john r. rice, bob jones jr., and the “mechanical dictation” controversy: finalizing the...

John R. Rice, Bob Jones Jr., and the “Mechanical Dictation” Controversy

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JOHN R. RICE, BOB JONES JR., AND THE “MECHANICAL DICTATION” CONTROVERSY: FINALIZING THE FRACTURING OF INDEPENDENT

FUNDAMENTALISM

By Nathan A. Finn

Introduction

In the mid-1950s, independent fundamentalists ceased to cooperate with neo-evangelicals

because of their differing understandings of Christian cooperation. Since the 1930s, the two

movements had functioned as two streams of emphasis within what Joel Carpenter has called an

“evangelical united front.”1 But that began to change in the years after World War II. The final

straw for most fundamentalists was Billy Graham’s 1957 Madison Square Garden crusade.

Graham had increasingly come under fundamentalist suspicion because he allowed theological

liberals and Roman Catholics to sponsor his crusades, sit on the platform, and pray during the

services. After the split, Graham, Harold John Ockenga, and Carl Henry emerged as the key

leaders within the post-fundamentalist new evangelical movement.2

In the years following 1957, the leading independent fundamentalists were Bob Jones Sr.

(1883–1968) and John R. Rice (1895–1980). Unlike the younger leaders of new evangelicals,

Jones and Rice were seasoned institution-builders who had been shaping their movement for a

generation. Jones was an evangelist and the founder of Bob Jones University (BJU), the flagship

1 Joel A. Carpenter, “The Fundamentalist Leaven and the Rise of an Evangelical United Front,” in The

Evangelical Tradition in America, ed. Leonard I. Sweet (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 257–88. 2 For the split between fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals, see Farley P. Butler Jr., “Billy Graham and

the End of Evangelical Unity” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 1976). For the early development of neo-evangelicalism, see Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Jon R. Stone, On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism: The Postwar Evangelical Coalition (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997); Garth Rosell, The Surprising Work of God: Harold John Ockenga, Billy Graham, and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008).

The Journal of Baptist Studies 6 (2014)

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fundamentalist college. Rice was also an evangelist and the editor of The Sword of the Lord, the

flagship fundamentalist periodical. The two men were close friends who frequently collaborated,

but their vision of a relatively unified independent fundamentalism failed to outlive their

friendship.

In 1968, Bob Jones Sr. died, and his son, Bob Jones Jr. (1911–1997), took over the reins

of his father’s fundamentalist empire and became chancellor of Bob Jones University. Within

three years, Jones Jr. and Rice had a massive falling out, ostensibly over the perennial issue of

cooperation versus separation.3 Both men affirmed the principle of biblical separation, which is

the belief that Christians should distance themselves from sin and false doctrine, whether these

problems are found in the secular world or among professing Christians.4 However, they

disagreed over how to apply biblical separation to churches and denominations. Rice, who could

be characterized as a moderate fundamentalist, wished to cooperate with fundamentalists who

remained in mainline denominations, particularly the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Jones,

whose fundamentalism was much stricter, denied the existence of denominational

fundamentalism; by definition, authentic fundamentalists were independent separatists.

The controversy became increasingly heated during the early 1970s. Many

fundamentalists with close ties to Bob Jones University criticized Rice for being too soft on

biblical separation because of his refusal to break ties with fundamentalists in the SBC such as R.

3 The split between Rice and the Joneses has been discussed in several works. See Howard Edgar Moore,

“The Emergence of Moderate Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and The Sword of the Lord” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1990), 317–66; Mark Taylor Dalhouse, An Island in the Lake of Fire: Bob Jones University, Fundamentalism & the Separatist Movement (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 96–102; Nathan A. Finn, “The Development of Baptist Fundamentalism in the South, 1940–1980” (Ph.D. diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007), 157–70. The remainder of this section draws heavily upon these sources.

4 For helpful explanations of biblical separation, see George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 3; Nancy Tatom Ammerman, Bible Believers: Fundamentalists in the Modern World (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 3–4; David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Greenville, SC: Unusual Publications, 1986), 6; Dalhouse, An Island in the Lake of Fire, 3–4.


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G. Lee and W. A. Criswell. Those with greater affinity for Rice accused Jones and his allies of

redefining separation and applying it more strictly than the previous generation of

fundamentalists, including Bob Jones Sr., had done. The division was finalized in the fall of

1971. In the following years, Bob Jones Jr. and Bob Jones III (b. 1939) remained the key leaders

among stricter fundamentalists, while Rice, Chattanooga pastor Lee Roberson (1909–2007), and

would-be political activist Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) were the key figures among more moderate

fundamentalists.5

While this dominant narrative is historically accurate, there was another aspect of the

Rice–Jones controversy that has been almost totally unexplored by historians. For all their

demonstrable differences in applying biblical separation, Rice and Jones also split, in part, over a

dispute about the nature of biblical inspiration. Jones and the Bible Department at his university

accused Rice of holding to a “mechanical dictation” understanding of inspiration. Rice

vigorously denied the accusation in print and in personal correspondence. This essay argues that

the controversy over whether or not Rice advocated mechanical dictation played a key role in

helping to finalize the fracturing of independent fundamentalism into two different camps during

the early 1970s. In doing so, it adds another layer to our understanding of the nature of intra-

fundamentalist tensions during the years before the Religious Right put fundamentalism back on

the radar in wider American culture.6

5 Finn, “The Development of Baptist Fundamentalism in the South,” 170–73. 6 See Jerry Falwell, with Ed Dobson and Ed Hindson, The Fundamentalist Phenomenon: The Resurgence of

Conservative Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 1981).


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“If God Gave the Very Words and Men Wrote Them Down, That is Dictation”

In 1969, John R. Rice published a popular bibliology titled Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible;

the tome was an expansion of an earlier pamphlet on the same topic.7 Our God-Breathed Book

was intended to offer a defense of plenary-verbal inspiration, the belief that every word of the

original autographs of Scripture, though written by men, were inspired ultimately by God. This

view, which was originally associated with the “Old Princeton” theological tradition, became

mainstream among both fundamentalists and evangelicals in the early twentieth century.8

However, by the late-1960s some evangelicals were rejecting the older understanding of

Scripture, especially the rising generation of scholars and pastors.9 The next two decades were

dominated by evangelical debates over the inspiration, authority, and truthfulness of Scripture.10

In the case of Rice’s book, chapters 14 and 15 became the focal point of the controversy.

In chapter 14, Rice addresses the common accusation from mainline progressives that verbal

inspiration is more or less equivalent to the mechanical dictation theory of inspiration. According

to the mechanical dictation view, “the mental activity of the [biblical] writers was simply

suspended, apart from what was necessary for the mechanical transcription of the words

supernaturally introduced into their consciousness.”11 Rice denies that any well-known

theological conservative holds this view and claims it is a spurious allegation from liberals and

7 John R. Rice, Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1969). See

also John R. Rice, Verbal Inspiration (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1943). 8 For the theology of Old Princeton, see Mark A. Noll, ed., The Princeton Theology 1812–1921: Scripture,

Science, and Theological Method from Archibald Alexander to Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001).

9 For differing perspectives on evangelical shifts in bibliology, see Richard Quebedeaux, The Young Evangelicals: Revolution in Orthodoxy (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), and Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976). For a more scholarly assessment of how these shifts affected a particular institution, see George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 245–62.

10 See Gary J. Dorrien, The Remaking of Evangelical Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 103–52; and Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

11 J. I. Packer, “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), 78–79.


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infidels.12 However, he complains that conservatives have been overly sensitive to the accusation

of mechanical dictation, often in an effort to gain credibility in wider scholarly circles. He

criticizes conservative scholars such as James Orr, John Urquhart, Carl Henry, Stewart Custer,

and W. H. Griffith Thomas for accommodating allegedly liberal terminology in their effort to

avoid being charged with affirming mechanical dictation.13

In chapter 15, Rice attempts to rehabilitate the word dictation among theological

conservatives. He argues that God did indeed dictate the words of Scripture to the human

authors, though this divine dictation was compatible with the individual writers’ differing styles

and vocabularies.14 He claims his view is the same as that advanced by John Calvin, Benjamin

Warfield, and Louis Gaussen.15 For Rice, it appears dictation was more or less a synonym for

inspiration. Rice closes his argument by stating he does not believe one must use the word

dictation to describe the conservative view of inspiration. Nevertheless, he reiterates his criticism

of conservatives who shy away from the word out of a misguided desire to avoid the charge of

holding to mechanical dictation.16

So does Rice advocate mechanical dictation in Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible?

Scholars sometimes point to Rice as the key representative of the mechanical dictation view.17 As

Keith Bates argues, Rice’s “theory of inspiration embraced the major elements of mechanical

dictation.”18 However, it is important to note that Rice argues forcefully that he did not hold to

12 Rice, Our God-Breathed Book, 265–68. 13 Ibid., 274–80. 14 Ibid., 282–88. 15 Ibid., 288–90. 16 Ibid., 291. 17 See Roger E. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity (Downers

Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2002), 98; Robert P. Lightner, Handbook of Evangelical Theology: A Historical, Biblical, and Contemporary Survey and Review (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 1995), 15.

18 See David Keith Bates Jr., “Moving Fundamentalism Toward the Mainstream: John R. Rice and the Reengagement of America’s Religious and Political Cultures” (Ph.D. diss., Kansas State University, 2006), 151–52. However, Bates also concedes that Rice’s arguments about inspiration are “essentially spats about semantics” (152).


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mechanical dictation. He is probably correct. Unlike advocates of mechanical dictation, Rice

suggests that each writer’s unique style, vocabulary, and personality factored into inspiration. A

more nuanced answer to this question, advocated by several scholars, is that Rice clearly affirms

dictation, which in itself was an unusual position to take, but not mechanical dictation, which

would have eliminated virtually every human element from inspiration.19

Though he likely did not affirm mechanical dictation, at least as the term is normally

defined, Rice does advance a minority view among theological conservatives, often using very

strong language to do so:

Face it honestly, if God gave the very words and men wrote them down, that is dictation. It was not mechanical dictation. It ought not to be hard for us to understand that God, who could give the very words by a miracle, could also express the feelings and character and personality of the men whom he had formed and through whom He gave the words.20

God’s giving the words that the men wrote down sounds very much like stenography, even if the

process was somehow (miraculously?) compatible with the individual styles and vocabularies of

each individual stenographer. Rice’s novel approach to inspiration led to his being accused of

championing the very view he was trying to deny that conservatives held. Had Rice been a

scholar like Henry, Custer, or the other conservative theologians he criticized, he likely would

have chosen a different word than dictation to argue for plenary-verbal inspiration. His insistence

on retaining the term exposed him to the charge that he did, in fact, hold to mechanical dictation,

his protestations notwithstanding. Even though the charge that Rice affirmed mechanical

19 Norman Geisler and William Nix argue that Rice affirmed a word-for-word divine verbal dictation, but

not a mechanical dictation, though they note that even verbal dictation is not the historic evangelical understanding of inspiration. See Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix, From God to Us: How We Got Our Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 2012), 24. Harriett Harris also argues this is Rice’s position, though she sees no significant difference between verbal dictation and mechanical dictation. See Harriett A. Harris, Fundamentalism and Evangelicals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 163. See also Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 233n6, and David S. Dockery and David P. Nelson, “Special Revelation,” in A Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel L. Akin (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2007), 142n82.

20 Rice, Our God-Breathed Book, 287–88; emphasis original.


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dictation was probably inaccurate, the accusation alone proved sufficient to further charge an

atmosphere already electrified by controversy.

“I Am Openly Branded as Unscholarly”

When Rice was writing Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible, he sent a lengthy letter to a number

of leading fundamentalist and even neo-evangelical pastors and theologians.21 In the letter, Rice

asked two key questions. First, did the Scriptures exist completely in the mind and plan of God

before they were given for men to write down? Second, how much were the Bible writers

conditioned and prepared ahead of time so that they would utter exactly the words of God in

their own vocabularies, while also expressing their own conditions, feelings, and testimonies?

The latter part of the second question demonstrates that Rice did not affirm mechanical dictation,

since he wished to acknowledge the human element in biblical authorship. In his book, Rice

reproduces sympathetic responses from Laird Harris, Charles Feinberg, and Maxwell Coder.

Once the book was written, Rice sent a copy of the work to Bob Jones Jr. and asked him

to write a review. Rice had every reason to believe that Jones and his faculty would promote the

book. In fact, shortly after Our God-Breathed Book was published, Jones invited Rice to BJU in

1970 to present him the “Bob Jones Memorial Award for the Defense of the Scriptures,” praising

the fundamentalist patriarch for his commitment to evangelism and the defense of the true

faith.22 However, Jones never reviewed the book, a fact that would become important once the

controversy over biblical separation played out over the next eighteen months.

21 Rice reproduced the letter and three responses in the book’s foreword. See Rice, Our God-Breathed

Book, 8–13. Copies of the letters are also available in the John R. Rice Collection, A. Webb Roberts Library, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX, box 2, folder 11 (hereafter Rice Collection). At the time when most of the research for this essay was undertaken, Rice’s personal papers were housed at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which retains a microfiche copy of the collection.

22 See Andrew Himes, The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family (Seattle: Chiara Press, 2011), 275; Viola Walden, John R. Rice: “The Captain of Our Team” (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1990), 320–21.


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In September 1971, Rice and Jones were engaged in correspondence that cemented the

break between the two men. While the bulk of their disagreement centered on the nature of

separation and who best represented the views of Bob Jones Sr. on that issue, the question of

mechanical dictation was also raised. In a letter dated September 20, Rice lamented that his long-

held views on verbal inspiration were no longer acceptable at BJU. He pointed out that he had

earlier received an honorary doctorate from the university, in part because of his defense of

biblical inspiration. Rice also complained that he was “openly branded as unscholarly” for

teaching mechanical dictation.23 In a follow-up letter on October 7, Rice reiterated that his

position in Our God-Breathed Book represented what he had always believed about inspiration.

He also claimed he had preached his views in chapel at BJU during previous years without

controversy.24

What had heretofore been hearsay and innuendo now became public controversy. Jones

published a document titled “A Statement from the Chancellor of Bob Jones University.” He

claimed he was responding to the fact that Rice had begun publicly circulating their private

correspondence about the controversy. Significantly, Jones argued that the root of the

disagreement between the two men was Rice’s offense on two points: the dispute over separation

and BJU’s refusal to “agree without reservation” with Rice’s position in Our God-Breathed

Book. Jones claimed that he had refused to write a review of the book and had explained to Rice

at the time that the book had “certain weaknesses.” Jones suggested he had pursued this approach

because did not wish to disagree publicly with Rice. He also claimed that the entire Bible

Department at BJU “consider[s] that Dr. Rice’s position is not verbal inspiration but actually

23 John R. Rice to Bob Jones Jr., September 20, 1971, Rice Collection, box 9, folder 23. A copy of the letter

is also found in the Fundamentalism File, Mack Library, Bob Jones University, Greenville, SC, accession no. 0920801 (hereafter Fundamentalism File).

24 John R. Rice to Bob Jones Jr., October 7, 1971, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920850.


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‘mechanical’ inspiration.” Jones conceded that Rice denied affirming mechanical inspiration, but

then added that Rice “certainly expresses himself rather loosely in the book.” Jones suggested

that he did not believe the difference of opinion on this issue should lead to controversy, but it

had unfortunately done so because of Rice’s offense at the refusal of Jones and his faculty to

endorse Our God-Breathed Book.25

In November, Rice’s younger brother Bill attempted to act as mediator between the

sparring fundamentalists. Bill had encouraged John to apologize for whatever had offended Jones

and be willing to make amends. At this point, a new wrinkle was added to the controversy. One

of the conservative scholars Rice had criticized in Our God-Breathed Book for being too willing

to fudge on verbal inspiration was Stewart Custer, chairman of the Bible Department at BJU. In

1968, Custer had published his own bibliology, titled Does Inspiration Demand Inerrancy?26

Rice responded to his brother,

I am sincerely sorry that my mention of Dr. Custer’s pamphlet or book brought offense and sorry I mentioned it. I will delete that mention, God willing, in the further editions of Our God-Breathed Book—THE BIBLE. If Dr. Jones thinks it proper and helpful, I will say in SWORD OF THE LORD that I did not mean to offend nor cast reflection on Bob Jones University or on Dr. Custer when I suggested that to use the term “mechanical dictation,” which liberals use about verbal inspiration, was unfortunate.27

Rice also apologized to Jones personally in a letter dated February 17, 1972.28 Though Rice

attempted to make amends with Jones, the two men remained estranged, and independent

fundamentalists began dividing into two camps.

Rice and Jones Jr. corresponded much less frequently after the fall of 1971. However, the

issue of mechanical dictation continued to be a source of controversy, as various fundamentalists

25 Bob Jones Jr., “A Statement from the Chancellor of Bob Jones University,” Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0872796.

26 Stewart Custer, Does Inspiration Demand Inerrancy? (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1968). 27 John R. Rice to Bill Rice, December 7, 1971, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920801. Jones was

apparently copied on the letter between the Rice brothers, since a copy is located in his personal papers. 28 John R. Rice to Bob Jones Jr., February 17, 1972, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920801.


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sided with either one man or the other in the ensuing split. For example, in September 1972, a

full year after the apex of the controversy, Rice answered a letter from a pastor named Norman

Marks inquiring why Rice no longer promoted Bob Jones University in The Sword of the Lord.

Rice responded that BJU had shifted its position under Jones Jr.’s leadership, as represented by

the debate over separation and Jones’s criticism of three of Rice’s books. He mentioned the flap

over mechanical dictation and claimed that Stewart Custer initially did not want Our God-

Breathed Book carried in the BJU bookstore, though eventually the store stocked the book.29

In a more pointed missive to Bob Jones III, dated December 15, 1972, Rice complained

about “slanderous” letters he had received from the Joneses over the past year. Rice was miffed

that the Joneses allegedly were acting as if they did not know why Rice had broken fellowship

with the university. One of the reasons for the break mentioned by Rice was the accusation from

Jones Jr. and the BJU Bible Department that Our God-Breathed Book advocated mechanical

dictation.30 While the separation issue was the best-known reason for the controversy, as far as

Rice was concerned the debate over mechanical dictation also contributed to the rift among

independent fundamentalists.

In January 1973, Jones III wrote a lengthy response to Rice. His thoughts on the

mechanical dictation debate are worth quoting at length, since they summarize BJU’s stance in

the controversy with Rice:

The school’s position on inspiration is that which my grandfather believed. It is the only position on inspiration that has ever been espoused by our Bible faculty in the 46 years of the school’s history. Yet, in your book OUR GOD-BREATHED BOOK, THE BIBLE, you reflect on our Bible Department chairman, Dr. Custer, by saying he has been unduly influenced by liberal thought because he called your position on inspiration something akin to mechanical dictation. The position we teach in our Bible Department is historic and every bit as orthodox as yours. . . .

29 Norman C. Marks to John R. Rice, September 3, 1972, Rice Collection, box 3, folder 10; John R. Rice to

Norman C. Marks, September 6, 1972, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920801. 30 John R. Rice to Bob Jones III, December 15, 1972, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920801.


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Dr. Rice, we have tried to avoid saying publicly that our Bible faculty do not agree with the position you took in your book because we do not want to reflect on you; and as my father wrote you, we have tried to avoid giving any impression that there is a difference between us for the sake of not dividing Fundamental people and causing confusion. We would be glad to state that our Bible faculty do not agree with your mechanical theory of inspiration as set forth in your book; and, if you would like for us to do so, we can specify this; but we have tried to avoid it for your sake—not ours. For us to say that we do not approve of verbal inspiration of Scripture would be absolutely false and preposterous, because no institution in America stands as aggressively and boldly for the verbal inspiration of Scripture and the infallibility and inerrancy of it as Bob Jones University.31

This epistle represents the end of the private correspondence between Rice and the Joneses on

this topic, though it was not the end of the controversy itself.

“Some Fundamentalists Say Verbal Inspiration Without Meaning It” The final flare-up in the mechanical dictation controversy occurred in the early months of 1975.

In January of that year, Rice wrote a lengthy article for The Sword of the Lord titled “Some

Fundamentalists Say Verbal Inspiration Without Meaning It.” In that article, Rice restates his

earlier argument from Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible. He criticizes an older generation of

theological conservatives for capitulating to theological liberalism by denying dictation,

including Charles Hodge and the Scofield Reference Bible. He also complains about scholars

from Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Bob Jones

University “who say matter-of-factly that they believe in verbal inspiration, yet deny the one

great essential truth that God gave the very words of the Bible.”32 Rice also once again

summarizes his own view of the issue:

31 Bob Jones III to John R. Rice, January 2, 1973, Fundamentalism File, accession no. 0920801. 32 John R. Rice, “Some Fundamentalists Say Verbal Inspiration Without Meaning It,” The Sword of the

Lord (January 10, 1975): 5.


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Verbal inspiration, word-for-word dictation of the Scriptures, is clearly taught in the Bible, but it has never been regarded as mechanical, never regarded as if it left no room for color, the taste, the language and feelings of those whom God has prepared and inspired to write His Word already settled in Heaven.33

Near the end of his essay, Rice spends three paragraphs criticizing Stewart Custer, for the most

part repeating his earlier comments from Our God-Breathed Book.34 Rice’s mentioning of BJU

and Custer sparked another round of polemics.

Rice’s personal papers include several dozen letters related to the article, mostly between

Rice and defenders of BJU. Some of the correspondence was very heated in tone. For example,

David Ainsley, a pastor from Virginia, wrote to Rice, “I know that you have a bone of contention

with Bob Jones University, but that does not give you the right to jump on them the way you

did.” He then further stated,

I feel that you have done more to hurt the cause of fundamental, Bible-believing Christians by printing that article than any other one act that you have done. It was foolish, idiotic and asinine. It caused me personally to lose a great deal of respect for you.

Bob Jones University has done more to help you and to make you what you are than any other school in America. They have promoted you and your ministry and your paper and now you have turned on them like a mad dog. I pity you.35

Rice’s response, while less vitriolic, was nevertheless pointed: “Your language is very

intemperate and does not inspire the respect that I would like to have for it. The plain truth about

the Bible doesn’t interest you—whether God gave the very words and whether people mean it

when they say verbal inspiration.” Rice also reiterated his claim that Jones Sr. had agreed with

Rice’s position on inspiration.36

33 Ibid., 6. 34 Ibid., 14. 35 Dallas Ainsley to John R. Rice, January 16, 1975, Rice Collection, box 3, folder 37. 36 John R. Rice to David Ainsley, January 23, 1975, ibid.


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Robert King of Michigan also wrote a strongly worded letter to Rice defending Custer

and BJU:

I didn’t know whether to cry or to vomit after reading such a ridiculous article. . . . What a slanderous thing to say that Bob Jones University is in the same class as such a New Evangelical haven as Wheaton College! You know as well as I do that Bob Jones University has always stood for the truth of God’s Word against modernism. To say that Bob Jones University and a godly man like Dr. Stewart Custer “talk like modernists” is a terrible, terrible lie.

King also mentions Rice’s alleged lack of discernment for cooperating with W. A. Criswell,

clearly siding with BJU on the question of separation.37 However, other correspondents who had

aligned with Rice on the separation issue were becoming increasingly miffed over Rice’s views

on the Bible. One writer claimed he had agreed with Rice in the debate over separation, but he

now believed Rice had gone too far in publicly criticizing Stewart Custer. The same writer also

claimed to have a 1953 syllabus from a New Testament survey class at BJU that argued against

“mechanical inspiration” and championed plenary-verbal inspiration as the “only satisfactory

theory.” The timing was significant, because 1953 was during the presidency of Bob Jones Sr.,

whom Rice consistently claimed had shared his view of inspiration.38

Two BJU students wrote that they had always appreciated Rice and his writings, but

expressed dismay at this particular article. They noted, “After reading your article in the latest

‘Sword of the Lord’, we became rather distressed to find you blatantly attacking Bob Jones

University.”39 Rice’s response is interesting because he implies that Custer had started the

controversy the year before Rice even published Our God-Breathed Book. According to Rice,

“When Dr. Custer wrote his little book, Does the Bible Demand Inerrancy?, whether you know it

or not, he was answering somewhat my own position.” Rice also accused Custer of leading the

37 Robert King to John R. Rice, January 16, 1975, ibid. 38 Carey Clark to John R. Rice, March 13 1975, ibid. 39 Frank Eberhart and Johnny Gordon to John R. Rice, January 17, 1975, ibid.


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Bible Department to shift away from their earlier commitment to verbal inspiration (as

understood by Rice). He also recommended the two students read Our God-Breathed Book and

examine the issue for themselves. 40

Some fundamentalists were simply tired of the controversy. As one man stated in a letter

to Rice, “I do not understand why you are making an issue of verbal inspiration of the Bible,

whether it is mechanical or not, and classifying BJU with other liberal universities. Most of us

have never thought or care about the words ‘mechanical dictation.’” Clearly, Rice and the

Joneses were arguing about an issue that did not resonate with all fundamentalists. In fact, this

particular writer suggested, “I think this [controversy] is nit-picking and is not worth the division

that is being caused by it, especially among fundamentalists.”41 Simply put, Rice was fostering a

controversy within fundamentalism at the very time when some felt independent conservatives

needed to be united against their real enemies, especially historic opponents such as theological

liberalism, Roman Catholicism, and atheism.

One couple wrote a letter accusing Rice of “character assassination” because of his

criticisms of BJU. They recommended that Rice read Bob Jones III’s column in the March/April

issue of the BJU periodical Faith for the Family.42 That article, titled “A Special Word from the

President,” was intended to be a response to Rice’s most recent criticism of the university, and

particularly Stewart Custer, in The Sword of the Lord. Jones expressed his frustration that Rice

had accused BJU of denying verbal inspiration and lumped the university in with neo-

evangelical schools such as Wheaton and Dallas Seminary. Jones rehearsed the origins of the

mechanical dictation controversy from the perspective of BJU. Rice was offended because

Custer refused to endorse Our God-Breathed Book on the grounds that Rice advocated a position

40 John R. Rice to Frank Eberhart and Johnny Gordon, January 23, 1975, ibid. 41 A. Evanoff to John R. Rice, March 8, 1975, ibid. 42 Harrison and Ruth Zonge to John R. Rice, April 1, 1975, ibid.


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“closely resembling” mechanical dictation.43 Jones summarized the university’s position on

inspiration:

Bob Jones University does not believe in mechanical dictation but does believe . . . that God directly revealed eternal truth which was recorded in the writers’ vocabulary and that He also brooded over the recording of events in their ministries and caused them to tell it in His words, though theirs.44

The column closes with a short addendum wherein Custer responds to Rice. Custer resented

Rice’s lumping him with “Modernists” who denied verbal inspiration. While he agrees with Rice

that the Bible is verbally inspired, Custer appeals to mystery rather than divine dictation in terms

of the method of inspiration.45

Rice responded to the Jones column in an article in The Sword of the Lord titled “B.J.U.

Takes Good Stand for the Bible.” In the article, Rice suggests that the views articulated in

Jones’s article are more in line with Rice’s own understanding of inspiration. Rice also claims the

article represents “an improvement” over Stewart Custer’s views on the matter. Rice then

proceeds to rehash his disagreement with Custer and argue for his own understanding of divine

dictation.46 In light of the fact that Rice ignored Custer’s addendum to Jones’s column and

continued to criticize Custer’s earlier writings, it seems likely that there was at least some merit

to Jones’s argument that the root of the controversy was Rice’s offense that Custer had not

endorsed Our God-Breathed Book—The Bible. After the spring of 1975, the controversy over

mechanical dictation receded into the background, though Rice and the Joneses continued to

argue about biblical separation until Rice’s death in 1980.47

43 Bob Jones III, “A Special Word from the President,” Faith for the Family (March/April 1975): 23.

Special thanks to Patrick Robbins, director of the Fundamentalism File at Bob Jones University, for providing the author with a scanned copy of this article.

44 Ibid., 24. 45 Ibid., 25. 46 John R. Rice, “B.J.U. Takes Good Stand for the Bible,” Sword of the Lord (April 11, 1975): 5–6. 47 For example, see John R. Rice, “The Modern Fad of Secondary Separation,” The Sword of the Lord


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Conclusion

During the 1970s, separatist fundamentalists who had been united in their opposition to

the new evangelicals divided into two broad camps. The primary reason for this division was

differing approaches to ecclesiastical separation. However, as this essay has demonstrated, the

allegation by the Bob Jones University faculty and administration that John R. Rice affirmed the

doctrine of mechanical dictation helped to solidify the fracturing of independent fundamentalism.

While the allegation itself was probably inaccurate, Rice certainly opened himself up to the

charge because of his idiosyncratic understanding of divine, but non-mechanical, dictation.

In the years immediately following the Rice–Jones controversy, fundamentalism was

even further balkanized. Throughout the 1970s, a new controversy over whether or not God had

uniquely inspired the King James translation of the Bible came to dominate independent

fundamentalism.48 In the years after Rice’s death, this particular debate about inspiration would

eclipse the earlier controversy about mechanical dictation, resulting in yet another faction among

the perennially fracture-prone independent fundamentalists.

(September 3, 1976): 3; Bob Jones Jr., Facts John R. Rice Will Not Face (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1977). The latter pamphlet briefly mentions the controversy over verbal inspiration (26).

48 See James Arnold Price, “The King James Only Controversy in American Fundamentalism since 1950” (Th.D. Diss., Temple Baptist Theological Seminary, 1990).

john r. rice, bob jones jr., and the “mechanical dictation” controversy: finalizing the...

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