{"id":510,"date":"2007-09-26T07:46:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2007\/09\/26\/on-the-dishonesty-of-david-cloud\/"},"modified":"2007-09-26T07:46:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-26T07:46:00","slug":"on-the-dishonesty-of-david-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2007\/09\/26\/on-the-dishonesty-of-david-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"on the dishonesty of David Cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Cloud is one of those figures with whom I find myself alternately in agreement and disagreement. I agree with him in many of his emphases and especially on his condemnation of ‘easy believism’ which he calls ‘easy prayerism’. I disagree with him profoundly on his promotion of King James Only views, although I don’t begrudge his holding them.<\/p>\n

The subject of this post is not a matter of theological disagreement or agreement. It is a matter of integrity in reporting. In a headline item in his ‘Friday News Notes’, he sent out just last Friday this jarring headline:<\/p>\n

BJU PROFESSOR RECOMMENDING NEW EVANGELICAL MINISTRIES<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the short article that follows, Cloud criticises a presentation by Nathan Crockett at the Whetstone Conference<\/a> this last summer at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, specifically criticising Dr. Mark Minnick and alleging that Dr. Minnick gives blanket endorsement to New Evangelicals. Cloud attempts to slime Bob Jones University with the same charge. [Nathan Crockett is Dr. Minnick’s son-in-law.]<\/p>\n

I downloaded the presentation earlier this summer but had not yet listened to it. Since Cloud so unfavorably reviewed it, I took some time in my travels today to listen to the presentation. If you would like to hear the presentation, it is available here<\/a> for purchase. Here is my take:<\/p>\n

Far from a blanket endorsement of new evangelical ministries, Bro. Crockett repeatedly made disclaimers throughout the presentation: “we wouldn’t agree with many things said on this site”, “they don’t take the kinds of stands we would take”, “we don’t endorse their positions”, etc. The point of the presentation was to provide awareness of on-line resources especially with a view to using the internet as a source of information for sermon preparation and for being able to be aware of things our people may bring up (such as movies — and you know that you will be dealing with people commenting on the movies they see, don’t you?) A wise pastor should be aware of current events, both as a resource for sermon illustration and for awareness of what the people are thinking about. Cloud criticises Crockett for mentioning the New York Times as a source of news… (eyes roll!!) Bro. Crockett did mention that the NYT is a liberal paper, but it is a NEWSpaper, is it not? And, quite frankly, it is an excellent resource for news on the web, with an eye into the liberal mindset. The people we are trying to reach in North America think this way, how do you expect to reach people you don’t understand? (And the NYT is a great source of crossword puzzles, my own little on again, off again addiction!)<\/p>\n

Could Bro. Crockett’s presentation have been better? I suppose. I suspect that Crockett himself would confess so. I found the presentation to be quite helpful. He mentioned sites which I wasn’t really aware of, but think could be quite useful as resources. From my perspective, there were generally more than sufficient disclaimers throughout, anyone who listens to the actual presentation would not come to the coonclusion that either Minnick or Crockett offered any kind of ‘endorsement’ of new evangelicals in any way. One can only wonder if Cloud isn’t miffed that his own efforts weren’t mentioned!<\/p>\n

In short, I am quite disappointed by Cloud’s comments. In my view, he dishonestly misrepresents Mount Calvary Baptist Church, Mark Minnick, Nathan Crockett and Bob Jones University.<\/p>\n

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Cloud is one of those figures with whom I find myself alternately in agreement and disagreement. I agree with him in many of his emphases and especially on his condemnation of ‘easy believism’ which he calls ‘easy prayerism’. I disagree with him profoundly on his promotion of King James Only views, although I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-8e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}