John Richard Rice (1895–1980) became one of the most forceful voices in twentieth-century American fundamentalism, known for his uncompromising evangelism and remarkable productivity as a writer. His most visible achievement was founding The Sword of the Lord in 1934, a newspaper that soon dominated the independent fundamentalist Baptist world.
Born in Cooke County, Texas, Rice pursued an unusually broad education for a future revivalist. He studied at Decatur Baptist College, earned a Bachelor of Arts from Baylor University, continued at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and undertook graduate work at the University of Chicago. Before embracing full-time itinerant evangelism, he served as both pastor and educator, experiences that grounded his later ministry in practical church life. These early roles helped form the themes that defined his preaching: the necessity of personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the urgency of soul-winning.
Rice ultimately produced more than two hundred books and pamphlets, including Prayer: Asking and Receiving (1942,) The Home: Courtship, Marriage and Children (1946,) and The Gospel According to Matthew (1955.) He later wrote an autobiography, My Father’s World (1976.) His influence is documented in minister Robert L. Sumner’s Man Sent from God (1959) and his daughter Elizabeth Rice Handford’s The Heritage of John R. Rice (1981.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John R. Rice
No matter what a man’s past may have been, his future is spotless.
—John R. Rice
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