Sword Saturday

Now in its 84th year, The Sword of the Lord periodical was a staple in many homes when I was growing up. Here are some links related to the paper, its people, and its power.

• Dead Right: The Failure of Fundamentalism -- "When John Rice died in 1980, there was a war among his followers about who would become his successor and take his place as the de facto spokesperson and figurehead at the helm of the movement. Twenty-five years later, there is still no clear successor to John R. Rice as the leading figure of the fundamentalist movement."
• Interview - Oral history with the daughters of John Rice -- "Part of the Paige Patterson SBC Conservative Resurgence Collection" (Select links for specific interviews)
• John R. Rice, Bob Jones Jr., and the “Mechanical Dictation” Controversy -- "By Nathan A. Finn in The Journal of Baptist Studies 6 (2014)" (Click link to view as PDF)
• John R. Rice, The Sword of the Lord, and the Fundamentalist Conversation: Comparisons with J. Frank Norris's The Fundamentalist and Carl McIntire's The Christian Beacon -- "Robin L. Smith, Master's Thesis, Wright State University, 2013"
• John Rice, the Sword of the Lord, and What We Should Learn from The Fundamentalists -- "The most fascinating part of the book chronicles the turbulent relationship between Rice and Billy Graham." (Review of the Andrew Himes book)
• John R. Rice "Sword of the Lord" Revival Weekly & Conferences -- "John R. Rice was born in Cooke County, Texas in 1895, the son of William H. and Sallie Elizabeth La Prade Rice, and the oldest of three brothers. Will Rice was a small businessman, a lay preacher, and a one-term state legislator 'well respected in the community'."
• Robert Leslie Sumner Obituary -- "In 1955, Dr. John R. Rice, a nationally known evangelist and editor of the Sword of the Lord newspaper invited Dr. Sumner to become Associate Editor and a staff evangelist."
• The Emergence of Moderate Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and "The Sword of the Lord" -- "Howard Edgar Moore, PhD Thesis, George Washington University, 1990." (can be requested here)
• The Sword of the Lord: A Brief Review -- "All that to say, while I’m not a self-confessed fundamentalist, I have a critical appreciation of fundamentalism in general and John R. Rice in particular."
• The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family -- "By Andrew Himes, Rice's Grandson" (Google Book preview)
• The Sword of the Lord, Really The Scoop Shovel of Revivalism -- "In general now, I would characterize the The Sword of the Lord as a vehicle to spread revivalism of revivalistic fundamentalism. At present it doesn't even represent a true gospel."