Originally posted by David Ekstrom:
Sorrow I'm so late in respondind. Was out of town for a conference.
SNIP
Now a point of fact. I was asked if I actually read the SOTL. I was a regular subscriber for many years. Robert Sumner, in a sermon printed in the SOTL using the story of Balaam as a platform to berate Evangelical Christians said, "So you see, the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of Billy are the same."
I did a paper in seminary re: Rice's change in position re: Graham. TEDS has every issue of SOTL on microfilm. As I recall, I searched every issue at least through '56 through '57 and probably a little before and a little after. This was the time of Graham's NY crusade when Rice turned against Graham.
Before then, Rice championed Graham. In fact, he made a point of defending criticism of Graham by liberals with respect to his London crusade.
Then at the time of the NY crusade, Bob Jones in his byline attacked Graham. Rice published an article, "With Fractured Skull Editor Writes." Rice had been seriously injured in a fall down a set of stairs, but said he felt compelled to write. Attacks on Graham knew no bounds. In fact, this is the watershed event that finally, in my opinion, pushed fundamentalism finally off the map. "Separation" became the sine quo non of fundamentalism--by their own admission. Fundamentalists began to say that fundamentalism wasn't a theology but a position.
I finally left fundamentalism because I read "Pursuit of Purity" published by BJU. I realized that the men who were held up as heroes would be unmercifully treated with scorn if they were on the scene today. What paraded itself as fundamentalism was a myth. The house of cards collapsed for me. One thing led to another and it wasn't long before I came to believe that what calls itself fundamentalism bears no resemblance whatsoever to the heroic men and women who stood against modernism in the 20s and 30s.
Hello, David. Glad you got back with me. I am encouraged that you have actually read the articles you were talking about.
Forgive me, I don't mean this as criticism, but you sounded very emotional in your previous posts, as much as one can tell from the written word. If this is true, I can understand where you are coming from. I myself have been hurt very deeply by Fundamentalists, and I know they can be nasty some times. I was driven by my deep hurt to examine the Scriptures for myself. I came out of the process a solid Fundamentalist in the historic vein (unlike these newbies who make a Bible version or whether women should wear pants a test of fellowship).
I hope you will consider carefully once again what I have written. You have not referred in your post to what I wrote concerning your previous post, so I'm not sure you understand my points.
(1) John R. Rice never attacked Billy Graham personally in the SOTL. He attacked his position, which is perfectly all right to do. We both are discussing positions right now in a gentlemanly and Christian way, I trust. Did other Fundamentalists attack Graham personally? Yes, and that was wrong. I can't guarantee (without doing the research) that personal attacks never appeared in the SOTL, though I know from JRR himself that he didn't believe in them. Sumner himself, good man that he is (I knew him years ago), sometimes has a sharp tongue, and BJ Jr. certainly did. But I am positive that you cannot find a personal attack on Graham by Rice anywhere in the SOTL archives. On the other hand, Rice and other Fundamentalists were attacked viciously by Graham surrogates. I have talked to people who read the nasty letters from a certain Graham in-law. (By the way, Fundamentalism was never "pushed off the map," as you put it. About 10,000 churches now call themselves Fundamentalist.)
(2) This thread is about secondary separation. You have attacked John R. Rice for being a secondary separationist. I have answered your charges that Rice believed in secondary separation. What sayest thou?
(3) Now concerning your statement that Rice "turned against Graham" because of the New York Crusade (1957), no, he never "turned against Graham." Rice did not change. He had always been against cooperating with and promoting liberals. (See his 1948 book,
Is Jesus God?) Graham is the one who changed. In 1957 for the first time, Graham INSISTED that liberals be included in the Crusade committee. (I document this in another thread.) In fact, he turned down invitations by conservatives (led by Jack Wyrtzen) and accepted instead the invitation by the Protestant Council of New York, headed by noted liberal Gardner Taylor.
(3) I find it very sad that you allowed a book put out by BJU to turn you against Fundamentalism. The movement is huge--BJU is only a part of it. I am a Fundamentalist, but there is no way I would let BJU stand for me. The original principles and stand of Fundamentalism are sound, even if some take it too far.
