Ashley Madison Hack
Ashley Madison bills itself as "the world's leading married dating service for discreet encounters." If you're married but want to screw other people, this is the place for you. Their slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair."
The company received attention on July 15, 2015, after hackers stole all of their customer data—including emails, names, home addresses, sexual fantasies and credit card information—and threatened to post all the data online if Ashley Madison and fellow Avid Life Media site EstablishedMen.com were not permanently closed. By July 22, the first names of customers were released by hackers, with all of the user data released on August 18, 2015.
R. C. Sproul, Jr: Liar Exposed
A LOT of prominent cheaters were "outed" by the Ashley Madison hack. (Josh Duggar was one.) I found the details of one of these prominent cheaters fascinating. I'm posting here an overview, my reaction, and publicly posted documents by minister RC Sproul, Jr. His narcissistic behavior has been well documented over decades, and somebody was upset enough about it to blog the details: http://rc-sproul-jr.blogspot.com
Overview of Sproul's Ashley Madison reveal:
December 2011: Minister Sproul's wife dies of cancer. RC Sproul Jr. is the son of Robert Charles Sproul, founder of the teaching fellowship Ligonier Ministries.
January 2012: Minister Sproul writes about removing his wedding band 40 days after his wife's death. He describes his very holy marriage–in service to the Lord!–which ended with his wife's death.
August 2014: Sproul visits Ashley Madison website for "a few minutes." (At least this is what Sproul admits to us later.)
July 2015: Sproul comments on the Ashley Madison hack, noting that he has no internet skills and has not actually seen the site, but he knows it's a website to facilitate adultery–it's sinful!–and that a lot of people must be sweating it out, worried that they might be on the list.
July 2015: Sproul comments on Josh Duggar appearing on the Ashley Madison list. He ends by saying that people should mind their own business.
August 2015: Things take a bit of a turn when, a month later, Sproul is outed on Ashley Madison. Sproul assures us it was only a "moment" of weakness after his wife died. He "only" left an old email address. We're supposed to believe he didn't create an account. One wonders why, if it was so innocuous, he failed to mention this momentary lapse in his commentary a month earlier.
August 2015: Sproul is suspended from ministry for a year, although he continues to be paid an undisclosed amount from the church that is run by his family.
October 2016: Sproul remarries. (To his wife, I say, "Good luck with that.")
November 2016: Sproul is arrested for drunk driving after driving off the road with two minor children in the car.
December 2016: Sproul resigns from ministry.
June 2017: Sproul pled guilty to operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a passenger under the age of 18. His three other criminal charges, two misdemeanors and one other felony, were dismissed under a plea agreement. He was sentenced to 1 year and 183 days incarceration. That prison sentence was suspended and he was remanded to "1 year active adult probation." He now has a permanent felony criminal record.
My reaction
If you take the time to read the details I have posted below, you will see Sproul's writing is an excellent illustration of the way a typical narcissistic addict reacts and throws meaningless semi-apologies when he's "discovered."
This is what I have to say to Mr. Sproul:
You really expect us to believe that in "a moment of weakness," nearly three years after your wife died, you accessed a website that you yourself described as one which "exists to facilitate adultery?" Why would you, as a single man, visit Ashley Madison instead of, say, ChristianMingle or eHarmony? Sorry, I don't believe you were "just curious." I suspect you signed up with that "old" email address when it was a current email address and you were a married man. I suspect you, a father of eight, frequented Ashley Madison and other similar sites for many years.
Why do I reach that conclusion? It's the way you write about how holy and Christian you are. It's the words you select like "shame" and "ritual," terms favored by sex addicts. It's the way you blogged about Ashley Madison in July 2015 as if you knew almost nothing about it. It's the way you indicate in your painful admission of guilt that you barely had time to put in your email address. Guess what? I have been on Ashley Madison – it's one of the places where I looked for evidence of my husband's sexual addiction. I know that you put in your email address AFTER you input information about your sexual preferences. It took more than five minutes to do that.
Mr. Sproul, you have a history of being a fraud: You were deposed / defrocked in January 2006 by the Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly (RPCGA) under charges including "abuse of authority in an inexcusable manner" against several families, alleged illegal use of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP)'s tax identification number, planting a church without authority, and practicing paedocommunion. It's lucky you have had your family to protect you from repercussions for so long.
I know that liars can be very adept at making terrifically plausible excuses. I don't buy yours. I am glad to see that your 2016 DUI has resulted in your resignation from ministry.
For more about Sproul's Ashley Madison scandal, read this blog:
http://rc-sproul-jr.blogspot.com/2015/09/rc-sproul-jr-only-visited-ashley-madison.html
Details You Can Read for Yourself
January 2012
This what Mr. Holier-Than-Thou has to say about marriage in 2012, shortly after his "beloved" wife died of cancer:
http://rcsprouljr.com/blog/the-kingdom-notes/the-kingdom-notes-forty-days-of-mourning/
Because we are modernists and Gnostics we love to pretend that symbols and rituals have no meaning, that all that matters is what is in our hearts. Because we are humans, and image bearers, we find we cannot escape symbols and rituals. When my wife and I were married almost twenty years ago there were precious few surprises. Black tux for me, white dress for her. Traditional hymns were sung, traditional vows were taken. She processed with her father, and recessed with me. And in between, we exchanged rings–simple, traditional, gold rings. The only twist remained within the tradition, inside the ritual. Inside our rings we had inscribed Joshua 24:15- As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Too many pundits tell us that if we want to have a successful marriage we need to make Jesus the center of it. He is the glue, the center, the guide. There is wisdom here, but also danger. Is Jesus a means to a happy marriage? No, He is the end. Jesus does not exist for our marriages. Rather, our marriages exist for Him
Denise and I married not for ourselves, but that we might serve the Lord. We committed from the beginning not that I would die to self for her sake, nor that she would die to self for mine. Instead we would both strive to die to self for Him. We would pursue not our own happiness, but His glory. And in losing our individual lives, we found our one life together.
Jesus did not, forty days ago, take Denise from me. She was never mine to begin with. He placed her under my care. He blessed me with her wisdom, with her example, with her love. But she was then what she is now, and will always be, His.
I too belong to Him. I asked Him to give me forty days to mourn–to devote time, space, energy to entering into my loss. Those forty days have drawn to a close. Crossing this barrier, stepping out of the ash-pile, however, hasn’t changed my heart. Indeed despite recognizing the objective wisdom of my friend who suggested that I give myself over to mourning for forty days, I find myself not wanting to let go. I know, as I knew from the beginning that moving past this forty days will not end my sadness. I fear, however foolishly however, that it will end her, that she will pull further away from me. I fear that I would be giving up the ghost, which seems to be all I have left of her. The dust of her death has become my familiar familiar.
The irony is the matching fears. That is, in putting that ring on Denise’s finger, in that ritual pregnant with promise and meaning, I was afraid. Could I be the kind of godly husband she deserved? Would I be faithful in leading her? It is the same fear that haunts me now. Will I honor her memory by being the man she helped make? Will I be faithful to her memory, and our pledge? And the mirror of that fear is in the mirror of the ritual. On this, my fortieth day of mourning my beloved, I remove the ring she put on my finger. I cried through putting her ring on, even as I cry in taking mine off.
The ring reminded me not that my life was committed to Denise, but that our lives were committed to the Lord. Its absence, I pray, will remind me still of the message inside. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. God called me to be a husband for almost twenty years. He has called me to be a servant, a soldier, a disciple and a friend for always. Pray that I would be faithful.
July 2015: Sproul comments on Ashley Madison Leak
Before the Ashley Madison names were revealed, Sproul pretended as if he had just learned about Ashley Madison:
http://rcsprouljr.com/jce/hacking-ashley-madison/
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.”
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.
July 2015: Sproul comments on Josh Duggar & Ashley Madison Leak
Pastor Sproul could not resist the temptation to respond when Josh Duggar is revealed as one of the cheaters on Ashley Madison. Interestingly, his response is that we should "mind our own business."
http://rcsprouljr.com/blog/how-should-we-respond-to-the-recent-scandal/
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 public 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.”
August 2015: Sproul's name is on the Ashley Madison list
Oops! Sproul's name turns up on the Ashley Madison list. It's a shame he failed to mention this in his first commentary on Ashley Madison a month earlier. Hey, Rev. Sproul: When you're discovered in a lie, it makes all future explanations suspect.
http://rcsprouljr.com/blog/general/judgment-and-grace/
The message of God’s prophets in the Old Testament amounted to this–God is not pleased with what you are doing. Repent. We miss that prophets were agents of grace as were the judgments promised. The purpose, in both instances, was to be a goad to repentance, a wake-up call. The same is true today as God works in and through providence. For the believer, judgment is always a work of God’s grace, a goad to repentance. Many Christians have bemoaned the destruction wrought by the Ashley Madison hack. The truth of the matter is that just as Ashley Madison did not create unfaithful hearts, so this hack did not create damning exposure. Rather for some it was a means of His grace.
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.
The grace of God’s judgment bore its fruit, and by His grace I repented of my sin. By His grace, I have also received His forgiveness, the outworking of His love. Prophetic providence had done its good office. Jesus died for this sin, but there are still earthly consequences. With the revelation of the hack has come the revelation of my sin. I recently informed the board of Ligonier Ministries, which has handled the matter internally, having suspended me until July 1, 2016. I also informed my presbytery which is also handling the matter internally. And now the world is informed.
My sin, sadly, has impacted those who are innocent- my colleagues, friends, and family. I have and will continue to seek their forgiveness. I covet your prayers.
August 31, 2015: Sproul is suspended from ministry
But maybe Sproul's church knows more. They decided to suspend Sproul for a year.
Ligonier Ministries has suspended R. C. Sproul Jr. until July 2016 due to his admission that he visited the adultery matchmaking website Ashley Madison.
Ligonier was founded by his father, R. C. Sproul Sr., who still serves as board chair. The younger Sproul is one of the ministry’s teaching fellows, and is rector and chair of philosophy and theology at the ministry’s Reformation Bible College. He previously edited the ministry’s magazine, Tabletalk.
In a blog post this morning, Sproul Jr. said he accessed the site “in a moment of weakness, pain, and from an unhealthy curiosity. … My goal was not to gather research for critical commentary, but to fan the flames of my imagination.
“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,” he wrote. “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.” (His wife died of cancer in 2011.)
Two weeks ago, a group identifying itself as “The Impact Team” released 25 gigabytes of stolen data from Ashley Madison, including millions of users’ account information.
Sproul Jr. wrote, “The grace of God’s judgment bore its fruit, and by His grace I repented of my sin. By His grace, I have also received His forgiveness, the outworking of His love. Prophetic providence had done its good office. Jesus died for this sin, but there are still earthly consequences.
“With the revelation of the hack has come the revelation of my sin. I recently informed the board of Ligonier Ministries, which has handled the matter internally, having suspended me until July 1, 2016,” he wrote. “I also informed my presbytery which is also handling the matter internally. And now the world is informed. My sin, sadly, has impacted those who are innocent—my colleagues, friends, and family. I have and will continue to seek their forgiveness. I covet your prayers.”
About one week after the Ashley Madison hack back in July, Sproul Jr. blogged about it, saying, "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."
In that July 22 post, Sproul Jr. said he had "only recently learned about" Ashley Madison. But in his August 31 blog, he said he visited the site in August 2014. He provided no explanation for this apparent misstatement.
[Update: On both his July post on Ashley Madison and a post last week on Josh Duggar, Sproul Jr. has added this statement: "In light of my public statement here, I believe I should have withheld comment on this matter."]
Affidavit Says R.C. Sproul Jr. Drove Off Road, Unable to Walk After Drunk Driving Arrest With Children
By Heather Clark on December 23, 2016
An affidavit surrounding the arrest of Reformed theologian, author, speaker and former Presbyterian elder Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. reveals that Sproul, who has repeatedly written on the subject of alcohol, was twice the legal blood alcohol limit, mumbling and unable to walk on his own when he was arrested last month after driving erratically with two of his children in the car.
The Christian Post, which obtained a copy of the affidavit, reports that at “about 8:28 p.m. on Nov. 29, Allen County Police Officer Paul Heffner observed the former minister driving left of the center line, failed to maintain his lane, drove off the roadway, struck a curb and was weaving.”
“When he was eventually stopped, the officer observed that he needed support to walk, he swayed, mumbled and had a moderate smell of alcohol on his breath. A chemical test later revealed his blood alcohol content as 0.175,” the outlet outlines.
Christian News Network confirmed this week that Sproul was then charged with four DUI accounts, including felony charges for being under the influence with a minor in the vehicle, and at twice the legal limit.
The case summary of “State of Indiana v. Robert C Sproul” in Allen Superior Court outlines that Sproul has been charged with “operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a passenger under 18,” and placing a “dependent in a situation that endangers the dependent,” as well as “operating a vehicle while intoxicated” and “operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalent to .15 or more.”
He posted $5,000 bond and is free via a “monitored conditional release.” A court hearing is scheduled for February. Sproul faces possible fines or jail time if convicted.
As previously reported, Ligonier Ministries released a public statement about Sproul’s resignation last week, but only marked the departure as being for “personal reasons.”
“Last Friday, the board of directors of Ligonier Ministries and Reformation Bible College received and affirmed the resignation of Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. He is stepping away from his duties at the ministry and the college for personal reasons,” it wrote. “This was communicated by phone to his father, Dr. R.C. Sproul, the founder of Ligonier Ministries and chancellor of Reformation Bible College, and it was later communicated in writing to the entire board of directors of Ligonier Ministries.”
The statement added that the ministry supports the Sproul family and is thankful for Sproul’s work at Ligonier Ministries and Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida. He had served as the rector of theology and professor of apologetics at Reformation Bible College and also wrote on biblical topics for his father’s ministry.
“We believe he will be well cared for by his church during this time of transition, and we pray for him in his future endeavors,” Ligonier said.
He had been suspended from Ligonier Ministries last year after advising the board that he had visited the adultery site Ashley Madison during a “moment of weakness, pain, and from an unhealthy curiosity,” but did not sign up for an account or use its services. Sproul’s wife Denise passed away in 2011 following a battle with cancer. His suspension ended this past July, and he remarried last month just days before the arrest.
Sproul had written about his beliefs regarding alcohol on a number of occasions, including in 2003, when he wrote the forward to the book “Drinking With Calvin and Luther: A History of Alcohol in the Church,” stating, “[I]t’s not enough that we should drink, but that we ought to drink well.”
In 2005, he also stated in a blog post, “Would you please, so as not to cause me to stumble, stop suggesting that it is wrong to drink alcohol in moderation, or that drinking alcohol in moderation somehow is a failure to love my brothers?” In a separate post, Sproul remarked, “One of my favorite intellectual debates centers around this question: Is bad beer better than no beer? A corollary is this, ‘Is free bad beer better than good beer?'”
His “Basement Tapes” collection likewise included discussions on alcohol and tobacco, and in recent times, Sproul had been a repeated guest on the Reformed Pubcast, a broadcast that focuses on Reformed theology and beer.
