More Ligonier Lies: Ligonier Ministries Has "Withdrawn Complaint"

For the past two weeks (and particularly last week), Ligonier Ministries' supporters have lit up Ligonier's phone lines. Most of them had just one thing on their minds: "How can you as a Christian ministry violate Scripture with impunity and sue a fellow professing Christian?" Offended by such unbiblical and unchristian behavior, Ligonier donors not only called in to complain in droves but they also started dropping their financial support.

The initial response of Ligonier "senior management" (Tim Dick, John Duncan and possibly others) was to instruct their customer service reps to tell callers: "There is no lawsuit. We're not sure where that story came from." That of course was a bold-faced lie, and, evidently, few Ligonier supporters bought it, instead declaring they would stop contributing while the scandal continued.

So early last week, under withering criticism, Ligonier senior management backed up, regrouped, and instructed their employees to stop saying anything about the lawsuit. Instead, employees were permitted to say only: "I am not able to comment on that at this time. It would be best if you e-mailed customerservice@ligonier.org." Callers who insisted on speaking with someone were referred to the voicemail of the "frontline manager."

Through it all, at no time did Ligonier Ministries or Tim Dick ever admit that they had filed a lawsuit against me, a fellow Christian. In fact they repeatedly denied that the nature of their actions against me constituted a lawsuit. At best, in their communications to customer service reps, they attempted to portray their actions as something other than a lawsuit by countering that "it is only an injunction," to stop publication of my blog without admitting that an injunction is just one kind of relief requested by a formal lawsuit. Ligonier also evaded mentioning that they have sued me for damages:

"This is an action for damages in excess of $15,000.00, exclusive of costs, interest, and attorney's fees, and for temporary and permanent injunctive relief based upon common law defamation..."

Then, suddenly late this past Friday that changed, or at least some of the story changed. I received the following email from Ligonier's President Tim Dick:

From: "Tim Dick" tdick@ligonier.org
To: "Tim Challies" tim@challies.com, worldblog@gmail.com, "Frank Vance" advancemyten@yahoo.com
Subject: Statement links
Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:27:37 (EDT)

The following links will take you to public statements from Ligonier Ministries Sr. staff and CEO. Please feel free to post at your discretion.

Public Statement by Ligonier Senior Management

Public Statement by Tim Dick

Timothy A. Dick
President and CEO

Ligonier Ministries
400 Technology Park
Lake Mary Fl 32746

The links that Tim Dick furnished lead to two statements, one from "senior management" and one from Tim Dick. According to Ligonier's senior management they have (past tense) "withdrawn the complaint" against me. So now at least they're acknowledging that they have taken legal action in court against me. Furthermore, they're claiming as of September 22 that it's been "withdrawn."

The fact that Tim Dick waited until after 5 PM eastern time on a Friday to send this email struck me as opportunistic, especially in light of the fact that those links might have been posted two days prior: see "9_20_2006" in the URL (on the other hand it's possible the links were backdated for some reason). Delaying notice of that information until late Friday meant that it would be impossible for anyone to contact the court and verify whether or not the lawsuit had indeed been withdrawn.

Anyone who has to deal with PR issues knows that if you want to bury a story you wait until late Friday afternoon to release it. That results in the least possible news coverage because people are busy with other things over the weekend. Furthermore, Tim's email was sent to only three sites, further limiting its coverage. Additionally, there is no way to find those statements on Ligonier's web site; there are no links to them anywhere on Ligonier's web site, and a search for them by title produces nothing.

Under the circumstances, there is simply no way that I can view the timing of this as mere coincidence. Tim Dick's email has shady written all over it. Given the month-long wait for any public statement from Ligonier about the lawsuit, a couple of other blogs were extremely eager to post the content of Tim Dick's email on Friday, and they did so without making any effort whatsoever to verify it. However, I knew better than to trust a guy like Tim Dick. No, I'd just have to patiently wait until Monday morning to verify if Tim Dick was telling the truth about his having "withdrawn" the lawsuit. Only later would it be appropriate to comment on the other aspects of the Ligonier statements.

Monday has come, and as of the time of this posting it's been determined that the Florida clerk of the court where Tim Dick and Ligonier sued me has nothing in the case file indicating that Ligonier has filed anything with the court asking that the case be withdrawn, nor has the clerk received anything in this morning's mail, nor has anything been deposited at the court clerk's desk where attorneys hand deliver motions and pleadings. Let me repeat: not only did Ligonier and Tim Dick not file anything last week to dismiss their lawsuit against me but the clerk of the court couldn't find any such thing even today. Thus for Ligonier and Tim Dick to say that the lawsuit "was withdrawn" (past tense) is patently false. This is evidence of just more Ligonier Lies.

In fact, Ligonier proved it had no intentions whatsoever of withdrawing the lawsuit at least as late as last Thursday. According to the case file at the court, on September 21 at 8:30 a.m. Ligonier attempted once again to have another ex parte hearing with the judge, specifically on a "Motion For Assistance In Determining Proper Method To Effect Constructive Service Of Process." So as of last Thursday they weren't looking to drop the case at all but rather how to move the case forward more quickly.

These facts are documented and accessible to the public as part of the court's permanent file on Ligonier's lawsuit. In fact the court clerks say that they've been fielding quite a few calls about this particular lawsuit. When I asked about the case this morning the clerk immediately responded, "Ah yes, the world-famous Ligonier Ministries lawsuit. We've been getting calls about this from all over the country. We're all pretty amazed by how much attention this case has attracted."

Adding to the list of Ligonier lies is this new lie submitted as a comment by a Ligonier customer service rep to Jen's Gems that "the lawsuit that you have posted was withdrawn much earlier this week. Vance has not shared this. There is a lot that he has chosen not to share."

As far as my "sharing" information, it's a little hard to "share" things that no one has ever bothered to "share" with me in the first place. It's a lot like getting sued and having the plaintiff lie to the judge and say, "it is impossible to contact him or to serve him with the Verified Complaint or the Instant Motion. Moreover, counsel was not able to provide the Defendant with notice and an opportunity to be heard regarding the request for temporary injunctive relief for the same reason." Ligonier tried to rush the judge to issue a temporary injunction, but they knew I'd object and that any legal objections would only delay what they wanted to get immediately. So they asked the judge to make a ruling without me even having the opportunity to make a defense for myself. That's called an "ex parte" hearing and they lied to the judge in an effort to get it. Thankfully the judge didn't buy it. Ligonier and their attorneys now need to think through very carefully the probable consequences of lying to Judge Nelson.

Speaking of "sharing" things with my readers, I would like to have been able to have "shared" the fact that Ligonier sued me on August 25, but I wasn't able to do that until I found out about it eleven days later, not from Ligonier Ministries but from the Orlando Sentinel. I would like to have been able to "share" with everyone that "the lawsuit that you have posted was withdrawn much earlier this week." There's just one problem. Once again I was never informed, and then when they did inform me it just happened to have been after the court was already closed for the weekend. In coming days there will be much more to "share" about all of this even beyond the fact that the lawsuit was not withdrawn last week as falsely claimed by Ligonier.

The public statements by Tim Dick and Ligonier "Senior Management" contain more lies than the false claim of the lawsuit being dismissed, and I will respond to them in detail over the next few days. I wish I could agree with Tim Dick when he says that he "considers the matter closed." However, nothing about this matter is closed or is likely to be any time soon so long as Ligonier's leadership continue with their lies and cover-ups.

With this latest report Ligonier donors are bound to be even more outraged than they were before. They should know that the Ligonier Board Of Directors is slated to meet sometime in the next week or two. If you haven't already done so you should consider contacting the Board members and conveying your concerns. Don't be afraid to make demands -- since you are a stakeholder the Board is accountable to you. However, let me point out that demanding only the firing of Tim Dick is unlikely be an adequate remedy since John Duncan as General Manager may wind up taking his place. That would be no kind of solution at all, and in fact that kind of medicine may prove worse than the disease.