Rice desired his children to reach a spiritual height that surpassed him. He did not want them to be content with low spirituality which he said was common among Christians in his day. Instead of a list of rules for them to check off, he provided a paradigm to measure every action taken. The principle of our actions first and foremost must be a high regard for God. A holy reverence for the Divine majesty and a thankfulness for the work of Christ on our behalf must dominate every decision. Indeed, without this sacred regard for God, Rice wrote, “none of our actions can properly be denominated religious actions.”

David Rice (1733–1816) was a Presbyterian minister who played a prominent role in the development of Presbyterianism in Kentucky. He was born in Virginia and converted under the preaching of Samuel Davies in the 1750s. After serving in Virginia for some time, Rice came to Kentucky in the 1780s and immediately felt the challenge of ministering to those living on the frontier. Despite the difficulties, Rice was able to aid in the organization and establishment of churches through his faithful gospel preaching. He also played a hand in establishing schools—including the Transylvania Seminary (now Transylvania University) which had its beginnings meeting in his home.
In 1792, the year that Kentucky was admitted to the Union, Rice played an important part in the State’s first Constitutional Convention. He argued for the insertion of an article allowing for a gradual emancipation of slaves. Although his speech, entitled “Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy,” provided a passionate apologetic for the cause, it ultimately failed to pass. When the revivals of the Second Great Awakening came to the frontier at the turn of the century, Rice advocated for moderation. He was not anti-revival as some have claimed, but he was opposed to the excess and bodily agitations that accompanied many of the camp meetings. Like a good Presbyterian, he wanted all things to be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40).
Rice married Mary Blair, the daughter of prominent Presbyterian minister Samuel Blair, and together they had 11 children. By all indications, the Rices were faithful in raising their children in the instruction of the Lord. History testifies that all of their children had their own families and remained faithful to the church. Church historian Robert Davidson, writing in 1847, recorded that one of their children was converted from reading a Bible that was left on his clothes when he was leaving home for the first time!
One can see the love that Rice had for his children in some of the last words that he spoke to them. It is often the case when death is near, trivial and superficial matters lose their predominance. We are no longer preoccupied with them, and our attention no longer gravitates toward them. Instead, we become obsessively concerned with things that truly matter. We confront eternity face to face. David Rice’s advice to his children nine years before his death exemplifies this. As Rice grew older, he wrote some final words to his beloved children, which have come down to us in a work entitled The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His by Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy-Fourth Year of His Age.
Rice began this work by sharing that he started to think about his final advice after the death of his wife. It was by this act of God’s providence he realized tomorrow may be his last day, and so he needed to share some parting words with his children. At the outset, Rice reminded them:
My dear children, frequently recollect and seriously realize that we must all appear at the dread tribunal of Jesus Christ; and that then you must give an account to him of the use, the improvement you have made of all the religious advantages and privileges you have enjoyed; and particularly those that you have enjoyed in the family in which you have been educated.
David Rice, “The Rev. David Rice’s Last Advice to His Children, Whether His By Affinity or Consanguinity: Written in the Seventy Fourth Year of His Age,” in The Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine 2/6 (June 1819), 246.
It was his purpose to exhort them to live with this in mind, and the remainder of the work was to help them practically live thankful to God for their advantages. The advice that followed was written under three broad headings: On the Doctrines of Christianity, On Christian Morality, and On Conduct in Civil Society. What follows are some prominent points, not an exhaustive study.
On Christian Doctrine
Stand firm in your convictions, show charity to Christians who disagree, and do not get weighed down in trivial matters or doctrine of secondary importance.
Rice urged his children to be fixed and well-established in the fundamental doctrines of religion, the government of the church, and the scriptural modes of worship. He desired that his children would be steadfast in their conviction. Rice had instructed them in the Presbyterian tradition, which, according to his testimony, was the best system of religion. They were to be unwavering in their beliefs, and not let anything move them from the foundation that they stood upon. Yet, simultaneously, where good Christians disagreed on secondary or tertiary issues, Rice exhorted his children to show charity. “At the same time,” he wrote, “extend your charity to others as far as reason and scripture will warrant you, treating Christians of every denomination as brethren…Men may differ widely as to the mode of worship, and yet be acceptable worshippers of God through Christ.”
While it is important for Christians to know secondary matters well, Rice did not want his children to get weighed down in these issues at the expense of Christian unity. He was also concerned about pride. He wanted his children to study those doctrines that produced holiness in the heart and life. Doctrines that carried a lot of speculation and did not produce a holiness of character could be hurtful. This is not to say they were not important, but that doctrinal hobby horses could easily open the door for pride and temptation to unpack and settle in our hearts. Rice warned his children to avoid religious controversy if it were possible, but if it wasn’t, he spurred them to faithfully defend the truth. They were to defend it with humility and meekness, not out of pride and vainglory. Further, they were to never “engage the enemy, until you are acquainted with the ground you occupy, your own force, and the forces of your antagonist.” Another warning Rice wrote was to avoid “religious novelties” which, generally speaking, were nothing better than seducing errors. In every century, religious fads and movements attempt to sway the people of God; Rice encouraged his children to resist.
In exhorting them to stand firm in their convictions while cultivating a heart of charity for those who disagreed, he was very clear that they were not to have communion with those who were nominal Christians. He wrote: “Treat all of your fellow creatures with kindness and with the respect due to their several characters; but have no religious communion with those nominal Christians, whose principles sap the foundation of the Christian religion, lest you thereby countenance their errors, and partake of their guilt and punishment.”
The world today is changing at a rapid pace. Our culture is in the midst of a moral revolution, the speed of which is unprecedented in history, and as a result, many Christians find themselves wrestling with how to approach culture. On top of this, there is an alarming number of professing Christians who are sliding into progressive ideologies and deconstructing their faith entirely. Consequently, these kinds of conditions create an environment where everyone is suspect. It is very tempting in this climate for Christians to fight with other Christians. If someone does not espouse a particular view or does not agree with this or that position, they are treated with suspicion. Indeed, today we slap labels on each other faster than green grass through a goose. In this type of atmosphere, let us remember the words of Rice. We are to stand firm on our convictions. All Christians ought to be willing to go to war together on the primary teachings of Scripture.
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A competitive steward is a strategic investor. He seeks to do the greatest (not least) amount of work, for the greatest number of people, in order to bring them the greatest good both now and for eternity! This goal maintains a clear view towards heaven and reminds us that Jesus’ eternally-incentivized plan is for each of us to make His heaven our bank. No investment could possibly be more safe and secure, or come with a stronger guarantee.

Have you ever thought about stewardship as competitive? By competitive, I mean that it is a virtue to strive to be as generous as possible with your time, talents, and money. Competitive stewardship is applying the discipline of an athlete to excel in stewardship.
Competitive stewardship starts with asking probing questions. How does God desire me to live? What limit should my lifestyle have in order to prepare people for eternity? What does it mean to “use the world” but not make “full use” of it, as Paul commanded believers in 1 Cor 7:31? What does it look like to own but not possess, as Paul commanded us in 1 Cor 7:30? What does it mean to not claim anything one owns as “one’s own,” as the early church modeled for us in Acts 4:34? Further, how are we to live as pilgrims just passing through in a culture aggressively insistent on indulgence, record-high consumer debt, and competitive consumption? What impact should the fact that this confused world is literally passing away (1 Cor 7:31) have on a person?
Here are seven convictions of a Competitive Steward:
1. A competitive steward understands what the world doesn’t. Blind sinners have always been slavishly bent on destroying themselves through the empty pursuit of “more and better” things (1 Tim 6:6-8, Lk 12:18), thanks to endless advertising and easy credit. But of what benefit is the unnecessary excess of this world’s goods to a pilgrim Christian living for a mission greater than competitive consumption? As a believer, I am right now headed to a lasting city and a far nicer home than any home in any city in this world (Jn 14:1-3; 1 Jn 2:15-17; Heb 11:10,13:14).
2. A competitive steward owns his theology, not his things. A competitive steward knows he is owned by God (1 Cor 6:19-20) and that what he “owns” is not actually his own, not really (Acts 4:34). But what he does own temporarily he will gladly give to another, if in giving he is successfully meeting a physical or spiritual need, thus bringing delight to the Lord (Acts 4:34, 20:35; 2 Cor 8:5).
3. A competitive steward understands that stewardship is not optional, it’s essential. Following Jesus’ mission is radical and repentance from competitive consumption must take place in order to follow Him (Col 3:5, Lk 14:23).
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Basham has named names and provided copious footnotes detailing public comments, tweets (or now “posts”), and other bits of the record. She goes after powerful and popular figures like Tim Keller, J.D. Greear, and Rick Warren. I really have no reason to believe, however, that any of it is done in bad faith, despite accusations to the contrary. I have every reason to believe that she cares about Christian witness and the translation of the faith into a faithful response to the challenges of the world. But as it stands, her critiques are not all that helpful in terms of calling American Christians into a posture that truly allows them to be a durable and sustainable force for the preservation of civilization.

In the introduction to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis uses the image of a hall leading to various rooms to explain the relationship of the various Christian communions and traditions with one another and with the fundamental and indispensable commitments that define the contours of Christianity. The hall, according to Lewis, is the entryway to the faith defined by the ecumenical creeds. The rooms astride the hall represent the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, and the Methodists. These rooms are where “there are fires and chairs and meals.” The hall, according to Lewis, “is a place to wait in … not a place to live in.”
That illustration is one that was probably quite tidy in a place with relative cultural and social homogeneity like England when Lewis made the observation. American Christianity has always been complex and more diverse in ways that are foreign to Europeans, especially the English. From its inception as a nation, America has lacked an established church, so unlicensed shamans and holy men and evangelists and cult leaders have thrived in the U.S. in ways that would be impossible in the Old World. As a result, Lewis’ hall, at least in America, has become a tent city. There are abandoned lean-tos, burned-out campfires, and assorted refuse scattered among tents that are often mistaken for rooms. There is not much order in the hall, and many of the campers appear not to know very much about why they are there, not to mention where any of the doors lead.
Enter now Megan Basham’s controversial book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. Basham’s work has landed in the tent city like a bomb, and the reactions to the book could not be more polarized. The book has elicited impassioned screeds that cannot be taken seriously, but equally unserious hagiographic tributes disguised as reviews. I am not, for the sake of this essay or otherwise, chasing Basham’s footnotes. I don’t have any basis to form an authoritative opinion as to whether she is a “real journalist.” All of that was taken up elsewhere at Religion & Liberty Online. What I do know is that she gives voice to many valid critiques of evangelicalism that are intuitively obvious to any honest observer—the political, social, and theological left has more influence in evangelicalism today than it did 20 or 30 years ago. And even those who most vociferously defend themselves cannot escape the fact that they did say the things she claims, even if they want to argue about context. Are there conspiracies? Maybe. Read the book and follow the footnotes. Are there bad-faith actors inside of evangelical churches and institutions? Almost certainly, but again—read the book and follow the footnotes.
My concern is that Basham has not really struck at the root of the problem with evangelicalism. In many ways, it is like a firefighter entering a burning home, only to be horrified that the plaid on the throw pillows clashes with the floral sofa. Those who are praised and the people who are critiqued in the book share more in common with one another in terms of their approach to ecclesiology, authority, and personal piety than they will ever admit. They just differ with regard to their postures toward and positions on social and political issues. In Basham’s defense, a definition of “evangelicalism” has proved to be elusive. This is because “evangelical” has morphed from being a descriptor of groups within Lewis’ various rooms to being a pseudo-tradition in itself that is squatting in the hall. It lacks the doctrinal or confessional substance to be itself a tradition. At best, “evangelical” is a label that describes the cultural character of a church rather than the content of anything that members believe. This includes worship styles and music, but also things like vocabulary and lingo. A church that calls a Sunday service a “mass” probably has little in common culturally with one that calls their service “The Gathering,” with the “t” stylized as a cross.
Irun the risk of oversimplification to make the claim that evangelicalism is the first expression of Christianity that is neither doctrinally nor ethnically driven. While other expressions of Christianity have been influenced by various aspects of modernism, evangelicalism itself is the modernist expression of Christianity. People moved from asking, “How do we respond to what we know to be true?” to asking, “How do we know what is true?” The shift from metaphysics to epistemology as the “first philosophy” that marks modernism has led to a lot of subjectivity in the interpretation of Scripture, theological method, and the dynamics of personal faith. The Christian “testimony” up until yesterday was “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again”—along with the implicit or explicit acknowledgement that the confessor was part of the community awaiting his coming again. But starting today, that testimony is the recounting of a subjective experience unique to each person.
Please note: I am a fan of discerning the “plain meaning of Scripture,” but a “Jesus, me, and the Bible” approach to theology simply will not produce a durable, reliable, and consistent theology. The Christian faith is about conformity to Christlikeness in thought, word, and deed, and not inner peace, personal confirmation in our “heart of hearts,” or any other appeal to a subjective feeling or impression. Subjective feelings and impressions are subject to all types of influences, but the virtues that are defined by Christ’s example are stable and fixed.
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