Featured John R. Rice, Jack Hyles, and the KJV

I'd rather not speculate.

 

Hyles did not only abandon the positions of John R. Rice regarding the Bible, he mocked them. In a Wednesday night Bible study at First Baptist in 1998 (“Keep your Stinkin’ Feet Out of My Drinking Water”), Hyles said, “Don't come to me with your stinking ‘only the original is inspired’! You’re not intellectual, you’re retarded!” So then, according to Hyles, his mentor and father-figure, John R. Rice, was “retarded.”

This is from an MP3 file of the sermon at “Keep Your Stinking Feet Out of My Drinking Water” by Jack Hyles – Jack Hyles Podcast, accessed on 1/8/21. The offending statement is at 32 minutes. This sermon series was eventually printed as a book, already quoted by Logos, The Need for an Every-Word Bible (Hammond: Hyles Publications, 2003), 154-155. This particular sermon was heavily edited in the book, and the statement using the term “retarded” was edited, taking out the derogatory attack.

 

I cannot read the mind of Hyles. Couldn't do so even when he was alive! I can only look at the public record. The public record says that he turned his back on his mentor and father figure. So, did Hyles actually turn against Rice in his heart?

Hyles may have deliberately turned against Rice. In his book, Enemies of Soul Winning (copyright 1993, 13 years after Rice’s death), Hyles only mention Rice twice. At one point he says that Rice and Walter Wilson were planned to be speakers in the First Baptist of Hammond missionary conference soon after Hyles took over the pastorate there (p. 52). On another page he has a quote from Rice, “Everybody wants to be in the army of the Lord, but everybody wants to be in the quarter-master corps; nobody wants to be in the infantry" (p. 147).

In other places in the book, Hyles should have mentioned Rice but didn't. In listing fundamentalist preachers who had left the SBC to become independent, he lists J. Frank Norris, Lee Roberson, Bob Gray, and himself, but not John R. Rice (p. 119).

Again, in describing a church near him when he grew up in Texas, Galilean Baptist Church, he wrote, “I will never forget the soul winning that church did. They preached on street corners; they passed out tracts in shopping areas. I can remember that on Sunday afternoon the pastor would go down to the zoo and stand by the monkey cages where the crowds gathered and preach to the people. This church reached thousands for the Lord, but it never became a giant church. It was average-sized at best and was only a fraction of the size of a church just a block away" (p. 109).

What he did not say in this narrative was that this was the church being planted at the time by Rice. However, his biographer wrote, “Their home was just three blocks away from the Galilean Baptist Church, the church that Dr. John R. Rice started and pastored at the time.” (Cindy Hyles Schaap, Fundamental man, p. 37). Thus, as one element of the legacy of Hyles, he gave little or no praise to his mentor in his post-Rice period.

 

I disagree. There are many good and gracious people who believe the KJV is the only version for the English language. These people love the Lord Jesus Christ and serve Him faithfully. Many are my personal friends, and I have benefited from the ministry of others. It is those who follow Ruckman who are the angry and bitter ones, the "railers" as the KJV terms it.

 

Nope. Again I'll say, many who believe the KJV is the only preserved version for the English language are gracious, good Christians. How many such people do you know personally? I know many of them, and admire some of them greatly.

I know a ministry (several in fact) that print Bibles in other languages for people groups around the world. These ministries hold to the KJV as the only Word of God in English, but love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to obey the Great Commission. They have gotten literally millions of Scriptures out around the world in hundreds of languages. I don't criticize good folks like that. This thread is about how Jack Hyles became a Ruckmanite, thus abandoning the bibliology of his mentor and father figure. It is not designed to be an attack on all KJVO people.

 

I wasn't thinking of them in particular, but yes, the folks I know from there are good, gracious Christians.

 

Yeah, to be honest I'm skeptical of that story, or at least how Hyles told it to his daughter. Hyles was known for being inaccurate, shall we say. Rice rebuked him for doing this is a private letter after Rice's 83rd birthday celebration, when Hyles went overboard with is stories. Hyles wrote Rice:

"When I was asked to speak at your 83rd birthday celebration, I was honored beyond measure. I cancelled an engagement in the East that I had had for many months, for I wanted to do my part to make your celebration a successful one. I prayed earnestly for God to help me to be fitting and to pay you the tribute that you deserve. If anything was said in my message that caused disappointment to you, it was done because of my carelessness and poor judgment, for I wanted with all my heart to pay you the tribute that you deserve. Please forgive me for any unwise statements that I may have made or experiences that I may have related.
Jack Hyles to John R. Rice, January 19, 1979, John R. Rice Papers.

Rice wrote back,
“Thank you for your lovely letter of January 19. You are gracious and kind to write. I count you one of the most faithful friends I have ever had.... Of your sincere love and friendship I have no doubt.” Then Rice wrote, “For some time I have had a burden about what seemed to me to be a tendency to exaggerate and perhaps to be not as rigorously careful as I like about facts, particularly little details.” Rice wrote further, “It seemed to me that I have observed that the illustrations, as you tell them from time to time, grow and after a year or two they don’t come out like they did at first but more details are added, not always believable.”
(These quotes are from John R. Rice to Jack Hyles, February 7, 1979, John R. Rice Papers.)

I didn't find a Hyles response to this letter in the Rice Papers.

 

As far as I know he was never on it. The committee the biography refers to was just a preliminary, planning committee of some kind.