April 3, 2000

CORRECTION TO RODNEY BELL STATEMENT

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without express permission from the author. The articles cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional. OUR PRIMARY PURPOSE IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, tell us who you are and where you are located, and request to be placed on the list. Also include your postal address and the name of the church of which you are a member. Please note that we take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and you will be expected to participate. To unsubscribe or to submit a change of address, send your name and the request to fbns@wayoflife.org. This is not an automated list. Changes in the database often require two to four days. Some of these articles are from O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 17th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. The Way of Life web site is http://www.wayoflife.org.]

April 5, 2000 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - On April 2, I published an announcement that was sent to me entitled "F.B.F. President Withdraws Endorsement of Mind of God Book." The F.B.F. President is Rodney Bell, who is also the Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and President of Tabernacle Baptist Bible College. The announcement was written by a student at this school, and I assumed it was accurate. Now I have learned, though, that the announcement apparently was inaccurate. I received the following e-mail from Pastor Bell which paints a very different picture:

_________________________

April 3, 2000

Dear Mr. Cloud,

The statement which you received from Mr. Jason Call is inaccurate. Mr. Call is not a spokesman for Tabernacle Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary. Neither is he a spokesman for the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship nor for Rod Bell. Mr. Call is being reprimanded for making this statement. I know you are a man of integrity and would not want to send out inaccurate information.

The publisher put my name and positional statement on the back cover of the book, From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man, without my permission or prior approval. I consider this not only to be unethical and a misrepresentation of our institution and myself, but to be a marketing plan as well. However, I applaud the committee which tried to reduce the controversy among fundamental brethren. Their effort has been commendable and charitable. The members of the committee were trying to show that it is alright to agree to disagree without being disagreeable. My position on this issue is clear and understood in all fundamental circles. The removal of my name and positional statement from the back cover of the book does not in any way cast a reflection on them or their motives.

I would appreciate your making a correction of Mr. Call’s statement. If you have any questions, I would be pleased to answer them for you.

Sincerely,

Rod Bell, Sr.

________________________

REPLY FROM BROTHER CLOUD:

Hello, Pastor Bell. I could not reply to your note before today because I am traveling on a preaching trip and could not access my e-mail the last few days. I will certainly publish your statement, and I will do it immediately. I am very sad, though, at your wishy-washy, inconsistent stand. You claim to love the King James Bible and to believe that it and its underlying Greek and Hebrew text is the preserved Word of God. That is what you teach at your school. That is what Dr. Strouse, who is the head of your seminary, teaches. And yet you don’t have any zeal to denounce those who are tearing down the people’s confidence in the very Bible that you claim to hold dear. I believe you will be held accountable by God for this great failure. You could encourage the hearts of the thousands of men who really are in the Bible battle, but instead you want to straddle the fence and try to appease everyone.

I received a letter from a young pastor just today, who, after reading the statement that I mailed out, testified as follows:

"That is some of the best news I’ve heard in ages. One of the men that wrote that book [From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man] actually sat and attempted to destroy my faith in the King James Bible last October. There I sat as a 25 year old preacher while a ‘leader’ of fundamentalists attacked the Bible to my face. I am glad that Dr. Bell is standing in opposition to that kind of teaching. Dr. Bell was the first man that ever sat and taught my dad personally that the KJB is the preserved, inspired Word of God. Thank God he is speaking up again."

Now I have the sad task to inform this preacher and hundreds of others that I was mistaken about Pastor Rodney Bell’s position. No, Brother Bell is not taking a strong stand. No, he is not going to correct those who are trying to correct the Authorized English Bible. Yes, he is going to continue to straddle the fence.

While I agree with you that we can "disagree without being disagreeable," that dodges the real issue, which is whether or not the King James Bible is the preserved Word of God in the English language or whether it is filled with mistakes and should be corrected with the modern critical Greek text.

You said you think articles in the book From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man are "commendable and charitable."

Commendable? What is commendable about making God’s people think that the old English Bible is based upon a defective Greek text and that it contains possibly thousands of errors? What is commendable about deceiving God’s people into thinking that the fathers and architects of modern textual criticism were sound Christian men, when your own school teaches that they were heretics? What is commendable about recommending the writings of today’s textual critics, such as Bruce Metzger and Catholic Cardinal Carlo Martini the other editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, when it is obvious that they are unbelievers?

Charitable? I have read From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man, and I must testify that I do not see the charity that you speak of. I see, rather, a gross lack of charity being displayed toward the defenders of the KJV. It is not charitable to label men Ruckmanites when they plainly are not any such thing, and when they have paid a price for separating from the true Ruckmanites. It is not charitable to pretend that the entire defense of the King James Bible is intimately connected with the writings of a Seventh-day Adventist. It is not charitable to lump all defenders of the King James Bible into the same lump and to pretend that all of the books defending the King James Bible are a "parade of misinformation." Even more, it is not charitable to claim that the revered old English Bible which is still used in most fundamentalist churches is based upon an undependable Greek text and that it is full of mistakes.

If the authors of From the Mind of God to the Mind of Man are content to believe that the Received Text underlying all of the revered and greatly blessed Reformation Bibles is a mere accident of history and that the Authorized English Bible that has been so mightily used of God is full of mistakes; if they want to reject the confidence of the Reformation-era believers that God has preserved His Scriptures in pure form by his "singular care and providence" (Westminster Confession, 1648); if they want to believe that we must look to the rationalistic and constantly-changing theories of modern textual criticism for the solution to the Bible text issue, that, too, is their privilege. But none of this is commendable nor charitable.

It is time for men who have been given positions of influence among fundamental Baptists, who really believe that the King James Bible and its Received Text is the preserved Word of God, to stand up and denounce those who are attacking the King James Bible and its defenders. They certainly aren’t afraid to attack the defenders of the KJV!

I humbly entreat you, Dr. Bell, to get off the fence. A battle for the Bible is raging. Which side are you on? A godly stand for the Bible certainly does not mean we have to curse those who disagree with us, but if we do not stand for the Bible when it is under attack, how can we say that we truly love it?

In Christ,

Brother Cloud