tenure in early 2019.[14] In late 2024, Lawson resigned from his position after confessing to a five-year relational affair.[19][20] In January 2026, Joel Kim and Michael Reeves were appointed as fellows.[21]
PCA conviction of Burk Parsons and departure of Stephen Nichols
In 2019, Ligonier teaching fellow Burk Parsons, being the senior pastor of independent Reformed church Saint Andrew's Chapel (SAC),[b] pled guilty to charges surrounding harsh treatment of congregants.[24] In 2023, SAC joined the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), where Parsons stated, "We need to have that accountability. I made it very clear to our people in preaching. I said, they need to be in a position to be able to take me to court. And they need to be in a position to bring charges against me and bring charges against our elders."[22]
On June 12, 2025, Parsons was found guilty on three charges by a commission of the PCA Central Florida presbytery, involving "domineering [and] contentious leadership ... being harsh, ungentle, and unkind to those under his care ... [and] slandering and demeaning other [ministers] and churches." Parsons pled not guilty to all three charges, where SAC appealed the verdict.[24] On December 14, 2025, before the completion of the appeal process, SAC voted 669–108 to leave the PCA.[25] SAC elder David Zima (who had represented Parsons in 2019 during ecclesiastical trial), concerned of Parsons having "complete, unchecked authority over [SAC]," informed the SAC session that he was leaving the congregation. A former SAC congregant told The Roys Report that Zima "was an outstanding elder ... He had the deepest Presbyterian background of any of the elders and that made him very responsible and responsive to concerns." Another former congregant claimed that the session "wanted to scapegoat David Zima."[22]
On March 8, 2026, the SAC session excommunicated Zima under the charge of contumacy. Two days later, the session also excommunicated Ligonier chief academic officer and Reformation Bible College (RBC) president Stephen Nichols, along with his wife Heidi, under the charge of contumacy. On March 12, 2026, SAC issued two separate letters to its congregation, informing them that Zima and the Nicholses were now "excluded from the sacraments and cut off from the fellowship of Christ's church."[26] The following day, Reformation Bible College announced that Stephen Nichols "will conclude his tenure as president on May 31, 2026," with college board chairman Robert Wohleber stating, "For twelve years, Dr. Nichols has faithfully served Reformation Bible College."[27][28] Nichols was also removed as a Ligonier teaching fellow.[26]
After the publication of the excommunication letters to SAC congregants, Stephen Adams, the former youth pastor of SAC, alleged on social media that Stephen and Heidi Nichols had engaged in harassment against him for years, spreading "vile and wicked slander." Adams also stated, "Think of the worst thing someone in my position could be accused of. Yes, that is what it was." PCA elder Bob Mattes, who had represented the Nicholses in ecclesiastical court, disputed the veracity of Adams' allegations, stating, "It's you who have slandered and harassed the [Nicholses], and likely motivated Ligonier to part ways with them."[26] The Roys Report found that in January 2025, Adams sought to file a harrassment report with the Seminole County Sheriff's Office against the Nicholses, although the sheriff's office deemed the allegations to be "very weak" for a case. The Roys Report also found that in a separate situation, "four men [had] filed a complaint [that accused Adams] of 'lewd and crude behavior' between 2015 and 2020, when they were boys in the youth group." Investigated in December 2025, the committee asked Adams "about multiple instances when he was naked around youth group boys." Adams claimed that he couldn't "remember any of [the instances]." A committee member told The Roys Report that "the reported behavior was not sexual and didn't appear to be criminal." However, the behavior was deemed to be "inappropriate," where they "noted in their final report in January 2026 [that] they did not believe Adams was being truthful." The committee member also told The Roys Report, "In my church, I would have fired [Adams]." The committee did not proceed with charges, as "the men did not want to make public statements about what happened to them." Adams resigned as youth pastor in February 2026, stating that this was "against the wishes of my fellow elders."[29]
Following Adams' allegations, the Nicholses posted to social media a public statement, saying that "both RBC and Ligonier have conducted themselves in an amicable, gracious, and honorable manner during this season of transition, and we have sought to do the same."[30] The Nicholses claim that in January 2024, the counselor of their daughter informed them that he suspected Stephen Adams had sexually abused her several years prior, believing that she was 11 or 12 at the time. After the counselor filed a report with the Florida Department of Children and Families, the "state authorities couldn't investigate ... because the girl didn't cooperate."[29] After informing SAC the following January, the Nicholses and the SAC session disagreed on how to approach the situation.[30] Through bodycam footage obtained by The Roys Report, the Nicholses approached the Seminole County Sheriff's Office in March 2025, sharing the information from the counselor, along with recounting that their daughter had engaged in "repeated instances of self-harm that resulted in hospitalization."[29] The Nicholses began to seek another church in April 2025, notifying a pastor at SAC. Having informed that their last Sunday of attendance would be on July 20, 2025, the SAC session sent indictments to the Nicholses on July 22, being accused of "slander, unresolved anger, collusion to deceive, failure to follow session directives, and breach of membership vows." After SAC voted to leave the PCA in December 2025, the Nicholses immediately resigned their membership and became members of another PCA church. The Nicholses also stated, "We are deeply saddened by all that has taken place and grieved for everyone involved. Our prayer and hope is that the central issue will not be lost. At the heart of this issue is the suspected sexual abuse of our daughter."[30]
Notes
- With regard to accreditation, former Reformation Bible College president Stephen Nichols states the following: "One of the accrediting associations to which many Bible colleges belong, the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), formerly required member institutions to have thirty credit hours of biblical and theological instruction. Recent standards have relaxed that threshold. Historically, Bible colleges have not had robust programs in the humanities and great works, and they have tended not to be Reformed. Bible colleges trace their roots to the Bible institute movement of the early twentieth century, a movement rooted in fundamentalism and dispensationalism."[4]