Floyd Cunningham

Cunningham studied at Johns Hopkins University in his native Maryland, where he studied under Timothy L. Smith and received the Master of Arts degree in history in 1981, and a PhD in History in 1984 for his dissertation "The Christian Faith Personally Given: Divergent Trends in Twentieth-Century American Methodist Thought", which included chapters on Methodists Edwin Lewis (1881–1959); Social Gospel liberal Ernest Fremont Tittle (October 21, 1885 – August 3, 1949); conservative Harold Paul Sloan (1881–1961); and evangelical humanist Lynn Harold Hough (September 10, 1877 – July 14, 1971).

The Cunningham family attended a local congregation of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) in Montrose, Rockville, Maryland, where Eleanor's family had attended from its incorporation in October 1929, and had taught Sunday School since 1939.

Soon after their wedding on May 9, 1953, Cunningham's parents moved into a newly constructed three-bedroom house at 715 Crabb Avenue, in the Maryvale section of Rockville, Maryland.

Floyd Timothy Cunningham (born September 22, 1954) is an American historian and ordained minister, who has been a global missionary in the Philippines for the Church of the Nazarene since 1983, who served as the fifth president of Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary from July 1, 2008, until April 3, 2013.

Cunningham serves currently as Distinguished Professor of the History of Christianity at APNTS, and is the author of Holiness Abroad: Nazarene Missions in Asia, the editor and co-author of Our Watchword & Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene, and the author of dozens of articles in academic journals and magazines.

Floyd Timothy Cunningham was born in Washington, D.C., on September 22, 1954, as the oldest of the three children of Floyd Enus Cunningham (born August 17, 1921, in Bethesda, Maryland; died September 7, 1992, in Montgomery County, Maryland), an auto parts salesman (and later manager and owner) at the NAPA franchised Maryland Motors in Rockville, Maryland, and Eleanor Wagner Leighton Cunningham (born October 6, 1923, in Rockville, Maryland; died August 12, 2019, in Maryland, US ), later a secretary in the Montgomery County Public Schools system, and the author of five books, including He Touched Her (Warner Press, 1973), and Miss Apple: Letters of a Maine Teacher in Kentucky (2003) about her mother, Ethel Valentine Applebee (born February 12, 1893, in Enfield, Maine; died November 15, 1973, in Maryland), who had taught for nine months from September 1920 at the Chandler Normal School in Lexington, Kentucky, for the American Missionary Association.

Cunningham is the elder brother of Christian romance novelist Janice Ethel Elder (born August 19, 1959), author of Manila Marriage App (Pelican Press, 2015), (inspired by her brother's life as a single missionary), and also customer service manager for Christian publisher, The Word Among Us; and Rev. Dr. Diane Kathleen LeClerc (born March 26, 1963), professor of historical theology at Northwest Nazarene University since 1998, Pastor of Congregational Care at Nampa College Church in Nampa, Idaho, former president of the Wesleyan Theological Society (2007–2008), and the author or editor of four books, including Singleness of Heart: Gender, Sin, and Holiness in Historical Perspective (Scarecrow Press, 2001) and Discovering Christian Holiness: The Heart of Wesleyan Theology (2010).

In January 1964, Cunningham joined the Loyal Temperance League, a children's organization founded by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and pledged to abstain from alcohol.

Soon after, Cunningham's family moved to Gaithersburg, Maryland, where, seeking a church that holiness, they began to attend the newly opened local Church of the Nazarene (then located in the former Methodist Episcopal Church at Brookes Avenue), that had been founded on January 5, 1964.

In the summer of 1965 the Cunningham family attended the Church of the Nazarene's annual Washington-Philadelphia District Camp Meeting in North East, Maryland, and after reading children's books about pioneer Nazarenes H. Orton Wiley, R.T. Williams, and Reuben "Uncle Bud" Robinson, Cunningham was converted at the age of 10 during that camp meeting.

On September 26, 1965, Cunningham was received into full church membership of the Gaithersburg Church of the Nazarene by Pastor Wallace H. Smith.

From 1966 to 1968 Cunningham attended Gaithersburg Junior High School.

At the age of 16, While a student at Gaithersburg High School (1968–1972), where he had perfect attendance, Cunningham felt a call to Christian ministry.

After graduation from Gaithersburg High School on June 12, 1972, Cunningham attended Eastern Nazarene College, where he was awarded "Most Quiet for the Freshman Class of 1973", and where he was the pianist accompanying the Crossmen Quartet (Don Arey, Dennis Cushing, Barry Compton, and Dale L. Binkley) on their tour of churches and on their 1972 LP "Sweeter Gets the Journey".

In 1976 Cunningham received the Bachelor of Arts cum laude from ENC in religion and history.

Cunningham subsequently studied at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was the student assistant to Nazarene theologian Dr. J. Kenneth Grider.

In 1979 Cunningham graduated from NTS with a Master of Divinity cum laude.

Cunningham is a Life member of the Philippine National Historical Society, a member of the American Society of Church History, the Wesleyan Theological Society, and the American Historical Association since 1980.

While studying at Johns Hopkins, Cunningham was a research assistant in American Religious History (1981–1983).

Upon the recommendation of APNTS founding president Donald Owens, on September 27, 1982, Cunningham was approved by the Board of General Superintendents of the Church of the Nazarene to be a foundation faculty member of the proposed Asia Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary (APNTS) to be established in Kaytikling, Taytay, Rizal, the Philippines in 1983.

Soon after the successful defense of his doctoral dissertation, Cunningham arrived in Manila on November 5, 1983, nine days before the first classes of APNTS.

Cunningham has served APNTS consecutively as an associate professor (1983–1991), professor (1991–2004) and distinguished professor (since 2004).

Administratively, Cunningham has been dean of students and chaplain (1983–1987), academic dean (June 1989 – 2009) officer-in-charge for sixteen months (2001–2003),

Despite not having a specific call to be a missionary, in February 1988 Cunningham was appointed to APNTS a career missionary in the Church of the Nazarene by its General Board.

Also in 1988 Cunningham was a research fellow at Yale Divinity School.

With the permission of the People's Republic of China, Cunningham visited China with Rev. John W. Pattee (born 1906), a retired Nazarene missionary to China and the Philippines, from May 16 to June 5, 1989.

For three days from May 29, 1989, Cunningham and Pattee visited the old Nazarene mission field in Hebei, that had been abandoned more than forty years earlier.

After the 2007 resignation of APNTS President Dr. Hitoshi "Paul" Fukue to return to pastoral ministry in Japan, on October 29, 2007, Cunningham was elected to a two-year term as interim president by the APNTS board of trustees.

At that time Cunningham indicated:

In June 2008 Cunningham was elected the 5th president of APNTS by the board of trustees and assumed office in July 2008.

Board of trustees chairman Dr. Neville Bartle indicated:

During APNTS's 25th anniversary, Cunningham was installed as the fifth president of APNTS in a service in the Wooten Chapel on the campus of APNTS on November 20, 2008.

Exploring and developing APNTS's motto of "Bridging Cultures for Christ", in his inaugural address "Building New Bridges", Cunningham called for APNTS to build bridges to congregations within the Church of the Nazarene, to other denominations, to the community, and to the contemporary generation.

In outlining his philosophy and priorities as president, Cunningham asserted:

Consistent with that philosophy, Cunningham was responsible for advocating the creation of the Holistic Child Development (HCD) program at APNTS, the opening of extension centers in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, the construction of the New Life Mission Center and the establishment of the Bresee Institute East on the campus of APNTS.

In an interview published in October 2011, Cunningham indicated:

In his annual presidential report in April 2011, Cunningham reaffirmed his desire to see students "demonstrate an aggressive kind of love for the people who are in their midst."

In March 2013 Cunningham announced his decision not to seek re-election as president of APNTS when his term concluded on April 3, 2013.

At that time Cunningham indicated "his desire to remain at APNTS, serving as a historian, writer, and teacher."

After the election of Dr. Seung-An "Abraham" Im as his successor, Cunningham agreed to remain at APNTS as interim president until the installation of Im.