ON SEPTEMBER 26, PASTOR HARDING WROTE THE FOLLOWING LETTER TO ME:

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Dear David:

I am amazed that you and your friends are bent on dividing godly, separated, militant, fundamentalist brethren over a non-biblical issue. You are attempting to rewrite the doctrine of Bibliology. Our stand and theology are beyond question to any true Bible-believing, fundamentalist, Baptist theologian. You are welcome to check our church website (www.fbctroy.org).

I donât agree with your understanding of the preservation of Scripture. I believe that God has providentially preserved his Word in the totality of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic manuscripts and has providentially given us the responsibility of using that material to form the most accurate text from which to translate. I also believe that God has providentially preserved his Word through secondary causation in the various accurate translations throughout the world in the many languages of the world.

The fact that you and I might disagree on which reading in the manuscripts was the original reading makes neither of us less of a Christian or a fundamentalist. I believe, for instance, that John 1:18 reads in the original ãthe one and only Godä as opposed to the ãonly begotten Son.ä The textual evidence strongly supports the first reading. Just because I hold to the reading that most clearly argues for the deity of Christ does not make me more orthodox or less orthodox than someone who holds to the reading that argues for His Sonship. God has preserved this material for us and has given us the responsibility to handle it carefully and honestly.

These vicious attacks that you and others constantly hurl at a Greek text which takes a comprehensive look at the material which God has providentially preserved are unnecessary, divisive, and ill-advised. In some cases you are fighting people who love the Word of God much more than you do.

As for myself, I have no other desire than to have the most accurate text possible with the clearest translation possible so that people can understand and obey all the Word of God. If that makes me your enemy, then you are very foolish indeed and beating a dead horse. Of course, some who share your views believe that no horse is too dead to beat.

To purposely sow discord among the brethren is a very serious offense against Godâs Word which you say you love so dearly. My goal in this entire textual debate is to make sure nothing is taken away from the text nor added to the text, and to insure that any accidental mistranslations are corrected, whatever the language or version in that language. It is incredible to me that you would castigate the good theologians at fine fundamental institutions such as BJU or DBTS. These people are much more knowledgeable on this subject than you or I, and are people with the highest integrity and godliness. Yet, you have chosen to parade them as evil destroyers of the Word of God. That is slander plain and simple. It is hard for me to understand how a regenerated man could do so. ãThe surest sign of a sinner is that he doesnât know he has sinned,ä to quote one of the reformers of the past.

Others, for political purposes, may vacillate on this subject. I, however, will not pander to the wicked divisiveness so common in the KJV-only camp. It is one thing to love and cherish a translation of the Scripture. It is another thing to create a doctrine of Bibliology to insure that no one use any other translation of Scripture in that given language. Otherwise, we would all still be using the Geneva Bible.

Regarding the National FBF meeting, we are privileged to host that meeting. Our speakers will do an outstanding job preaching on the Supremacy of God. I have asked some ofÊ the most outstanding men in Fundamentalism to speak for us. It will be some of the best preaching and the best handling of the Word of God that you will hear. If you love God, His truth, His Word, His theology, you will love this conference. If you donât, you will despise this conference. Out of deference, Dr. Bell has asked all the speakers to use the KJV as their English text. No one I know has a difficulty with that except you and your followers.

In our own ministry we use the KJV and the NASB and will continue to do so as I have for the last sixteen years at First Baptist Church of Troy. On rare occasion I have cited the NIV when it more clearly represented the proper grammatical rendering of the Greek language such as Romans 9:5 (another verse that properly understood reinforces the deity of Christ). Again, the goal is having the original text with the most clear translation of the words and their meaning in order that Christians can fully understand the authorial intent of God through the human authors. I am very sorry that you are frightened by this kind of goal and intention. With so much genuine evil, compromise, falsehood, and worldliness going on in the church, I would think you could spend your time fighting the real enemies of the Bible, the Gospel, and historic biblical fundamentalism, instead of fighting men who love the truth more than you love the truth.

Sincerely,

Mike Harding

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REPLY FROM BROTHER CLOUD

October 1, 2000

Dear Pastor Harding:

I received your letter today (it was forwarded to me from Washington) and I am glad that you have taken the time to express your thoughts about my brief article on the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship and the modern versions. It is obvious that you are angry toward me, and that is understandable, since we are but men and it is never easy to accept criticism. I get angry sometimes towards my many critics, too. I do want to reply to your letter, though, because it contains some errors of fact and judgment.

The Lord knows that I do not enjoy this controversy. In fact, I believe it is the most disagreeable thing I have ever had to do in my preaching ministry these past 27 years, and that is saying a lot. I have been in many theological battles, beginning with our missionary work in South Asia, but none have wearied me more than this one. If I could have my way, I would never say anything more about the Bible version issue the rest of my life. That is not the case, though, so we must pursue our course to the end.

I have read and re-read your letter carefully and prayerfully. I trust you will do the same with my reply.

1. YOU WERE WRONG ABOUT MY MOTIVES AND MY ATTITUDE IN THIS DEBATE. I can testify before the Lord that there is nothing vicious or unloving in my mind and heart toward fundamental Baptists who disagree with me on this subject. Further, I do not believe there is anything vicious or uncharitable or unchristian expressed in my articles on the Bible version issue. If others who defend the King James Bible are uncharitable, that is not something that I support. In fact, I have publicly reproved Dr. Peter Ruckman and some others for their strange, unchristian attitude toward men who disagree with them (as well as their errors such as the KJV being ãadvanced revelation,ä etc.), and I have reaped their slanderous personal attacks as a result. If you want to see something that is truly vicious and uncharitable, read the articles by Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger about David Cloud! For myself, though, I want nothing to do with that type of thing (though I am but a man and can easily fall into it if I am not careful). The Bible commands us to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) and to preach the Word of God with longsuffering and gentleness (2 Tim. 2:24; 4:2; James 3:17), and I earnestly desire to obey that. I donât claim that I have always achieved that high standard, but that definitely is my goal. When I first mentioned Dr. Bellâs change of position in an article in April, I plainly stated the following:

ãDr. Bell says that he wants to foster charity among the brethren. So do I, and I challenge him or anyone else to show where I and others who believe like I do on the Bible version issue have been uncharitable to anyone. I can say before the Lord that I love Dr. Bell and I praise the Lord for everything the Lord has done through him in this needy world. I have no intention of being uncharitable to Dr. Bell or to anyone else. I respect many men who do not believe exactly like I do in the matter of Bible versions, and I have fellowship with a number of men in that category. This does not mean, though, that I cannot speak out and defend my views and engage those I believe are undermining those viewsä (D.W. Cloud, ãDr. Bellâs Flip Flop,ä April 12, 2000).

Where is the viciousness and lack of charity? Where is the mean spirited divisiveness? What I have said about Dr. Bell I can say about the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship as a whole. I praise the Lord for every good thing the Lord has done through it in this needy world and every standard for truth that has been raised by the F.B.F. in these apostate last days. I do not consider the F.B.F. to be an enemy, but I do consider it to have embarked in a dangerous direction.

2. THE LACK OF CHARITY AND THE VICIOUSNESS IN THIS DEBATE IS FOUND NOT ON MY SIDE BUT ON THE SIDE OF SOME OF THE FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST FELLOWSHIP DEFENDERS. They are nonsensically calling men like me a cult. Following is part of an e-mail I received from Gary Hudson, for example: ãI am determined to pound and pound and pound this issue with you and the CULT until the rest of the fundamental world sees just what Îbold brave defendersâ of King James Onlyism you bullying hypocrites really are! That's right, Cloud . . .Ê Just remember something, sir, YOU and your kind have been asking for this for a long, long time--it is YOU and the CULT that launched the attack on historic Baptist fundamentalism·ä (emphasis in the original) (e-mail, Sept. 25, 2000). This note from Hudson is one of the kinder replies I have received from defenders of the F.B.F. position on Bible versions! In fact, your letter, Brother Harding, was pretty strong, labeling me vicious, wicked, divisive, slanderous, etc.

Apparently it is fine for the enemies of King James Bible defenders to lash out and label Bible-believing men cultists and use every sort of derogatory language, but it is wrong and unloving for King James Bible defenders to speak out on this subject. There is a gross double standard here.

As for fundamental Baptists who defend the KJV being cultists, nothing could be more ridiculous. I donât know of any standard evangelical or fundamentalist definition of a cult that would support that. I believe the Baptist confessions of faith on all major doctrines of the Word of God, including the doctrine of the Scriptures. I am not a cultist of any sort whatsoever. If we are going to start labeling men cultists because they donât believe like the (alleged) ãmainstreamä of the fundamentalist movement (whatever that is) on some point there will be no end to the cults!

3. IT APPEARS BY THE NATURE OF YOUR REPLY THAT YOU WANT TO TAKE AWAY FROM ME THE RIGHT TO SPEAK OUT ON THIS SUBJECT. While you boldly and dogmatically state your position on the Bible version issue and warn that KJV defenders are dangerous,Ê you condemn me for stating my position on Bible versions and for my warning about modern version defenders. Why is it alright when you do this, but it is wrong when I do it? If you have the right to hold and teach a position on the Bible version issue, I have a right to do the same and I also have a right to test your position and to speak out against it if I believe it is wrong and dangerous. It appears to me that by the boisterous nature of the response that is being given by you and other fundamentalist modern version defenders that you are trying to intimidate fundamentalist KJV defenders into silence. I believe it will backfire on you.

4. LIKE MOST FUNDAMENTALIST MEN WHO SUPPORT THE MODERN VERSIONS, YOU PERSIST IN IGNORING THE RATIONALISTIC NATURE OF MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM. A careful study of Dr. Edward F. Hillâs The King James Version Defended (first published in the 1950s) would be a great help to you in this regard. Dr. Hillâs had a Th.D. in New Testament Textual Criticism from Harvard, but he rejected modern textual criticism because he understood its naturalistic bias and its intimate connection with higher criticism. (Though I am not the scholar Dr. Hills was, I have written two carefully documented reports exposing the heresy of modern textual criticism. They are titled ãTextual Criticism Drawn from the Wells of Infidelity,ä April 16, 1999, and ãPreservation Is Missing in Standard Works on Textual Criticism,ä March 30, 1999.) Following is what Dr. Hillsâ wisely stated about modern textual criticism:

ãHas the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other ancient books? . . . IN THE REALM OF NEW TESTAMENT TEXTUAL CRITICISM AS WELL AS IN OTHER FIELDS THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF MODERN THOUGHT ARE HOSTILE TO THE HISTORIC CHRISTIAN FAITH AND WILL DESTROY IT IF THEIR FATAL OPERATION IS NOT CHECKED. If faithful Christians, therefore, would defend their sacred religion against this danger, THEY MUST FORSAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF UNBELIEVING THOUGHT AND BUILD UPON THEIR FAITH, a faith that rests entirely on the solid rock of holy Scripture. And when they do this in the sphere of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back step by step (perhaps, at first, against their wills) to the text of the Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text which underlies the King James Version and the other early Protestant translationsä (Edward F. Hillsä (Dabney, ãThe Doctrinal Various Readings of the New Testament Greek,ä Southern Presbyterian Review, April 1871). That is precisely what fundamentalist scholars are doing today, and their pride is blinding them to that fact.

9. I FIND IT INTERESTING THAT THE TOPIC OF THE F.B.F. CONFERENCE NEXT YEAR IS ãTHE SUPREMACY OF GOD,ä BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE BIBLE VERSION DEBATE IS ALL ABOUT. Did God preserve His Word as He promised, or was it fearfully corrupted through the passage of time so that it had to be recovered through the clever handiwork of modern textual critics? Was the Scripture that was looked upon as the Received Text by Bible-believing men in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and that wasÊ published to the ends of the earth, corrupted, while the correct Word of God was ãpreservedä in the dark recesses of the Popeâs library and in a weird monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai? Was the Bible preserved by its use or by its disuse? Where was God when the Received Text was printed in the 16th century? Was He on a vacation so that He failed to guide the Bible-believing men of that day in the choice of text? God and His supremacy and His promise of preservation is the very heart of this issue. And it is an issue that can never be resolved by scholarship, for ãwithout faith it is impossible to please God.ä

10. I MUST WARN YOU AGAINST MAKING JUDGMENTS THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE FOR A FALLIBLE MAN TO MAKE. For example, you say, ãIn some cases you are fighting people who love the Word of God much more than you do.ä You repeated that at least twice, but it is a judgment you cannot possibly make. You do not know how much other men truly love the Word of God, and it would be well for you to admit that. Because of our own wicked hearts, we cannot always know even how well we ourselves love the Word of God (Jeremiah 17:9).

11. YOU ARE WRONG IN CLAIMING THAT ALL DISCORD IS AN OFFENSE AGAINST GODâS WORD. You label the defense of the King James Bible ãwicked divisiveness.ä I donât accept that. Division itself is not a sin. The Lord Jesus Christ caused divisions, and so did the Apostles. Divisions based on the truth are not sinful. Preaching the truth always causes divisions, and that is not wrong. Of course, you are saying that my position on the Bible versions is not truth, but I am convinced that it is and I must therefore be faithful to preach what I believe the Lord has shown me. The Bible does not instruct me to ignore the truth because of love; it tells me to preach the truth in love. I am as convinced that modern textual criticism (which underlies the modern versions) is heresy as I am that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, and I must preach these things if I am to be faithful to the calling that God has given me. If the preaching of the truth causes division, that is the price that must be paid. There are many things worse than division, and one of those is compromise. I thought we fundamental Baptists understood these matters, but I see that this is not necessarily the case when it comes to the issue of Bible texts and versions. There is hypocrisy in your position because you are definitely willing to cause division on many other points. You preach against many things, and that causes divisions. The New Evangelicals and Modernists charge the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship with exactly the same sin that you are charging me with. You are using an inconsistent double standard here for the sake of trying to shame King James Bible defenders into keeping their mouths shut. I, for one, will not put up with it. (As for being divisive, the King James Bible has been the Bible of fundamental Baptists from our inception. If there is any divisiveness at work here, it is on the part of those who want to replace it with the versions that are based on modern textual criticism.)

12. YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF PRETENDING THAT FUNDAMENTALISM IS A UNIFIED ENTITY AND THAT IT IS ONLY THE KING JAMES BIBLE DEFENDERS WHO ARE CAUSING DIVISIONS. You well know that there are great divisions among fundamentalists and even among fundamental Baptists. Fundamentalism has always been an extremely broad-based movement that encompassed innumerable divisions. Even the definition of fundamentalism has been unsettled to this very day. The men in the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship are divided from many other sectors of the fundamentalist movement because of many issues other than the Bible version one. Where are the Southern Baptist fundamentalists within the F.B.F., for example? They donât exist, because the F.B.F. does not agree with even the conservative Southern Baptists, some of whom call themselves fundamentalists. Fundamentalism has never been a homogenized unit. It has been greatly divided on ecclesiology (why, for example, do you call yourself the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship instead of the Fundamental Protestant Fellowship?), prophecy, the sovereignty of God, denominational affiliation, sanctification, and dozens of other issues. Fundamentalism as a whole has never even agreed on a definition of separation. Away with this myth of fundamentalist unity.

13. YOU HAVE COMMITTED A GREAT ERROR IN EXALTING THE FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST FELLOWSHIP AS THE STANDARD FOR TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS. You said, ãIf you love God, His truth, His Word, His theology, you will love this [2001 Fundamental Baptist Fellowship] conference. If you donât, you will despise this conference.ä That reminds me of the danger of organized fellowships. Because of the weakness of human nature, they often bring out the worst in men rather than the best. They produce unnecessary and unnatural divisions. They also pander to pride when they become visibly successful. It is certainly prideful to claim that any man who loves God and His Word will automatically love the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship.Ê

Pastor Harding, you have implied that I am wicked and uncharitable. In fact, I would be wicked and uncharitable if I refused to speak out against modern textual criticism and the modern versions that are established upon these theories. If I listened to you and shut my mouth I would indeed be a wicked man, because I would be honoring the face of man instead of the face of God. You see, I really do believe with all of my heart that modern textual criticism is undermining the very preserved Word of God.

For you to think that this is an unnecessarily divisive battle is understandable, because you donât have convictions about any certain text of Scripture. To you, there is no such thing as a heretical or corrupt text. Modern textual criticism is fine in your book. I donât believe that, though, so I cannot possibly treat this issue as you do.

I will continue to give honor to whom honor is due (note that I addressed you as Pastor Harding rather than by your first name as you addressed me) and will strive to do all things with Christian charity, but I cannot keep quiet. All of the name-calling in the world will not make this issue go away.

Sincerely in Christ,

David Cloud

Director, Way of Life Literature since 1973