George Orwell, call your office.

“If you want to read an indictment of American academia, as if you needed one, then I recommend Plagiarism and the Culture War. In it, Theodore Pappas documents the wholesale plagiarism committed by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his doctoral work, not to mention the varied and wondrous contortions of the academic establishment as they sought to studiously ignore this indisputable fact. Of course, this particular instance is not the sum and substance of modern academic corruption, but it does provide a wonderful example of how it all works. If you are in any doubt about how advanced our public corruption is, just write a letter to your local paper on how MLK was a plagiarist, and see what happens. Suddenly, mirabile dictu, people like you who believe that a man should be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin will be branded . . . racists. George Orwell, call your office.” (Douglas Wilson, Credenda Agenda, 11-1)

Iron Rose

The Iron Rose of Moscow swings a petal here.

Special Rules

Special Rules
Pertaining to Process Against a Minister (Teaching Elder)

34-1. Process against a minister shall be entered before the Presbytery of which he is a member. However, if the Presbytery refuses to act in doctrinal cases or cases of public scandal and two other Presbyteries request the General Assembly to assume original jurisdiction (to first receive and initially hear and determine), the General Assembly shall do so.

34-2. As no minister ought, on account of his office, to be screened in his sin, or slightly censured, so scandalous charges ought not to be received against him on slight grounds. . . . (PCA BCO, chapter 34)

To the Editor

After WORLD Magazine covered the original story of Wilson’s and Wilkins’ co-plagiarism in Southern Slavery As It Was, Steve Wilkins wrote this letter to the editor:

WORLD’s brief notice regarding “Slavery as It Was” inaccurately stated that sections of the booklet were “stolen.” The portions that were labeled “plagiarism” came straight from my lecture notes which were not referenced and I neglected to go through them carefully and reference them properly before submitting them for inclusion in the booklet. There was never any intent to “steal” anything or deceive anyone, however. I always made plain in lectures that this material was drawn from Time on the Cross and was not my own. Though it may be acceptable to note this orally, it is inappropriate and inexcusable not to make plain your sources when you publish material. Since I did not do this, I deserve all the blame for this sloppy, inexcusable, and unjustifiable action. My negligence is culpable but it was not thievery — and none of this was Doug Wilson’s fault. As far as this story is concerned, the blame is all mine.

— Steve Wilkins; Monroe, La.

Thank you.

Plagiarism Defined

I find it interesting that no one from the Federal Vision camp has stepped forward to defend Steven “Machen” Wilkins. Nevertheless, some might find it helpful to consider the definition of “plagiarism” as defined by his alma maters. According to Auburn Avenue’s website,

Steve Wilkins holds a Bachelor of Science degree (in Pre-Law) from the University of Alabama and a Masters of Divinity from the Reformed Theological Seminary of Jackson, Mississippi. He has been an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America since 1976.

The “Code of Academic Conduct” for the University of Alabama states:

Plagiarism

The Code of Academic Conduct in the University of Alabama Undergraduate Catalog defines plagiarism and other acts of academic dishonesty as follows:

• Plagiarism: representing the words, data, works, ideas, computer programs or output, or anything not generated in an authorized fashion, as one’s own

• Cheating: using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, study aids, or computer-related information

• Fabrication: presenting as genuine any invented or falsified citation or material

• Misrepresentation: falsifying, altering, or misstating the contents of documents or other materials related to academic matters, including schedules, prerequisites, and transcripts.

Although authors occasionally indulge in plagiarism intentionally, most often writers plagiarize unintentionally. Many do not realize that indirect quotations, which result from paraphrasing and summarizing material, also require acknowledgment of the author and the source of the idea.

A direct quotation of an author’s exact words is the only footnoted material that requires the use of quotation marks, but both direct and indirect quotations must be footnoted. Any idea or statement that is not the author’s own must be documented.

Remember — the following require the use of a citation:

• Any material directly quoted from another’s work

• Any information that is summarized or paraphrased

• Any idea derived from a known source

• Any fact or data that is not common knowledge and is borrowed from another’s work

Material that is common or general knowledge does not have to be footnoted, unless the wording is taken directly from a particular source. A general rule is that if a fact can be found in five or more sources, it is considered to be common knowledge and does not have to be documented.

Anthony C. Winkler

And the Student Handbook for Reformed Theological Seminary states,

Plagiarism. Research papers require borrowing other people’s ideas and words. However, the source of such borrowing must be acknowledged properly. If the source is not acknowledged properly, your work is plagiarism. At issue is your academic honesty.

1. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers says “to plagiarize is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from someone else.”


2. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines plagiarize as “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own; use (a created production) without crediting the source; to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”
   

Plagiarism includes word-for-word copying, lifting terms, restatement of someone’s argument or line of thought, copying what the writer of Ten Steps in Writing the Research Paper calls “perfect phrases” — all without acknowledgment of source. Plagiarism also includes giving a source partial credit when more is taken from that source than indicated and quoting or paraphrasing in patchwork fashion. . . .

Plagiarism, whether intentional or unintentional, is considered academic theft. When discovered, it results in loss of reputation or position and other punishments. The academic consequences of plagiarism at RTS are as follows:

1. First offense: The student must rewrite the paper and receive no better than a passing “D” grade for it.
2. Second offense: The student fails the entire course.

I invite Mr. Wilkins to utilize his pre-law degree and defend himself.

Thank you.

Anonymous Attack Blog Makes WORLD!

WORLD on the web, the WORLD Magazine blog, has picked up the Steve Wilkins’ plagiarism story, reporting it in a piece titled “New/old plagiarism scandal.” Hmmm, I wonder what principle of justice WORLD violated. Perhaps Bhagwan Shree Wilsoneesh could inform us.

Thank you.

Good Question

Someone just asked me a question that I believe deserves front-page exposure along with the answer:

Though I don’t oppose what you are doing, I would be interested to know why you think it necessary to expose Mr. Wilkins on this score.

I answered:

You ask a good question and the answer is simple: the Federal Visionists maintain that Wilkins is a martyr. In fact, Wilson even compared him to Machen (hence the nickname). But if they want to play the martyr card, which they have done very well so far, then they have to consider ALL of Wilkins’ testimony (remember that the word “martyr” means “witness”). This includes his written works, which he passed off as his own and sold to the general public when he didn’t write a word of it. The man is a complete fake, an intellectual vacuum, and a theological scoundrel. And he is the first Federal Vision martyr.

Is he a Christian? I have no idea. But here we see wholesale violations of the Eighth and Ninth Commandments that he sold for profit, which cuts to the heart of the issue — CHARACTER. This is Steve Wilkins’ character. This is his witness in black, white, and yellow. This is a leader in the Federal Visionist camp. This is their idea of honor and nobility.

So if Wilson and his monkey boys are going to showboat Steve Wilkins before the world, then I believe it’s imperative for them to decorate their cabin cruiser with ALL of his brilliant lights. They want him, they can have him. All of him.

But I want to add that this new wrinkle in the Federal Vision should give LAP another reason to contemplate Bob Mattes’ “friendly advice.” Do they really want to keep hold of this guy with all this luggage? And we haven’t even begun either. We have unbelievable examples in future posts — and all of them reveal the CHARACTER of Steven “Machen” Wilkins.

Thank you.

Fully Documented Anonymous Attack

Continuing our fully documented anonymous attack against Steven “Machen” Wilkins’ plagiarism, we proceed to the next chapter of his book Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee, which he titled “Birth and Lineage” but could have just as well called “Lineage and Boyhood” because he took the vast majority of his text from a chapter of the same name from the book The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee, by William Jones. To be sure, ol’ “Machen” Wilkins stuck to Williams’ blueprint with little variation, except that he garnished his text with words taken directly from R. E. Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1935. Of course, the wag in me wonders if we should nominate Steven “Machen” Wilkins for a Pulitzer Prize in plagiarism; perhaps Pastor Wilson could offer his opinion (we know you’re watching, Doug). Wilkins also relied on A.L. Long’s Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, which we fully document on our sister site Fœdero Plagiary as well. Give it a look.

Thank you.

Of Rodents and Refrigerators

I want to make a small amendment to an earlier post where I encouraged the brethren to resist the temptation of engaging Douglas Wilson’s falsehoods.

While I believe that interaction with Douglas Wilson is a complete waste of time; I also believe that analyzing his arguments is a fruitful exercise because such analysis invariably reveals his hypocrisy, as I have shown time and again with my posts. Furthermore, I believe that if there is an exception for application of the Golden Rule, it should be for the man who pioneered the doctrine of Christian knife fighting — that rodent behind the fridge.

Now please be sure to give my new website a close look — it’s called Fœdero Plagiary.

Thank you.

Fœdero Plagiary

With a lot of help from my friends, I now have a sister site called Fœdero Plagiary, which is dedicated to the plagiarism of Federal Vision martyr Steven “Machen” Wilkins, who did not limit his literary theft to the booklet Southern Slavery As It Was (1996).

Now, blogging on this particular subject is a huge undertaking because of the heavy graphics and massive bandwidth involved. But I have the finest graphic artist in the area who has committed a couple of hours a week to helping expose the fraud — and as you will see the amount of fraud is staggering, because ol’ “Machen” Wilkins struggled getting through a single page of his books without lifting large blocks of text from other men’s works.

And if I may take from Beelzeblog’s words, “But I can assure you that it will not occur without a running color commentary from me. After Steven “Machen” Wilkins steals his text, we are all going to watch the replay a hundred times, including the tape of Beelzeblog condemning the sin of plagiarism, and I am going to be John Madden, drawing x’s and o’s all over that thing. And I will have some particularly ripe comments to go with it. It is a subject worthy of my peculiar talents.”

For tonight, however, suffice to say that in 1997 George Grant of Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., commissioned Steven Wilkins to write a biography of Robert E. Lee. Wilkins titled his book Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee; however, he borrowed more words than he wrote, to put it nicely.

Our premier post is taken entirely from Wilkins’ opening chapter — “Prologue” — and as you will see it establishes the pattern for the rest of the book. In this chapter Wilkins took from Lee: The Last Years, by Charles Bracelen Flood (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981) and Personal Reminiscences of General Robert E. Lee by J. William Jones (New York: D. Appleton, 1875), but by no means did he limit himself to these two resources.

Indeed, as we scan the book one page at a time, you will see that Wilkins took large chunks from R. E. Lee (Douglas Freeman, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), which won the Pulitzer Prize. But the bottom line is that Wilkins essentially plagiarized the whole thing. How “noble” of him.

Thank you.


PS: If DaFedSez is still out there, I invite you to apply your peculiar talent to this subject as well.

Quick Note

A quick note to any person who ever felt compelled to answer one of Douglas Wilson’s misrepresentations: DON’T. Do not answer him because it’s not worth your time. This is all a game for him.

It goes like this: he gets to put words in your mouth, impute evil motives to you, and generally make you look like an incompetent boob, while he acts as pure as the wind-driven snow. Wilson creates handles for him to grab in these situations, so that he can hook you. And misrepresentation is his most effective method for creating a handle. He misrepresents you knowing that you’ll want to respond — to correct him — and then he’s got you. He’ll start swinging you round the room with those handles, and just when you think it’s corrected, he’ll misrepresent you again to keep it going. IT IS ALL A GAME FOR HIM, as long as he remains the center of attention and you keep coming back for more.

Take my blog, for example. He refuses to address the content here, choosing instead to hold the handles of an “anonymous attack blog.” He completely ignores the heavy documentation on this blog and keeps pounding his ridiculous mantra “anonymous attack blog.”

But if I identified myself, he would immediately ad hom me, and then attack my family and my friends, to silence me. Further, he would dispatch an attack squad of monkey boys to my place of employment to harass them into silencing me, and he would send intimidating emails to my family, intending to scare the hell out of them. He has done this to countless souls on the Palouse, as well as a few people elsewhere. I have documented these facts on this blog, which he ignores because he has his self-made handle that won’t let go: “anonymous attack blog.”

So the moral of this story is to ignore him — no matter what he says. He is an evil, vindictive, conniving son of Belial (SOB), who does the will of his father. And the sooner the Catholic church learns this lesson, the sooner we will remedy all the turmoil he has caused.

Now, I want thank Mr. Wilson for sending me lots of new readers. To those of you who are new, I urge you to read the following two posts if you want to know what Wilson really thinks of presbyterian polity: “The Worst Lot of All” and “Snakes Within the Covenant.”

Thank you.

Touché

As Beelzeblog continues to throw his worldwide tempter tantrum regarding the PCA’s process, a brother on the Warfield list noted that seven years ago Louisiana Presbytery used an overture to seek remedy against Tennessee Valley Presbytery.

From P&R News, volume 6, number 2, March–April 2000:

LOUISIANA PRESBYTERY SEEKS DISCIPLINE OF TVP
Cajun Court Also Asks for Condemning of Judgment in John Wood Case
At its April 15, 2000, stated meeting, Louisiana Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) adopted two overtures, both of them dealing with Tennessee Valley Presbytery (TVP) and the John Wood case. The court overtured the General Assembly to discipline Tennessee Valley Presbytery and to condemn the judgment rendered by the Standing Judicial Commission in the John Wood case.

The first overture which passed asks the 28th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America to condemn and to bear testimony against the judgment of the 27th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America in re the judicial case with respect to the Rev. Mr. John Wood. Included among the rationale offered were the following:

“Presbyterianism historically has allowed for one General Assembly to condemn the opinion of another General Assembly”; “the decisions of the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) are those of the previous General Assembly”; “the General Assembly is bound “to bear testimony against error in doctrine . . . , injuriously affecting the Church. (BCO 14- 6.a.)”; “the decision of the SJC in re Presbyterian Church in America vs. John Wood is evidently flawed”; “because of the peculiar nature of current PCA judicial process, the General Assembly as such never was able directly to review this decision of the SJC”; “the decision is flawed in numerous ways, especially in its interpretation of the Constitution”; “this situation of having a seriously-flawed decision in this judicial case is troubling to the church and is potentially divisive”; “the God who has called us to peace is not the author of confusion”; and “the Ninth Commandment requires ‘from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice. (WLC, Q/A 144).”

The overture lists various errors in Constitutional interpretation:

1. The SJC assumes that a corporate responsibility by a session means that individual members cannot also be held responsible for the action of the session;
2. the SJC assumes that there were no doctrinal issues involved, but merely the action of inviting a woman to fill the pulpit, when there is evidence that Mr. Wood advocates female preaching;
3. the SJC assumes that action by Tennessee Valley Presbytery to vindicate the Session of Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tennessee, automatically clears Mr. Wood;
4. the SJC forcibly recused members of the SJC from Ascension, Calvary, and Western Carolina Presbyteries, based on the allegation that these presbyteries were parties to the case, whereas in point of fact, in a case of original jurisdiction, the “original and only parties in a case of process are the accuser and the accused. The accuser is always the Presbyterian Church in America. . . .” (BCO 31- 3).

A second successful overture directly takes aim at Tennessee Valley Presbytery, seeking its discipline. The overture argued that “several presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) have formally brought to the attention of Tennessee Valley Presbytery (TVP) the fact that one of its churches has allowed women to preach”; that “TVP, to date, has refused to deal adequately with the situation”; that “our Constitution tells us that it is “incumbent” upon a higher court that has been “well advised” of serious neglect or irregularity, to “take cognizance of the same, and to examine, deliberate and judge in the whole matter” (BCO 40-4)”; that “the 14th General Assembly, in approving the report of the blue-ribbon Ad Interim Committee on the General Assembly, approved the following principle: “In the event the lower court does nothing [with regard to discipline], by virtue of its ecclesiastical authority the higher court may (a) ignore the failure to act, or (b) counsel, advise, exhort, and urge the lower court to comply, or (c) reprimand or rebuke the lower court, or (d) suspend one or all of the ecclesiastical privileges of the lower court with respect to the higher courts — e.g., to overture or reference a matter to the higher courts, to vote upon amendments to the Standards, to vote at the higher courts, or even to have commissioners at the higher courts, or (e) as a last resort “act against” the lower court by dismissing it from the fellowship. (M14GA, pp. 103, 436)”; that “given the great turmoil which TVP’s failure to act has engendered throughout the PCA, it does not seem prudent for the General Assembly to ignore this willful failure”; that “since sister presbyteries have already counseled and urged TVP to act in a satisfactory manner and it has refused to heed this advice, it seems that the second option has already, in essence, been exercised”; and that “we do not want to proceed immediately to the drastic measure of exscinding TVP from our fellowship without giving it at least one more opportunity to repent.”

Louisiana Presbytery thereupon overtured the 28th General Assembly “to take appropriate disciplinary measures against Tennessee Valley Presbytery for its failure to uphold the Standards of our church, said disciplinary measures being that of a reprimand or rebuke, along with the pronouncement that if TVP does not act in a satisfactory fashion by the time of the 29th General Assembly, its ecclesiastical privileges of having commissioners seated at the General Assembly and of having representatives from the Presbytery to be nominated to any General Assembly committee, commission, board or agency, will be revoked.” Louisiana Presbytery further resolved that the 28th General Assembly should “enact these measures by any lawful means possible, including, if deemed necessary, the conduct of a trial on the floor of the Assembly (BCO 40-5 and 40-6).” Also passed was a resolution consisting of a series of questions to be posed to the Committee on Constitutional Business (CCB).

The overture begins by stating that “many in the Presbyterian Church in America have serious doubts about the ability of the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) effectively to represent the denomination as a whole”; that “the decision of the Standing Judicial Commission in re the judicial case of Presbyterian Church in America vs. John Wood is, in the minds of many in our denomination, seriously flawed”; that “we desire to proceed in these matters in such a way as to address our concerns in a proper and, so far as possible, a peaceful manner, with full submission to the wisdom of the General Assembly”; and that “the toleration of a situation in which a woman is allowed to fill a PCA pulpit is divisive, and will, if not satisfactorily redressed, lead to division of our beloved church. Based on those premises, Louisiana Presbytery directed the following questions to the CCB:

1. Suppose that a presbytery declined to proceed judicially against a session with regard to an apparent violation of our Standards (for example, allowing a woman to preach), and suppose further that no one in the presbytery filed a complaint against that willful failure by the presbytery. What are the possible recourses for others in the Presbyterian Church in America in order to deal with the situation? For example, would it be appropriate or legitimate for charges to be brought against the presbytery, seeking its discipline since it had failed to uphold our Cajun Court Also Asks for Condemning of Judgment in John Wood Case church’s Standards?


2. Suppose that the Standing Judicial Commission was derelict in its duty, whether deliberately or because of incompetence. What possible recourses are there?



a. For example, would it be appropriate or legitimate for judicial charges to be brought against the individual members of the SJC?

b. Would it be appropriate or legitimate for administrative charges to be brought against the individual members of the SJC? (Presumably, this would require a rescinding of the vote to elect them to their post.) How would an administrative trial be conducted? If prior notice were given, would a vote to remove require a simple majority?



3. If a court is responsible for a particular matter, may charges be brought not only against the court corporately but also against the individual members thereof who approved of that action? For example, our Book of Church Order says that the session is responsible for the conduct of public worship in the congregation. Suppose that a session authorized a known homosexual to preach; could charges be brought against the individual members of the session who voted for that action?


4. What would be the effect of an Assembly declining to approve the motion, that it declares the SJC to be its commission (BCO 15-4)?


5. Historically, Presbyterianism has allowed one General Assembly to condemn the opinion of a prior Assembly (see M12GA, p. 140: “Properly speaking no action of previous General Assemblies may be amended, rescinded, or annulled. A subsequent General Assembly may take a contrary position and condemn the action of a previous Assembly. . . .”). Since an SJC decision is the position of the previous General Assembly (BCO 15-4 “. . . and each subsequent Assembly should declare the Standing Judicial Commission as a whole to be its commission”), may the current General Assembly condemn the opinion of the SJC which is reported in the current year?

These proposals did not meet with unanimous approval. The series of Constitutional inquiries was approved, 14-4.

The overture asking for the condemnation of the John Wood case was approved, 10-4. The third overture, asking for disciplinary measures to be brought against Tennessee Valley Presbytery, carried, 10-6. The Rev. Dana Casey asked that his negative vote be recorded on these motions.

The series of Constitutional inquiries will be sent to the Committee on Constitutional Business, which will report directly to the floor of the General Assembly. The overture on condemning the John Wood case presumably will go to the Bills & Overtures Committee, which will bring recommendation to the floor of the Assembly. The overture regarding Tennessee Valley Presbytery may be referred either to the Bills & Overtures Committee or the Committee on Review of Presbytery Records.

Two other overtures did not pass Louisiana Presbytery. One would have called upon the General Assembly, “as an emblem of its own distrust of the current makeup of the SJC, to decline to adopt the motion declaring the SJC to be its commission.” The other would have asked the Assembly to “seek the removal from the SJC of those members who voted with the majority in the John Wood case, and to use any and all lawful means to do so, including, but not limited to, the following: (1) asking for their resignation; (2) administratively removing them from their posts.” Those motions failed, 4-10 and 7-9.

Thank you.