Howard L Rice Dies

The church of Jesus Christ has lost an eminent scholar and a man of great heart.

Rev. Dr. Howard Leland Rice, San Francisco Theological Seminary chaplain and professor of ministry from 1969-97, died on Sunday, Aug. 8, in Claremont, Calif., at the age of 78. For more than 50 years, Rice served the larger Presbyterian Church as one of its most respected spiritual leaders.

Rice was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis prior to his appointment at SFTS and spent his time on the San Anselmo campus either on crutches or confined to a wheelchair. After Rice’s retirement, his diagnosis was changed from MS to spinal cord damage. Last spring he battled a stubborn bone infection for weeks, resulting in his decision to accept hospice care. He passed away peacefully surrounded by his family.

A memorial service honoring Rice’s life will take place Aug. 20 at 2:30 p.m. at Claremont Presbyterian Church. 

In the early 1970s, when one of his students gave him a copy of Morton T. Kelsey’s The Other Side of Silence, Rice realized he needed to feed not only his mind, but also his soul. By the mid-1970s, Rice recruited other pastors and scholars in the Bay Area to help him lead spiritual retreats for local pastors.

For the next 20 years he helped Presbyterians and other Protestants discover spirituality within the Protestant-Reformed tradition. An expert in Presbyterian Polity, Rice was elected moderator of the 191st General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. in 1979. During his year as moderator, he organized three spirituality retreats throughout the country and encouraged each presbytery to send one delegate. 

Rice was instrumental in supporting the establishment of “Companions on the Inner Way,” a retreat/conference that has served hundreds of pastors and lay persons. Rice played a significant role in developing SFTS’s pioneering program in spirituality. This led to the creation of the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction and the Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Formation programs, which in turn prepared a cadre of spiritual directors within the Reformed Tradition.

“Howard had a huge heart for people, for ministry, and for the Church that he served so long and well,” said Dr. Elizabeth Liebert, SFTS dean and professor of spiritual life. “Always standing with the underdog, he was persistent to the point of stubbornness in defending them. He is beloved by hundreds of students, pastors and church folk, whose hopes and struggles he held dear. We mourn the loss of mentor, colleague, spiritual adviser, friend and consummate pastor.”

In 1991, Rice published the landmark book, Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction to Believers, and it continues to be widely read in seminaries throughout the United States. Rice was a man of great faith and possessed an enormous heart. His former students, colleagues, family and friends will always remember his thoughtful way and gentle words which conveyed “the living sense of God’s presence in daily life.”

To honor his retirement from SFTS in 1997, Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey presented a tribute to Rice before the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2007, SFTS trustee and alumna, Rev. Jackie Leonard, made a first gift to the seminary toward the Rice Family Chair in Christian Spirituality. In endowing this chair, Leonard sought to honor Rice and his wife Nancy, the late Rev. Wendy Rice Dreitcer and her husband, Dr. Andrew Deeter Dreitcer, and their longstanding contributions to the spiritual nurture of students, church leaders and congregations.

Rice graduated from Carroll College (Waukesha, Wis.) with a BA in history in 1953. He entered McCormick Theological Seminary in 1953, having just married Nancy Lee Zoerb. He graduated from McCormick with a BD in 1956. Rice and his wife had two children, Wendy and Amanda, both born after his seminary years. (Wendy, who earned a Master of Divinity from SFTS in 1983, died in 2004 from a brain tumor.)

Rice was ordained by the Presbytery of Winnebago on Aug. 20, 1956. His first call was as pastor of the House of Faith Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, where he remained through 1961. He served as pastor to Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Chicago from 1961-68.

Rice received a number of honors in his long and distinguished ministerial and teaching career, including honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Whitworth College (1978) and from his alma mater Carroll College (1980). In 1986 he was the recipient of the McCormick Theological Seminary Distinguished Alumnus Award. The SFTS board of trustees conferred on him the title of Professor of Ministry, Emeritus upon his retirement.