Biography
John Richard Rice was born on December 11, 1895, in Cooke County, Texas. His father was a farmer and a man of strict habits, and his mother was a devout Christian. He grew up on a farm in the Texas plains and worked in the fields. He was a bright and strong-willed boy who was drawn to the Bible. He was converted at the age of nine, and he felt a call to preach at about the age of fifteen. He studied at Decatur Baptist College and at Baylor University. He then went to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He served in the army in World War I.
He began his ministry as a Southern Baptist pastor in Texas. He served several churches and also worked as an evangelist. He had a plain and pointed style of preaching, and he was a bold man who disliked compromise. In 1932, he left the pastorate to devote himself to full-time evangelism. He traveled across the country and held revival meetings in churches and in tents. He was one of the leading evangelists of the day. He had a quiet voice and an earnest manner.
He became a leader of the fundamentalist movement, which opposed the spread of liberal theology in the churches. He believed in the full authority of the Bible and in the importance of separation from error. In 1934, he founded a newspaper, the Sword of the Lord, which he edited for forty-six years. It began as a small paper and grew to have a large circulation. It carried sermons and articles and news of revival. It was among the most widely read fundamentalist papers in the nation. He used it to promote revival and to defend the faith.
He wrote more than two hundred books and pamphlets. They include Prayer: Asking and Receiving, published in 1942, which became a best seller and has been read by millions. It is a study of the promises of God about prayer, and it is known for its simple and direct approach. He also wrote The Home: Courtship, Marriage and Children, Bible Wines or the Laws of Fermentation and others. His writing was clear and aimed at the ordinary reader.
He left the Southern Baptist Convention in the late 1930s, because he felt that it had tolerated liberalism, and he became an independent Baptist. He supported the new independent Baptist movement. He was a friend of many of the great evangelists of the day, among them Billy Sunday and Bob Jones. He was also a friend of Billy Graham in the early years, but they parted ways in the 1950s. Rice objected to Graham's cooperation with liberal churches. The dispute caused a major rift in the fundamentalist movement. Rice took a stand for strict separation, but he also was gentler than some of his colleagues, and he sought to avoid personal attack.
He had a firm view of the end times, and he taught that the church would be taken up before the tribulation. He was also strongly opposed to the use of alcohol, to dancing and to the theater. He was a man of strict principles. Some regarded him as too narrow, and others found him a model of moral clarity. He had a humble side, and he was known as a man who would talk to anyone about his faith.
He died on December 29, 1980, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at the age of eighty-five. His newspaper and his books continued to circulate. His life shows the power of the press and of plain speech, and also the cost of a spirit of division.