We've spoken before about RC Sproul Jr's Highlands Study Center and the fact there is no identifiable functional distinction between the Highlands Study Center and Saint Peter Presbyterian Church. While there is a Saint Peter Presbyterian Church, there is no "study center" of any kind.

When a "student" comes to "study" at the Highlands Study Center all they're doing is visiting Saint Peter Presbyterian Church. There is no "Study Center" and there are no identifiable "students" that "Study" any identifiable curriculum. While there have been numerous testimonies from various "students" of the consumption of substantial quantities of booze and cigars, as far as we can determine that doesn't qualify as "study." Yet in spite of what is a very obvious sham, RC Sproul Jr has managed to turn his so-called "Study Center" into a six-figure fund-raising boondoggle. This only goes to show how gullible some Christians can be.

Now a recent Highlands Study Center graduate Jeremy Bunch confirms all that, and more:

To the right is a link to the Highlands Study Center of Bristol, Virginia. The Highlands Study Center is a ministry of St. Peter Presbyterian Church. I attended HSC, and found that the center of the Center is difficult to pinpoint. Some say it is RC Jr's basement. Others say it is Laurence Windham's office, the local coffee shop. Some say it is the conversation filled thinktank in the back of the cigar shop next to Pastor Windham's office.

My experience convinced me that the HSC was a rather ethereal sort of entity. There are no schoolrooms, no set of curricula. If there is a line between the church of St. Peter and the HSC, that line seems awfully hard to draw. My experience was that in going to the HSC was really a matter of being plunged in to the life of that church. The learning took place in conversations during car rides. It took place while drinking the post-dinner coffee at a family's house. It took place over a homebrew and a campfire. Attending the HSC is a formal way of saying that you're gonna spend sime time with the folks of St. Peter, and you're gonna learn more than you expected.

Order one of their "Basement Tapes." I dare you. You'll be addicted. And it will give you an idea of what the HSC is. It is conversation, and it is conversation like you hear on the "Tapes."

Spending time with these folks in Virginia was a pivotal point in my life, shaping me in a direction and worldview that has opened my eyes to a life of joy and beauty that I previously had not fully experienced.

I want to share more on my experience there, and of the friendships that I have made there, but I will save that for later. For now, please visit their website, read some fine articles, and order some conversation that is fitting to listen to with a cigar in one hand and a glass of port in the other.

In some respects Jeremy has done a better job of describing the Highlands Study Center than we have. We've just rather bluntly called it "a sham." Jeremy on the other hand very graciously said that "the Center is difficult to pinpoint." Jeremy very politely calls the Highlands Study Center "a rather ethereal sort of entity," which is to say "intangible or relating to ether." In other words the Highlands Study Center is like a bag of gas.

So Jeremy, we're all a bit confused. Don't you have any buds back home in Boise Idaho that you can share in the "joy and beauty" of cigars and homebrew? Haven't you got a pastor to hang out with all day at the coffee shop and cigar store? Sorry, dumb question. We already know the answer to that one. Laurence Windham is the only "pastor" in America (ordained, defrocked or otherwise) whose congregation pays him to "office" all day down at the coffee shop and cigar store.

So moms and dads, send your lasses and lads off to the Highlands Study Center where, rather than studying anything, they can be plunged into the church life of car rides and homebrew and coffee shops and cigar thinktanks. Oh, and don't forget the campfires (kumbaya, kumbaya). While you're at it don't forget to join the tape of the month club. In this way you too can experience a life of joy and beauty.