John R. Rice
Encyclopedia
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
and pastor and the founding editor of The Sword of the Lord
The Sword of the Lord
The Sword of the Lord is a Christian fundamentalist publisher, based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that publishes a newspaper of the same name as well as religious books, pamphlets, and tracts.-History:...
, an influential fundamentalist newspaper.
Childhood and Education
John R. Rice was born in Cooke County, TexasCooke County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 36,363 people, 13,643 households, and 10,000 families residing in the county. The population density was 42 people per square mile . There were 15,061 housing units at an average density of 17 per square mile...
in 1895, the son of William H. and Sallie Elizabeth La Prade Rice, and the oldest of three brothers. Will Rice was a small businessman, a lay preacher, and a one-term state legislator "well respected in the community." (Will Rice was also a Mason, an Odd Fellow, and "an ardent Klansman"—all of which memberships his son later believed were "mistakes.") The death of John R. Rice's mother when he was six years old left a lasting mark on the man.
At twelve Rice made a profession of faith and joined his parents' Southern Baptist Church. After being educated in public schools, he earned a teaching certificate and taught in a local primary school himself. In 1916 Rice entered Decatur Baptist College, (now Dallas Baptist University
Dallas Baptist University
Dallas Baptist University , formerly known as Dallas Baptist College, is a Christian liberal arts university located in Dallas, Texas. The main campus is located approximately fifteen miles southwest of downtown Dallas overlooking Mountain Creek Lake...
) Decatur, Texas
Decatur, Texas
Decatur is a city located in Wise County, Texas, United States. This city was named after Stephen Decatur, Jr. The population was 5,201 at the 2000 census. A July 1, 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 6,432. It is the county seat of Wise County...
--riding his cow pony 120 miles to get there. In 1918, he was drafted into the Army, but after his discharge the following year, he attended Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...
, from which he graduated in 1920. Rice was attending graduate school at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and volunteering at the Pacific Garden Mission
Pacific Garden Mission
Pacific Garden Mission is a homeless shelter in the South Loop section of Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1877, by Colonel George Clarke and his wife, Sarah. It has been nicknamed, "The Old Lighthouse." It is the oldest such shelter in Chicago...
when he was called to the full-time ministry and returned to Texas. He married Lloys McClure Cooke, whom he had met at Decatur, and shortly thereafter he entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, is a private, non-profit institution of higher education, associated with the Southern Baptist Convention...
.
Early Ministry
Rice did not complete his seminary course but in 1923, took a position as the assistant pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Plainview, TexasPlainview, Texas
Plainview is a city in and the county seat of Hale County, Texas, United States. The population was 22,336 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Plainview is located at ....
. The following year he became senior pastor in Shamrock, Texas
Shamrock, Texas
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 2,029 people, 852 households, and 550 families residing in the city. The population density was 979.7 people per square mile . There were 1,072 housing units at an average density of 517.6 per square mile...
, an oil boomtown; but in 1926 he left the pastorate for evangelism. Settling in Fort Worth, he became an unofficial associate of the flamboyant and authoritarian fundamentalist J. Frank Norris
J. Frank Norris
John Franklyn Norris was a flamboyant Baptist preacher, one of the most controversial figures in the history of fundamentalism.-Biography:...
, pastor of First Baptist Church, who was preparing to leave the Southern Baptist Convention
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
. Rice himself broke with the Southern Baptists in 1927.
During the next few years, Rice held a series of successful revivals in Texas that were promoted by Norris. Rice made converts during his campaigns and then organized the new Christians into at least a half-dozen churches with the name "Fundamentalist Baptist," a title that had come to be associated with Norris. In July 1932, Rice held an open-air evangelistic campaign in the Oak Cliff
Oak Cliff
Oak Cliff is a community in Dallas, Texas, United States that was formerly a separate town located in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1903...
section of Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
and hundreds made professions of faith. There Rice organized the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle of Dallas; but instead of moving on, he pastored the church for more than seven years. The congregation of more than a thousand members built two buildings, first being destroyed by fire. When Rice refused to bend to Norris's will, the older man threatened and then viciously attacked him in print. Nevertheless, Rice's sermons continued to include much of his mentor's sensationalism, with titles such as "Wild Oats in Dallas--How Dallas People Sow Them and How They Are Reaped," "The Dance--Child of the Brothel, Sister of Gambling and Drunkenness, Mother of Lust--Road to Hell!" and "Diseased, Decaying Bodies with Undying Maggots and Unquenched Fire in Hell"
Rice believed that the mission of churches was "not to take care of Christians" but to "win souls," a notion his mostly lower-middle-class church members did not wholeheartedly endorse. When Rice spent more time away from his pulpit to hold revivals elsewhere, a supply pastor and his supporters staged a coup. Rice decided to reenter evangelism. Yet before he did so, he encouraged the church to change its name from Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle to Galilean Baptist Church, thus distinguishing his ministry and that of the church from J. Frank Norris
J. Frank Norris
John Franklyn Norris was a flamboyant Baptist preacher, one of the most controversial figures in the history of fundamentalism.-Biography:...
.
Sword of the Lord
The Sword of the Lord
The Sword of the Lord is a Christian fundamentalist publisher, based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that publishes a newspaper of the same name as well as religious books, pamphlets, and tracts.-History:...
, a bi-weekly publication that grew into an influential fundamentalist Baptist newspaper. At first it was simply the publication of his Dallas church, handed out on the street and delivered door-to-door by Rice's daughters and other Sunday School children .
When Rice re-entered full-time evangelism in 1940, he moved The Sword of the Lord to Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton is an affluent community located in DuPage County, Illinois, approximately west of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Wheaton is the county seat of DuPage County...
, in part to have access to Wheaton College
Wheaton College (Illinois)
Wheaton College is a private, evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago in the United States...
for his growing daughters, in part to put geographical distance between himself and Norris. Rice had already begun to publish his sermons, and at his death, The Sword of the Lord had printed more than 200 of his books and pamphlets, with more than 60 million copies in print. His sermon booklet, "What Must I Do to Be Saved?" was distributed in over 32 million copies in English, 8.5 million in Japanese, and nearly 2 million in Spanish. Perhaps his most popular books were Prayer--Asking and Receiving (1942) and The Home: Courtship, Marriage and Children (1945). Rice also wrote commentaries on books of the Bible, and he attacked humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
, worldliness (especially movies and dancing), evolution, fraternal lodges, and the Southern Baptist Convention.
A special target was religious liberalism. Rice recalled that while at the University of Chicago, he had heard a message by William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
and then observed a missionary's son turn to infidelity during the subsequent campus discussion. "It was a time of crisis in my life," recalled Rice. "Standing there of the steps of Mandel Hall that spring afternoon with dusk coming on, I felt burning in me a holy fire. I lifted my hand solemnly to God and said, 'If God gives me grace and I have opportunity to smite this awful unbelief that wrecks the faith of all it can, then smite it I will, so help me God!'" Rice became a fierce opponent of the National Council of Churches
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA is an ecumenical partnership of 37 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African American, Evangelical, and historic peace...
, the Revised Standard Version
Revised Standard Version
The Revised Standard Version is an English translation of the Bible published in the mid-20th century. It traces its history to William Tyndale's New Testament translation of 1525. The RSV is an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901...
of the Bible, and prominent liberal ministers, such as Harry Emerson Fosdick
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Harry Emerson Fosdick was an American clergyman. He was born in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Colgate University in 1900, and Union Theological Seminary in 1904. While attending Colgate University he joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1903 at the...
, Nels Ferré, and G. Bromley Oxnam
Garfield Bromley Oxnam
Garfield Bromley Oxnam was an American Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1936.-Biography:...
.
The Swords circulation grew dramatically. It was thirty thousand in 1940, fifty thousand in 1946, and ninety thousand in 1953, surpassing the circulation of the venerable Moody Monthly. Rice regularly published reports from evangelistic campaigns that became valuable publicity tools for approved revivalists. In 1946, he and other prominent evangelists adopted a code of ethics and a statement of faith to prevent "evangelists from being unduly criticized for commercialism and unethical practices." The same year Bob Jones College
Bob Jones University
Bob Jones University is a private, for-profit, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina.The university was founded in 1927 by Bob Jones, Sr. , an evangelist and contemporary of Billy Sunday...
conferred on him an honorary Litt. D. degree.
Evangelism Conferences
In 1945 Rice began to organize evangelism conferences, which in 1974 became Sword of the Lord Conferences. These meetings drew influential evangelists, such as Hyman Appelman, Joe Henry Hankins, John F. MacArthur, Sr., and especially Bob Jones, Sr.Bob Jones, Sr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Sr. was an American evangelist, pioneer religious broadcaster and the founder and first president of Bob Jones University.-Early years:...
, whom Rice called "the dean of all the evangelists." The conferences attracted large crowds of clergymen from various denominations, not just Baptists. For instance, the Fort Smith conference of August 1952 had an average attendance of six to eight hundred at the morning sessions and a thousand to two thousand in the evenings. So many fundamentalist churches began to accept Rice's role as a clearing house for approved evangelists that to relieve some of the burden, he established a "Sword Extension Department," headed by his brother Bill. The Sword of the Lord even placed babies born to unwed mothers.
Separation from neo-evangelicals
For a brief period during the late 1940s, Rice and The Sword of the Lord held the allegiance of orthodox Christians of various denominations who would shortly be divided into Neo-Evangelical and Fundamentalist camps. While continuing to support older independent evangelists such as Bob Jones, Sr. and Hyman Appelman, Rice now also endorsed the newer ministries of Youth for ChristYouth for Christ
Youth for Christ is the name of a number of previously unaffiliated evangelical Protestant religious campaigns which led to the creation of Youth for Christ International in 1946....
, the Southern Baptist evangelist R. G. Lee, and especially, the young Billy Graham
Billy Graham
William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...
. By 1948, Rice believed Graham might become another Dwight L. Moody
Dwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody , also known as D.L. Moody, was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church, Northfield School and Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts , the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Publishers.-Early life:Dwight Moody was born in Northfield, Massachusetts to a large...
or Billy Sunday
Billy Sunday
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some...
, and Graham's evangelistic successes were regularly trumpeted in the pages of The Sword of the Lord.
Meanwhile, Graham was distancing himself from fundamentalism. In 1954, Graham spoke to the faculty and student body of liberal Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
in New York, repeatedly referring to his ministry as "ecumenical". Presbyterian fundamentalist Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire was a founder of, and minister in, the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long president of the and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.-Youth and education:Born in Ypsilanti,...
picked up on this "compromising" speech in his Christian Beacon, but Rice continued to defend Graham in The Sword of the Lord. Graham used his considerable charm to remain in Rice's good graces for as long as possible, for instance, by inviting the older man to participate in his 1955 Glasgow campaign. At 59, Rice had never even been out of the United States, and his response to Graham's red-carpet treatment in Scotland was more effusive praise.
Nevertheless, by 1956, the religious differences between Rice and Graham could no longer be papered over. Rice decided with some annoyance that Graham had been, at best, disingenuous about his relationship with religious liberals. Graham's 1957 New York City campaign was held in cooperation with the Protestant Council of New York, which was "predominantly nonevangelical and even included out-and-out modernists." Rice began to criticize Graham with increasing severity. When the seventy-five-year-old Bob Jones, Sr.
Bob Jones, Sr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Sr. was an American evangelist, pioneer religious broadcaster and the founder and first president of Bob Jones University.-Early years:...
decided to draw the line of demarcation between fundamentalism and neo-evangelicalism, Rice agreed to chair the resolutions committee at a meeting of fundamentalist leaders in Chicago held on December 26, 1958. Ninety attendees signed a pledge, written by Rice's committee, promising not to participate in evangelism sponsored by clergymen who denied such cardinal doctrines of orthodox Christian belief as the inspiration of the Bible, the virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection of Christ. The names of Bob Jones, Sr., Bob Jones, Jr., and John R. Rice headed the list. Rice had clearly cast his lot with such separatist fundamentalists as Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire
Carl McIntire was a founder of, and minister in, the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long president of the and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.-Youth and education:Born in Ypsilanti,...
, Robert T. Ketcham
Robert T. Ketcham
Robert Thomas Ketcham was a Baptist pastor, a leader of separationist fundamentalism, and a founder of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.-Youth:...
, W. O. H. Garman, George Beauchamp Vick
George Beauchamp Vick
George Beauchamp Vick , known as G. Beauchamp Vick, was Pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, a founder of the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. He was an associate of J. Frank Norris, and is considered one of the fathers...
, Lee Roberson
Lee Roberson
Lee Edward Roberson , was the founder of Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Camp Joy, in Harrison, Tennessee....
, Oliver B. Greene
Oliver B. Greene
Oliver Boyce Greene was an Independent Fundamental Baptist evangelist and author. He converted in 1935 at the age of 20. Over 200,000 confessions of faith were recorded as a result of his ministry...
, and Archer Weniger, while the majority of Protestant evangelicals opted for a less militant position.
The break with Billy Graham left The Sword reeling. Circulation dropped from over 100,000 in 1956 to 67,000 in 1957. Rice was also refused the use of a conference center in Toccoa Falls, Georgia, where he had held Sword rallies for thirteen years, because its founder, R. G. LeTourneau
R. G. LeTourneau
Robert Gilmour LeTourneau , born in Richford, Vermont, was a prolific inventor of earthmoving machinery. His machines represented nearly 70 percent of the earthmoving equipment and Engineering vehicles used during World War II, and he was responsible for nearly 300 patents...
, had sided with neo-evangelicalism. Even more distressing to Rice was the break with radio preacher Charles E. Fuller
Charles E. Fuller
Charles Edward Fuller was an American Christian clergyman and a radio evangelist.Charles Fuller was born in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from Pomona College in 1910, he worked in the citrus packing business in southern California until 1918...
, whose namesake seminary
Fuller Theological Seminary
Fuller Theological Seminary is an accredited Christian educational institute with its main campus in Pasadena, California and several satellite campuses in the western United States...
quickly moved to the vanguard of the neo-evangelical movement. Fuller, Rice, and Jones had appeared together at a rally only a few years earlier.
In 1963, Rice moved "The Sword of the Lord" to Murfreesboro
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and the county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 108,755 according to the United States Census Bureau's 2010 U.S. Census, up from 68,816 residents certified during the 2000 census. The center of population of Tennessee is located in...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, where a street was eventually named for him. Rice's brother had established the Bill Rice Ranch
Bill Rice Ranch
The Bill Rice Ranch is a Christian Summer Camp in Murfreesboro Tennessee that was founded by Bill Rice to provide a place for preaching the gospel to teens, especially the deaf.-The Ranch:...
, a ministry to the deaf, in Murfreesboro, and the cost of living was cheaper there. But Rice also wished to leave Wheaton, which had become a center of neo-evangelicalism that included not only Wheaton College
Wheaton College (Illinois)
Wheaton College is a private, evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago in the United States...
but also the headquarters of Youth for Christ
Youth for Christ
Youth for Christ is the name of a number of previously unaffiliated evangelical Protestant religious campaigns which led to the creation of Youth for Christ International in 1946....
and the National Association of Evangelicals
National Association of Evangelicals
The National Association of Evangelicals is a fellowship of member denominations, churches, organizations, and individuals. Its goal is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States. Today it works in four main areas: Church & Faith Partners, Government Relations,...
.
Separation from separationists
In 1959, Rice and Bob Jones, Sr. held a series of one-day rallies in different parts of the country in an attempt to explain the separationist position to the wavering, and Jones urged that the Sword be made "the official organ" of separatist fundamentalism. Meanwhile, Rice made new, younger, friends. One was Jack HylesJack Hyles
Jack Frasure Hyles was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from 1959 until his death. He was also well-known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from...
, who in 1959 had become the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana
Hammond, Indiana
Hammond is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. The population was 80,830 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hammond is located at ....
; another was Curtis Hutson
Curtis Hutson
Curtis Hutson was an Independent Baptist pastor and editor of The Sword of the Lord .Curtis Hutson was born in Decatur, Georgia, of a barber and hair dresser, the second of five children. He attended Avondale High School where he met his future wife, Barbara Crawford...
, who eventually became Rice's successor. A third was Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 75,568 as of 2010. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or "The Hill City." Lynchburg was the only major city in...
.
In 1971, Rice planned a "great world conference on evangelism" that would bring together the various strands of fundamentalism. But Bob Jones, Sr. had died three years earlier, and his son and successor, Bob Jones, Jr.
Bob Jones, Jr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Jr. was the second president and chancellor of Bob Jones University. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones was the son of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder...
, objected to the inclusion in the conference program of two Southern Baptists, W. A. Criswell
W. A. Criswell
Wallie Amos Criswell, Ph.D. , was an American pastor, author, and a two-term elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1968 to 1970...
and R. G. Lee, whom Jones considered "compromisers and traitors to the cause of Scriptural evangelism." (It did not help that shortly before Jones, Sr.'s death, Criswell had referred to him as "a senile old fool.") Jones also opposed Rice's insistence that there be no criticism of Billy Graham (and presumably, neo-evangelicalism) at the conference. Rice argued that his position on separation was the same as that held by Bob Jones, Sr. and that there was "nobody living in this world who was more intimately acquainted" with the late evangelist. Not surprisingly, Jones, Jr. disagreed, and he and Rice engaged in an exchange of views about separation--Rice in The Sword of the Lord, Jones in a pamphlet, "Facts John R. Rice Will Not Face." To Rice the importance of soulwinning trumped what he considered minor disagreements among Christians about biblical separation.
The upshot was that Rice's planned conference was postponed and then canceled. In November 1971, Bob Jones, Jr.
Bob Jones, Jr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Jr. was the second president and chancellor of Bob Jones University. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones was the son of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder...
and Bob Jones III
Bob Jones III
Robert Reynolds Jones III , third president of Bob Jones University. The son of Bob Jones, Jr., and the grandson of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder, Jones III served as president of BJU from 1971 to 2005.-Biography:...
were dropped from the cooperating board of the The Sword to be replaced by Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
and Curtis Hutson
Curtis Hutson
Curtis Hutson was an Independent Baptist pastor and editor of The Sword of the Lord .Curtis Hutson was born in Decatur, Georgia, of a barber and hair dresser, the second of five children. He attended Avondale High School where he met his future wife, Barbara Crawford...
. In 1976, Jones, Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
, and Wayne Van Gelderen organized their own "World Congress of Fundamentalists" in Edinburgh. Unlike the split with Billy Graham, however, Rice's refusal to agree with separationist fundamentalists like Bob Jones, Jr.
Bob Jones, Jr.
Robert Reynolds Jones, Jr. was the second president and chancellor of Bob Jones University. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones was the son of Bob Jones, Sr., the university's founder...
and Ian Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
only enhanced the growth of The Sword. By the mid-1960s, the paper had more than recovered its losses after Rice's criticism of Billy Graham; in 1974, circulation of The Sword of the Lord was over 300,000. Rice had been a major participant in shaping the two most important divisions of late twentieth-century fundamentalism, the split between fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals and then the creation of two fundamentalist factions: Rice's more sentimental and irenic; Jones's more academic, doctrinal, and confrontational.
Personality
Rice was a remarkably hard worker who rarely took a vacation. He once estimated that he had been away from home for thirty years of his forty-five year ministry. His book Home, Courtship, Marriage and Children was written almost entirely on the road, one chapter dictated on a train between Chicago and Albany, most of another while waiting for a plane at LaGuardia. A daughter who took a semester out of college to play the piano for Rice in two large revivals was there also pressed into service taking his dictation and typing the manuscript of the final chapters of the book. He claimed that woodworking was his hobby, but although he had all the necessary tools, he never had the time to use them. A brick room behind his house intended for woodworking was eventually used for storage.Rice was gracious with praise and commanded the loyalty of his staff. He had a sometimes corny sense of humor--such as asking service station attendants, "Do you know where I could buy some gasoline?" or walking by a table filled with his own books and remarking to potential buyers, "I have read these books and find them to be sound." He liked dogs, horses, and children. Once he was discovered after a service playing hopscotch. He wrote texts and picked out melodic lines for dozens of simple gospel songs, mostly about revival and soulwinning. He was extremely frugal, there was never a hint of scandal about his personal life, and the testimonies of his six daughters were a credit to his ministry. Once on a car trip from Dallas to Chicago, Rice prayed, "Lord, help me to find someone I can win." He then missed a turn in Oklahoma and drove fifty miles out of the way. At a gas station where he stopped to ask directions, he led the attendant to Christ. Still upset about the unplanned detour, his daughters giggled at him, reminding him of his earlier prayer.
At 81, with a hearing aid, suffering from arthritis, and aware that his memory was "not quick as it was years ago," Rice still managed to be at the office most mornings at 6:30. In 1978, he had a heart attack, then a second, more serious one in April 1980. He died of a stroke on December 29. The staff counted 22,923 letters that had come to Rice between the beginning of his writing ministry and his death reporting that the writer had found Christ through Rice's books or booklets or through a sermon published in The Sword of the Lord.