Dr. David Cloud and Way of Life Literature

Anthony J Lanius
I have my own opinion as to what makes christian music good or bad. I do not need any one "selling a book" to give me their opinion.

I will continue to enjoy my hymns, contemporary christian music, southern gospel, and any other music I think is appropiate. If you want to follow what someone else thinks and limit yourself to only a select type of music, be my guest. Back in my "super fundamental" days I agreed with what you say. Thank God, I now am free of such things.

If you feel, in your heart, that God is displeased with ccm then do not listen to it. Thus far, God has not convicted me of it and until He does I will not change.

My understanding is that many of what we call "hymns" today was originally written to, what was then, popular tunes. I have been told this and cannot confirm if it is true or not. Really, it does not matter to me.

I've made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts.

 

One case dealt with Kevin Bauder where Cloud made some comments without knowing the truth. When confronted about the truth, he made only a partial retraction, admitting that he had failed to do enough research. Bauder is an out and out fundamentalist who Cloud slandered.

There also was an article dealing with the a church where a recent national FBF meeting was being held ... a militantly fundamental, separatistic church. Cloud slandered teh church and the pastor, even though the pastor wrote letters, made phone calls, and offered a personal visit to discuss the issues. Cloud would not take phone calls, would not take the visit, and refused to correct his misstatements and accusations in his little newsletter. I have copies of the correspondence that was carried on via email.

 

David Cloud's ministry has definitely been a great blessing for me, too. His work was very instrumental in my conversion to Christ and subsequent departure from the Roman Catholic Institution.

Though I have sometimes thought of his approach as "harsh," I have often found myself eventually seeing that he is correct. I am not always 100% in agreement with him, but I do find him getting the mark correct most of the time. Perhaps "bold" would be a much better way of describing his approach.

What I like best about Brother Cloud is even though he can come across full-throttle, he does freely (and even humbly!) admit that he himself is not perfect. He has retracted things that he said incorrectly, and has even confessed to his own weaknesses. For example, when he said that letting go of his love for rock music was one of the hardest things he ever did, I definitely related to that. I too have had the hardest time with this. And yet with prayer and the reading of God's Word, I have found the attraction to have dissipated completely.

Also, Brother Cloud helped me immensely with my views on Christmas. When I accepted Jesus, I did not know if I could ever celebrate Christmas again (and I really do love Christmas!), being that I was being told from some quarters that real Christians don't celebrate this "pagan" holiday. Brother Cloud's writings on the subject set me straight, and so I can now enjoy a simple approach to this holiday. As long as I keep it Christ-centered and am clear in my conscience before the Lord, then it is all right to celebrate.

And of course, as mentioned above, Brother Cloud's ministry helped me out of the Roman Catholic Institution. By his writings, I heeded God's Words, "Come out of her, my people."

To conclude, David Cloud's ministry has been an immense blessing to me in my Christian growth. I fully endorse him and ask God to always bless and prosper his ministry.

mozier

 

The retraction I saw was half-hearted at best. It was, as I have said previously, a case where Cloud made a statement without knowing what he was talking about.

Nope ...

 

The strenght of the retraction was weak. I saw it with my own eyes in the weekly news and views or whatever he calls it. I didn't have to talk to anyone about it. I actually saw it. But you may have considered it stronger than I did, so you are right it is my opinion. "Inuendo" has nothing to do with it.

so be it then. I am telling you that I have copies of the emails on my computer right now. The story was well publicized by Cloud prior to the meeting. I personally know the man involved, I saw the charges made both in public and in private. It has been proven. It is not a matter of opinion that Cloud made false statements, refused to correct them, and refused to talk or meet with the person in question. That is a matter of fact. But do with it what you will.

My opinion of Cloud was set long before that when I saw the shallowness of some of his writing particularly on new-evangelicalism. While I am a fundamentalist without apology, Cloud calls everyone who disagrees with him a new-evangelical and that is incorrect. While he seems a reasonably intelligent man, he seems uninformed or undiscerning at least about what constitutes fundamentalism and new evangelicalism. Recently he insinuated that churches that sing songs off of screens in the front are new-evangelical. He didn't offer any proof of that from Scripture. And some of his stuff is like that.

Cloud writes much that is good stuff that I wholeheartedly agree with. However, it is not our similarities that is at issue. It is our differences. This simply needs to be made known.

 

I also read about song screens somewhere on his site. I could not take him seriously after reading this.

 

Yankeefan - I'm rather amazed that anyone takes him seriously at all in anything.

Joshua

 

I'm glad, that as a brand new Christian, I was discipled by Brother Cloud, and not some bible hating liberal.