JOHN R. RICE’S DAUGHTERS SPEAK AT SBC SEMINARY

Updated June 10, 2004 (first published May 24, 2004) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Two daughters of the late fundamental Baptist evangelist John R. Rice spoke at a Southern Baptist seminary on January 31, 2002, and the appearance was billed along the lines of reconciliation between independent Baptists and Southern Baptists. Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern, said, “We made history today, and it’s a redemptive history.”

Joy Rice Martin and Elizabeth Rice Hanford spoke at a chapel service at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Joy Martin said, “We’re so glad we can stand together in the family of God. My dad would be pleased to see what God has done in this denomination” (“Legendary minister’s daughters extend legacy to Southeastern,” Baptist Press, Feb. 4, 2004).

Based on John Rice’s own writings, I believe Joy’s statement is a misleading half-truth. Though he would doubtless be pleased with some of the changes in the seminaries, I doubt that he would accept the Southern Baptist Convention today for the simple fact that he understood and rejected New Evangelicalism, and the SBC today is New Evangelical to the core.

John Rice wrote “Ecumenical Excuses for Unequal Yokes.” It was first written, I believe, in the early 1960s, and it was a help and blessing to me as a young preacher in the 1970s. In this article, Dr. Rice mentioned Billy Graham by name and warned about Billy Graham style ecumenical evangelism. Billy Graham is a member of a Southern Baptist congregation and is exalted even by the most conservative Southern Baptist leaders to this very day. I do not know of one Southern Baptist leader who would publicly agree with Rice’s “Ecumenical Excuses for Unequal Yokes.” Note how Dr. Rice began this article:

“There is a group of Christians in America who call themselves ‘New Evangelicals.’ Dr. Harold Ockenga of Boston says he coined the term. Christian Life magazine, Christianity Today, Fuller Seminary and Dr. Billy Graham are, we suppose, the principal exponents of the ‘New Evangelicalism.’ The term means that they have invented a new kind of evangelicalism which is not so offensive to the enemies of Christ and the Bible, and so they hope to avoid much of the reproach which came to old-time fundamentalists or old-time evangelicals as they defended the historic Christian faith” (John R. Rice, Ecumenical Excuses for Unequal Yokes).

John R. Rice founded the Sword of the Lord paper in 1934, and it was one of the voices for the fundamental Baptist movement until Dr. Rice’s death in December 1980. Large numbers of preachers came out of the Southern Baptist Convention through Dr. Rice’s influence. The Sword of the Lord is still a voice for the fundamental Baptist movement today under the leadership of Shelton Smith. It still warns about New Evangelicalism and still urges independent Baptists not to yoke together with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Joy Martin and Elizabeth Hanford have done what the “second generation” has often done in Christianity; they have softened the stance of their forefathers. This is exactly what happened in the 1940s with many of the children who had grown up in the homes of early fundamentalists. They did not like all of the fighting and separating and were intent on pursuing a “kinder and gentler” Christianity, a less judgmental, more positive, more inclusive approach. In 1948 Harold Ockenga put a name to this new mood; he called it a “new evangelicalism,” an evangelicalism that would “renounce separatism.”

The Rice daughters began to reject biblical separation openly in the 1990s, when they featured prominent New Evangelicals and ecumenists in their magazine, which is called the Joyful Woman and which influences women in many independent Baptist churches. Elisabeth Elliot and James Dobson graced the cover of the magazine during that decade, despite their Billy Graham-style affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church.

For example, in July 1989 Elisabeth Elliot spoke at the Roman Catholic Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, a hotbed of Roman Catholic-Charismatic enthusiasm. Each year the Franciscan University holds a conference to exalt the blasphemous Catholic dogmas that Mary is the immaculately conceived, ever virgin Queen of Heaven and advocate of God’s people. Mrs. Elliot also spoke at the Catholic renewal conference at the University of Notre Dame in June 1998. Speaking at the Wisconsin Expo Center in 1997, Mrs. Elliot said that Roman Catholics are Christians and that it is acceptable to celebrate the Catholic mass. When asked, “Can a person be Catholic and Christian in union?” she replied, “Yes, we can have unity in diversity; my brother [Thomas Howard] is a Catholic and a Christian.”

James Dobson and his Focus on the Family organization also downplay doctrine and promote ecumenical unity. Focus vice president Rolf Zettersten said he and co-workers “cast their theological distinctives aside in order to achieve a common objective--to help families” (Focus on the Family, December 1989). Dobson has a close and uncritical relationship with Roman Catholicism. In November 2000, James Dobson participated in a conference in Rome hosted by the pope’s Pontifical Council for the Family and by the Acton Institute, a Roman Catholic organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dobson’s ecumenical flirtations have not gone unrewarded. The Catholic Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, bestowed an honorary doctorate upon him (Evangelical Catholics, p. 200). The September 1990 issue of New Covenant, a Catholic charismatic magazine, featured Dobson and a very positive report on Focus on the Family.

For the Rice sisters to feature Elisabeth Elliot and James Dobson in their paper is unquestionable evidence of their New Evangelical direction.

The January-February 1992 issue of Joyful Woman featured a full-page ad for the radically ecumenical World Vision organization. Information sent by World Vision in November 1981 to a contributor stated: “World Vision’s view of the church is broad and inclusive, rather than narrow and exclusive ... We find no scriptural mandate for excluding ourselves from any who name Christ as Lord. ... We believe that there are large numbers of Christians in many different ecclesiastical traditions. In many countries we are working along side and sometimes with members and officials of other traditions, such as the Roman Catholic” (Foundation magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1982). World Vision ignores the Bible’s warning that there are false christs (2 Cor. 11:1-4; Matt. 24:4-5).

The September-October 1994 issue of Joyful Woman featured a half-page ad for the book Women Used of God by Ed Reese. The book contains brief biographies of 50 “Women Leaders of the Christian Cause” and is described as “Ideal for young people (especially girls) looking for role models.” These “role models” include radical Pentecostal female preachers Kathryn Kuhlman and Aimee Semple McPherson and Catholic mystic Madame Guyon.

Elizabeth Rice Handford’s husband was once a staunch fundamentalist, but he changed in the 1990s. From 1965 to 1996, Walt Handford pastored the Southside Baptist Church of Greenville, South Carolina. By 1994, the church had a staff member who was also full time with the extremely ecumenical Campus Crusade. In an interview with Charisma magazine in 2001, Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright described his philosophy: “I have felt that God led me many years ago to build bridges. I’m a Presbyterian . . . and yet I work with everybody who loves Jesus, whether they be charismatic or Catholic, Orthodox or mainliners. ... I’m not an evangelical. I’m not a fundamentalist.” Handford’s church began using contemporary music in the 1990s. It is not surprising that Southside Baptist has changed its name to Southside Fellowship.

Joy Rice Martin’s husband, Roger, was the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Durango, Colorado, until 1969, when he became a teacher at Tennessee Temple. The man who followed Roger Martin in the pastorate at Calvary Baptist was Tom Corkish (currently the pastor of Anchor Baptist Church, Salt Lake City, Utah). Pastor Corkish testifies: “I followed his ministry as pastor in 1970 and was amazed at the compromise that existed. The Seventh Day choir came to Calvary to sing on Sunday and the Calvary choir went to the Seventh Day on Saturday. The Moderator of Calvary, under Dr. Martin, was a worker with Campus Crusade. The Ministerial Alliance in our town was started by Dr. Martin on our church stationary. ... [According to former church members,] every neo-evangelical philosophy you could think of was found in the Calvary Baptist Church of Durango” (e-mail from Pastor Tom Corkish, May 24, 2004).

When Joyful Woman magazine folded recently, subscriptions were turned over to Christian Reader magazine, which is anything but fundamentalist.

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary does not stand where John R. Rice stood on New Evangelicalism, and his daughters do not, either. They are part of the contemporary direction of the independent Baptist movement, and they are wrong.