Featured I've been Wondering

Very throughout provoking article. I look back and can see a lot of merit in what the author says.

 

Some of my issues with IFB (of which I are one) I think is due to the fact that it was the 'southern' version I was reared in.

 

How does being raised southern make a difference?

 

I've been able to put aside the last time Bauder slammed John R. Rice, calling him and Bob Jones Sr. and others "bullies." saying also about Rice that he was an "alpha male" who no one dared to challenge, something absurd on the face of it to anyone who really knew John R. Rice and his life story.

So here Bauder is again, a little nicer but still anti-Rice, more like, "John R. Rice was a nice man, but he pretty much ruined fundamentalism." In the process he makes a number of factual errors about the whole history of the matters at hand, something an historian ought not to do. Today I've had computer trouble and it's my day off, so maybe I'll point out his factual errors (and I believe theological and logical errors) later this week.

The sad thing is I agree somewhat with him, being a dispensationalist but not having started that way, but his way of approaching the issues involved has alienated me from him and his seminary! Why would he want to do that? Until his last diatribe I recommended students there. Does Central have enough students that Bauder can drive them away with essays denigrating fundamentalist leaders of the past admired by potential students and supporters? (I know a number of men who were very turned off by his last essay several years ago.)

 

I want to say here that I agree with Dr. Bauder that John R. Rice was in error teaching that soul-winning is the most important thing for a Christian. It is not. The glory of God is the most important thing for a Christian. This error has caused problems in fundamentalism in exalting those who win the most souls over other faithful servants of Christ. I believe the good that he did for Christ far outweighs this error, but I do admit that this is an error which caused some to miss the boat spiritually.

In particular, Dr. Rice never understood the concept of a Gospel-resistant country or field. He has a chapter in God's Work: How to Do It entitled, "Unworthy Missionary Appeals," in which he says, "All of the promises work just as well in Africa or India or Japan or Korea or the Philippine Islands as they work in the United States" (p. 75). But when I gave him the final word that I wouldn't be staying at the SOTL to work with him but would stay true to my call to Japan, he said, "Johnny, why do you want to go to Japan? You can win more souls in America." Numbers matter, otherwise we wouldn't know how many were saved at Pentecost. But faithfulness matters more and God's glory matters most.

Having said that, I must say that John R. Rice did not invent the teaching that soul-winning is the most important thing is a believer's life. That came from a previous generation, in particular Spurgeon who Rice admired greatly. Spurgeon wrote in the very first paragraph of his book The Soul Winner, "Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true believer.” Again, R. A. Torrey, who John R. Rice admired, wrote, "The clear teaching, then, is that every follower of Jesus should make fishing for men, and winning others to the Lord, THE BUSINESS OF LIFE" (The Wondrous Joy of Soul Winning, emphasis in the original, p. 15). So this mistaken teaching was apparently common in 19th century evangelicalism. John R. Rice was following the past.

 

We all like to think our ministry, be it ever so humble, is important to Christ. One key in that belief is that our ministry is no more important than the "measure of faith" given to another, even if it is sharpening pencils or cleaning the bathrooms. Elder meetings start and end considering the verse about not Lording it over others.

 

The main thrust of Bauder's article is about Chafer's book True Evangelism, and Rice's objections to it. Please note that the objections of Rice and many others to this book (which I own and have read, just so you know) have nothing to do with the mistaken teaching of Rice, Spurgeon, Torrey and others that soul-winning is the main duty of the Christian instead of glorifying God. Therefore it is really immaterial to Bauder's argument about fundamentalist leaders, though he tries to make it central.

Note that when the book first came out in 1911 Rice was just a boy, so Bauder's slam that "While Chafer wrote the book in 1911, Rice did not read it until the mid-1940s" is off the mark. And by the way it is an unproven statement backed by nothing in the bios of Rice or anywhere else to my knowledge. It is strictly Bauder's opinion, backed by no facts or scholarship at all. The truth is that Rice probably read the book long before he publicly objected to it, being a voracious reader especially on evangelism. Also, before publicly objecting to the book Rice wrote Chafer personally and was rejected, and worked behind the scenes for 1 1/2 years. Again, the book was out of print and he was objecting to the reprint of the book by Moody Press. Finally, note that before this Rice had no stature to object to the book and have anyone listen. At the time of this incident he had only just entered full time evangelism and become nationally known. All of these facts can be learned simply by reading one of the bios, which Bauder could have easily done instead of simply mistakenly speculating. (See especially Man Sent from God by Robert Sumner, pp. 190-199, and John R. Rice, the Captain of our Team, by Viola Walden, pp. 87-88.)

Let me give a quote from Chafer so you know somewhat about what Rice and others were objecting to: "Fundamentally, then, the personal element in true soul-winning work is more a service of pleading for souls than a service of pleading with souls. It is talking with God about men from a clean heart and in the power of the Spirit, rather than talking to men about God" (p. 93).

 

Now, years before John R. Rice and his evangelist friends, many had objected to Chafer’s book, including: P. W. Philpott, former pastor of Moody Church; Henry Sough of Wheaton; John Brown, evangelist and founder of John brown Schools; W. B. Riley; R. Paul Miller and others. H. A. Ironside and Will Houghton both admitted in private to John R. Rice that the book was no good. It was banned at the Philadelphia School of the Bible over 25 years before Rice objected to it. (This information is from Sumner’s bio, cited above. While Sumner wrote a hagiography, he is painstaking to get his facts right to this day, and he was already an associate of Rice when this took place.) Why all the objections?

Chafer’s book opposed the Biblical office of evangelism as these men understood it. Here is Chafer’s view: “The evangelist of the Scriptures is, without question, the messenger to the unevangelized, preparing the way for the pastor and teacher in his more constant ministry in the church. The evangelist, therefore, finds his fullest divine mission as a pioneer missionary to the hitherto unevangelized” (Chafer, 6). In the same chapter he opposed revival as Moody, Torrey, Rice and many others understood it. Now can you understand why when Rice came out publicly against it after working in private for a year and a half and being rejected by Chafer for discussion, 47 evangelists opposed it?

 

Weird. Why would Moody Press have been publishing such an assault on its own founder?

 

According to Bob Sumner, after the petition by 47 evangelists to Moody Press to withdraw the book failed, Rice wrote a personal letter asking to be sold all remaining copies. The answering letter from the publisher said that "the book was recently reprinted because of the greatly increased demand for it in recent months" and that the decision to reprint was simply "a matter of good business" (Sumner, 197). So the decision to reprint was a business decision, not a ministry decision.

In all of this Rice never publically criticized Moody Press or MBI, but indeed continued to take advertising from Moody Press (except for one that touted Chafer's book), and to recommend students to go to MBI, and paid for a young black man from South America to study there.

 

In reading the essay, I viewed the focus as being less on Rice v Chafer. To me, the take away was more on how the next generation misunderstood and misapplied Dr. Rice's "touch not the Lord's anointed" position.

 

I hope that's true. If it is, it would have been nice if Bauder had clearly said so.

 

Though, I do understand your criticism of Bauder's telescoping of events. If Chafer's book was published in 1911, JRR was born in 1895. Thus, JRR was only 16 when the book was published. That's quite a howler.

 

There's even a little bit of doubt as to when the book was published. My copy has an Intro to the first edition by the author dated 1911, but the copyright is 1919. So either Chafer wrote the book but didn't publish it for 8 years, or published it but didn't copyright it for 8 years.