Fundamentalism never had a leader and fundamentalist are not great followers. So that point is moot, especially based on the author's "feelings" as it were.
There were always and will always be camps among fundies.
One of the great things about Dr. Rice is that he accepted and gave a platform to so many men.
And within that was his downfall, he had grace towards those who mislead him and lied to him, like Billy Graham.
Phil Johnson's gripe with the Sword of the Lord is that later successors of John Rice exposed McArthurs false teachings on the eternal Sonship of Christ, which McArthur taught heresies about.
"On the historic, orthodox, creedal view that the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is immanent and eternal, this new Bible did indeed "let the systems go." The notations on Hebrews 1:5 and 7:3 demolished the historic creedal view that Christ is the Eternal Son of God, hence there is no eternal and immanent Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not "new," but compared to the view of Bible doctrine expressed in the Creeds, Confessions, and Theological "standards," it is heterodox. In other writings, MacArthur has also expressed the view which makes the Trinity a "nameless" unity, as he believes the "Son" is a "role" assumed by the "second person" in the flesh, which also implies the "Father" is a "role" assumed by the "first person." MacArthur contends in his Study Bible that "Sonship" refers to Christ in the "role" of "Son" which supposedly began in a "point of time" when He was incarnated via the virgin birth. This birth constituted Him as the "Son." This is sometimes called "incarnational sonship." MacArthur uses the Syriac Pershitta translation on Hebrews 7:3 to bring the reading of the passage more in line with his theory. We view Hebrews 7:3 as one of the strongest Biblical affirmations of the Eternal Sonship of the "Son," and the MacArthur note demolishes this great truth from that passage. (Excerpted from a 7/21/97 e-mail from Bob Ross of Pilgrim Publications.) In contrast, the Bible teaches the Eternal Sonship of Christ -- that He was the Son in eternity past. To deny that the attribute of eternality is inherent in Sonship (rather than conferred by incarnation), is, in effect, a denial of the "equality" of the "Son" with God -- a very serious heresy! To make matters worse, MacArthur branded as "heretics" those who held to the historical, orthodox, Biblical view of Eternal Sonship -- he labeled the Biblical view as a "heretical idea" and he associated it with "cultists who deny Christ's deity." Based on his concept of "Sonship," MacArthur specifically denounced the Eternal Sonship of Christ as follows: "He [Christ] is no 'eternal son' always subservient to God, always less than God, always under God. ... It [Son] is his human title, and we should never get trapped in the heretical idea that Jesus Christ is eternally subservient to God" (Commentary on Hebrews, 1983, pp. 28-29). In that same Commentary, MacArthur associated Eternal Sonship with "cultists" who imply that eternality of the Son means "inferiority" to God. Also, in his The Sonship of Christ booklet (published by the IFCA), MacArthur so defined and distorted the "eternal generation" of the Son that he felt justified in branding it as being "meaningless and confusing" (p. 9). He alleged that "orthodox teachers" who hold to "eternal generation" "echo an element" of the "false belief" of "cultists who deny Christ's deity." He equated this with the idea that Christ was "created." [Excerpted and/or adapted from a 11/17/97 e-mail from Bob Ross of Pilgrim Publications.]"
Go figure, an enemy of fundamentalism tries to smear Dr. Rice.