David W. Cloud

David W. Cloud (born 1949) is an American Independent Baptist missionary, pastor, publisher, and writer. He is also the founder and director of Way of Life Literature and the editor of the magazine O Timothy.[1]

Personal life

David Cloud was born in 1949 and grew up in a Christian home in Florida. However, he turned away from Christianity during his teenage years, becoming a heavy drinker and served in the Vietnam war from 1969 to 1970. In 1973, he became a born-again Christian and attended Tennessee Temple University. [2]

Career

David Cloud graduated from Tennessee Temple Bible School in 1977, where he started his ministry, and eventually became involved with missionary work in Nepal.[3]

Cloud has criticized Baptist churches abandoning their denominational label in favor of being nondenominational. He is a strong advocate of separationism and teaches secondary separation.[4] He has criticized Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Paul Chappell's church for not being strict enough on separation.[5] In 2003, when fundamentalist Baptists formed the International Baptist Network, attempting to unite Independent Baptists, David Cloud alongside other strict separationists strongly criticized the idea.[6] Cloud has also critiqued Clarence Sexton's Independent Baptist Friends International for its ecumenism between Independent Baptists and Southern Baptists.[7]

Cloud has criticized Jack Hyles, a prominent Independent Baptist pastor, for creating a cultic church and supported Robert Sumner’s reports of sexual scandals against Hyles.[8]

Cloud has strongly criticized Neo-Evangelicalism, the Charismatic movement,[9] Contemporary Christian Music,[10] and Calvinism.[11]

Cloud has also critiqued the Left Behind series for perceived ecumenism.[12][13]

Beliefs

King James Onlyism

David Cloud is King James only, often drawing on the arguments of Edward F. Hills, and asserts that the King James Bible should not be viewed simply as a translation of the Greek and Hebrew texts, instead he regards it as an independent variation of the Textus Receptus, rendered in English rather than Greek, and providentially preserved as the purest form of the Textus Receptus.[14]

Cloud has criticized the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, Bob Jones University, and Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Minneapolis for convincing some Independent Baptist groups to adopt modern Bible translations.

Nevertheless, he has critiqued the more extreme positions of Gail Riplinger and Peter Ruckman,[15] rejecting their claims that even the smallest change on the spelling of the King James would change a God-ordained illustration.[16] Riplinger attempted to respond to him in her book Blind Guides.[17]

Prayer

David Cloud has criticized mystical and contemplative prayer practices, seeing them as Catholic and contradicting the sufficiency of scripture.[18]

Cloud has also critiqued the Sinner's prayer as unscriptural and calling it "quick prayerism".[19]

Triadology

David Cloud is a Trinitarian, arguing against the doctrines of Modalism and Arianism among others. However, he rejects the usage of verses such as Psalm 2:7 to establish the doctrine of eternal generation of the Son, and has argued that each of the persons of the Trinity have their own center of consciousness and voltion. He also affirms the doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son.[20]

Other beliefs

David Cloud holds to a dispensational approach to the Bible and is thus premillennial and pretribulational in his eschatology and rejects replacement theology, the notion of the Church replacing Israel.[21][22]

He adheres to the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer[23]

He is a young earth creationist and opposes evolution.

He holds to the tenets of Baptist successionism but rejects Baptist Brider theology or “Landmarkism”.[24]

References

  1. ^ Zeidan, David S. (2018-11-13). The Resurgence of Religion: A Comparative Study of Selected Themes in Christian and Islamic Fundamentalist Discourses. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-474-0182-7.
  2. ^ Straub, Jeffrey P. (2011). "Fundamentalism And The King James Version: How A Venerable English Translation Became A Litmus Test For Orthodoxy". Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. 15 (4). An article by another well-known fundamentalist defender of the KJV, David Cloud (b. 1949), appeared in the Bible Believer's Bulletin. Cloud had grown up in a Christian home but turned away from God as a teenager. He started to drink and served in Vietnam, becoming a drug user there. Cloud returned home, and ater briely considering Hinduism, was converted in 1973. He enrolled in Tennessee Temple University and soon started the Way of Life Literature ministry. Part of Cloud's testimony appeared in Ruckman's paper, along with his condemnation of rock and roll music
  3. ^ College, Fairhaven Baptist. "David Cloud Module | Fairhaven Baptist College". Retrieved January 14, 2025.
  4. ^ "The Collapse of Separatism". Way of Life. Retrieved January 14, 2025.
  5. ^ "Paul Chappell's Pragmatism". Way of Life. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
  6. ^ Jonas, William Glenn (2008). The Baptist River: Essays on Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition. Mercer University Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-0-88146-120-6.
  7. ^ "An Open Letter to Clarence Sexton about the Friendship Conference". Way of Life. Retrieved March 3, 2010.
  8. ^ Cloud, David W. The Hyles Effect. Way of Life Literature.
  9. ^ Scott, Benjamin G. McNair (2014-12-25). Apostles Today: Making Sense of Contemporary Charismatic Apostolates: A Historical and Theological Approach. Lutterworth Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-7188-4267-3.
  10. ^ Hartje, Gesa F. (2009). "Keeping in Tune with the Times—Praise & Worship Music as Today's Evangelical Hymnody in North America". Dialog. 48 (4): 364–373. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6385.2009.00485.x. ISSN 1540-6385.
  11. ^ Hyde, Daniel R.; Lems, Shane (2011-01-04). Planting, Watering, Growing: Planting Confessionally Reformed Churches in the 21st Century. Reformation Heritage Books. ISBN 978-1-60178-200-7.
  12. ^ Hitchcock, Mark; Ice, Thomas (2011-08-24). The Truth Behind Left Behind: A Biblical View of the End Times. PRH Christian Publishing. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-307-56402-3.
  13. ^ Isaac, Gordon L. (2008). Left Behind Or Left Befuddled: The Subtle Dangers of Popularizing the End Times. Liturgical Press. pp. 10–11. ISBN 978-0-8146-2420-3.
  14. ^ Beacham, Roy E.; Bauder, Kevin T. One Bible Only?: Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible. Kregel Publications. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-8254-9703-2.
  15. ^ Combs, William W. (1996). "The Preface To The King James Version And The King James-Only Position". Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal. 1 (2). Many of those who hold the King James-only position attempt to disassociate themselves from Ruckman and his beliefs. For example, David W. Cloud, who holds the King James-only position, has written against both Ruckman and Riplinger (What About Ruckman? 2nd ed. [Oak Harbor, WA: Way of Life Literature, 1995] and New Age Bible Versions: A Critique [Oak Harbor, WA: Way of Life Literature, 1994]).
  16. ^ Straub, Jeffrey P. (2011). "Fundamentalism And The King James Version: How A Venerable English Translation Became A Litmus Test For Orthodoxy". Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. 15 (4). She is also among the most mystical, suggesting that even the spelling of the KJV words themselves cannot be changed lest one tampers with some divinely appointed illustration. David Cloud tries to strike a more sane approach, rejecting the excesses, the shrill voices, and many of the doctrinal aberrations
  17. ^ Riplinger, Gail. Blind Guides. A.V. Publishers. ISBN 978-0-9794117-5-5.
  18. ^ Keefe-Perry, L. Callid (2023-03-16). Sense of the Possible: An Introduction to Theology and Imagination. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-4982-8037-2.
  19. ^ "Quick Prayerism Summarized". Way of Life. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  20. ^ Cloud, David W. (2021). God the Trinity. Way of Life Literature Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-58318-296-3.
  21. ^ "The Fundamental Doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture". Way of Life. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  22. ^ "A Refutation of Replacement Theology". Way of Life. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  23. ^ "Eternal Security and Problem Passages". Way of Life. Retrieved December 18, 2001.
  24. ^ "Are You a Baptist Brider or Local Church Only?". Way of Life. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
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