Last Thursday blogger Rachel Miller revealed numerous instances of plagiarism<\/a>\u00a0in The Justice Primer<\/em>, a book coauthored by reformed evangelical leaders Doug Wilson and Randy Booth and\u00a0published by Canon Press. The accusations were so serious and so well substantiated that Canon Press immediately discontinued<\/a> the book. In\u00a0author statements released by Canon Press, Booth took all of the blame. For his part, Wilson merely noted that he \u201cwas disappointed to find out . . . that there are serious citation problems\u201d in the book. Citation problems<\/em>\u2014that\u2019s a rather fancy name for plagiarism.<\/p>\n Let me provide a quick word of background. Doug Wilson is a reformed evangelical pastor who has established his own denomination and Christian school association and written both books and school curriculum. Wilson has been under fire for decades for his 1996 work of slavery apology and his continued glorification of the Confederacy, as well as his extreme homophobia and endorsement of patriarchy and female submission, and, more\u00a0recently, his mishandling of sexual abuse cases in his church. You can see everything I\u2019ve written about Doug Wilson here<\/a>.<\/p>\n With that out of the way, I should note that\u00a0the evangelical\u00a0World Magazine was highly critical<\/a>\u00a0of Wilson\u2019s statement. \u201cWilson did not admit any wrongdoing in his statement,\u201d writer Emily Belz noted, continuing as follows:<\/p>\n In 2013, Wilson\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0a blog post in response to plagiarism accusations against Mark Driscoll, the former pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle: \u201c[T]he person whose name is on the cover of the book is responsible to put things completely right if a problem surfaces. He may not be guilty, but he is always responsible\u2014as basic covenant theology teaches us<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The point being, of course, that Wilson was doing exactly what he condemned Driscoll for doing\u2014refusing to take responsibility for plagiarism in a book that bore his name on the cover, and instead pinning the blame on his co-author. Then, on Saturday, Wilson\u00a0wrote a blog post in which he took full responsibility<\/a>\u2014sort of.<\/p>\n In the future, more might need to be said about this issue, and that might include some differences of opinion. But now is not the time or the place to try to anticipate that sort of thing. Right now, I simply want to acknowledge what happened, and take responsibility for all that I can.<\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n Consequently, I want to take full responsibility for having my name on the cover of a book containing plagiarized sections, and where the contributions from the authors were undifferentiated. In such circumstances, when plagiarism is detected, the one who finds it has every right to look at the cover and decide right on the spot who is responsible. The names on the cover are the ones with the authorial responsibility, which is the primary responsibility according to contract, and the editorial imprint is the one with the publisher\u2019s responsibility, also specified by contract. Further investigation might reveal where particular culpability lies, but the responsibility for the project flows (according to God\u2019s design) to the names on the cover.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I appreciate that Wilson took responsibility\u2014more or less\u2014but this doesn\u2019t relieve my concern. After all, as World Magazine noted, Wilson also said\u00a0this in 2013<\/a>, when speaking of the accusations against Driscoll:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is quite easy for me to envision a situation where an author is responsible for plagiarism, misquotation, or a screwed up citation, but not be guilty of it.<\/strong> It is always proper to hold the author responsible, but if in the heat of controversy people are demanding that he acknowledge his personal guilt, as though [he] did it himself on purpose, his refusal to do so might not evidence a lack of integrity, but rather the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Responsible for . . . but not guilty of? What in the world kind of definitions is Wilson working with? To plagiarize\u00a0is generally defined as follows<\/a>: \u201cto use the words or ideas of another person as if they were your own words or ideas.\u201d Passing off someone else\u2019s words as your own is plagiarism whether or not you did it \u201con purpose.\u201d I\u2019ve had time where I\u2019ve taken notes sloppily, not noting what was a quotation and what was my summary, and I kick myself when I do that because I have to either go back and check or assume it\u2019s a quotation and create a new summary to ensure I don\u2019t plagiarize. But you know what? That\u2019s called being responsible!<\/p>\n And no, I\u2019m sorry, but refusing to own up to what you did as a reaction to people telling you to come clean is not integrity<\/em>. It\u2019s petty, and it displays a lack of leadership skills and a lack of<\/em> integrity.<\/p>\n It is the responsibility of the writer to ensure that everything that should be cited is cited, and that the words of others are in quotation marks, period<\/em>. There is no \u201cI didn\u2019t realize I did it\u201d or \u201cthat was an accident\u201d pass for plagiarism. If you passed off the words of another as your own, you messed up<\/em>, and you need to take full<\/em> responsibility for it\u2014none of this \u201cresponsible for\u201d but \u201cnot guilty\u201d of bullshit. I\u2019ve been in academia for a decade now, and this is basically drilled into you, because it matters<\/em>.<\/p>\n More than this, though, this isn\u2019t Wilson\u2019s first brush with plagiarism.\u00a0Take a look at this explanation<\/a>\u00a0from the World Magazine article:<\/p>\n Wilson faced accusations of plagiarism over a 1996 booklet he co-authored with Steve Wilkins titled\u00a0Southern Slavery: As It Was.<\/em>\u00a0He later\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0about the accusations: \u201cI won\u2019t go into how it happened, but the end result was that some passages from a book that should have been cited weren\u2019t cited (Time on the Cross<\/em>), and it was entirely and completely accidental. It was an embarrassing editorial screw-up, not plagiarism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Um no, it wasn\u2019t \u201can embarrassing editorial screw-up,\u201d it was plagiarism\u2014and blatant plagiarism at that. It\u2019s\u00a0simply false<\/a> that it was only citations at issue, and not copied text (more here<\/a>). Frankly, it is this track record\u2014and this inability to really and truly take responsibility for the full depth of the problem\u2014that makes me wary of Wilson\u2019s statements in his current plagiarism scandal. After all, you would think he would have learned the last time how not<\/em> to write a book. That he would repeat this mistake is more than embarrassing, it\u2019s suggestive\u00a0of a more longterm problem.<\/p>\n And more than that, Wilson\u2019s\u00a0alluding to \u201cdifferences of opinion\u201d and his discussion of further investigation revealing \u201cwhere particular culpability lies\u201d suggests that Wilson is still holding back, reticent to admit to the breadth of the book\u2019s plagiarism problem or his full culpability in allowing a book with plagiarism issues to be published under his name, regardless of who wrote the passages in question.<\/p>\n It\u2019s almost like in Doug Wilson\u2019s world, Doug Wilson can do no wrong.<\/p>\n\n
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