Ligonier Ministries (also known as simplyLigonier) is an international Christian discipleship organization headquartered in the greater Orlando, Florida area. Ligonier was founded in 1971 byR. C. Sproul in theLigonier Valley, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh.[1] Ligonier is distinguished by its teaching ofReformed theology.[2]
Ligonier operates Reformation Bible College,[3][2] which offers an unaccredited[a]Bachelor of Arts in Theology as its flagship program, which is recognized byWestminster Theological Seminary, an accredited organization.[5][6] Ligonier also runs annual national conferences on various topics.
In early 2010, working to prepare for leadership succession, Ligonier founder and chairmanR. C. Sproul[8] appointed Sinclair Ferguson, W. Robert Godfrey, Steven Lawson, andR. C. Sproul Jr. as the first members of a new teaching fellowship.[9] In 2013, Stephen Nichols was appointed as a fellow.[10] In 2015, an email address belonging to Sproul Jr. was leaked as part of the July 2015Ashley 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]
^With regard to accreditation, Reformation Bible College president Stephen Nichols states the following: "One of the accrediting associations to which many Bible colleges belong, theAssociation 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 anddispensationalism."[4]
