Things I Think
1. If you haven’t been paying attention, one of the biggest grass roots social media campaigns ever in the church is forming to help free pastor Saeed Abedini. Over 12,000 people have already marked out Dec 4th to participate. We need you…every person matters, every voice strengthens the choir. Sign up over on Facebook or Google +, then watch these spaces tomorrow for our Wednesday schedule.
2. The real issue involved with the Mark Driscoll plagiarism charges isn’t simply his proven sin in copying material without attribution. The real issue is the failure to acknowledge the sin and publicly repent. When the public faces of the faith refuse to lead by holding to the ethical standards they proclaim, they should at least lead in demonstrating how to repent when they fail to do so.
3. Talking about what a great Christian Paul Crouch was is like me talking about how smart my cat is…depends on what you’re comparing both with. Nobody in history spread more heresy farther or stole more money from the most vulnerable in the Body of Christ than Crouch and his wife.
4. My bathroom is full of cleaners of every sort for both my body and my home…we must be the cleanest generation in history. The great defilement as always, is internal and we may be the most defiled generation in history as well. A few years ago most of my requests for marriage counseling were related to money, today, it’s mostly about porn.
5. Don’t wait for a leader to to solicit your participation in matters of Christian conscience…be a leader among your own circle of influence and help others make a difference.
6. “He not busy being born is busy dying.” Truest thing Dylan ever wrote…
7. When leaders in the church can have their sin covered without repentance and without consequences they teach their people to expect the same privileges…
8. One of the gifts I give my son is failing in front of him, admitting the failure, and asking forgiveness. If I’m not afraid, he won’t be either.
9. I’m finally at a point in life where I feel worse about bringing shame to the name of Christ than embarrassing myself…the older I get, the more He matters.
10. I wish you all could see the incredible work being done by folks just like you all over the country to #freesaeed…it’s both humbling and inspiring. Join us…you matter.
Must reads…
My favorite Matt Redmond article ever…
#FreeSaeed #SaveSaeed woot woot!
Awesome to see it go viral (again).
Hopefully the Powers that Be will do something.
Michael said, “The real issue is the failure to acknowledge the sin and publicly repent. When the public faces of the faith refuse to lead by holding to the ethical standards they proclaim, they should at least lead in demonstrating how to repent when they fail to do so.”
Ya, but that would mean that the Infallible, Perfect, Inspired Idols would be shown to be sinners and schmucks just like the rest of us…and that’s too high a price to pay for them in Celebrity-Moses-Pastor-as-God Evangelicalism.
“Infallible, Perfect, Inspired Idols would be shown to be sinners and schmucks just like the rest of us”
Is this a description of the Pope?
I cruise by here about once a day and I’m placing bets on how RB is going to clog up and ruin this thread.
Michael has posted some really good points today in his “Thinks.” He made me laugh with the one about the intelligence of his cat. Michael did your cat cough up a hair ball when he read your post?
The Dylan quote reminds me of the ‘Braveheart’ quote about all people die.
And the comment about Mark D. gets my interest because I haven’t hear of anyone who is effecting the young men of this generation like he is and to be caught in a deception is really bad.
Oh well, Bets on how many posts before RB aka AG starts in?
The Dylan quote really struck me as I struggle to create a new life at my age…the alternative is to give up and die.
I think God should have said that first… 🙂
Plagiarism is an interesting study…if you read Luther or Calvin they lifted chunks of Augustine and Chrysostom frequently without attribution. The other Reformers lifted Calvin and Luther often…and no one seemed to mind.
I know I’ve never had an original thought in my life, so I try to be very careful…
Regarding Paul Crouch and Driscoll. Dylan also wrote,” The rich seduce the poor, and old are seduced by the young.” Sounds like a modern proverb.
Catherine…that was good stuff!
Michael:
The difference is in today’s culture plagiarism has become a big topic. When my children were in both HS and University the teachers and profs required quoting, cites and footnotes for their papers. Failure to do so would give them a failing grade.
And then they find out a prominent church leader plagiarizes…
The difference is that it is now illegal.
I’m not making a case for plagiarism by any means.
It’s just interesting how far the culture has shifted.
I commend Janet Mefferd for not letting this go…she actually uncovered more this morning.
Our comrade Wenatchee the Hatchet was on this long ago…
The bigger issue to me is that this is one more example to a critical world of how we fail to match walk with talk…
“Oh well, Bets on how many posts before RB aka AG starts in?”
Just RB, thanks. The precedent and rule is to keep anonymity. Michael, please moderate bob’s posts to remove those references, thanks.
It’s fixed.
Please respect anonymity or the pretense of the same.
#FreeSaeed / #SaveSaeed is shaping up to be quite a cyber-tsunami on Wednesday. This is exactly what can happen using social media to advocate for causes and no, it’s not wasted effort and no the defeatist attitude that defaults to “can’t happen!” or “won’t happen!” “you can’t make things change!” etc is a lie and not very constructive. I’ve heard it a million times regarding other issues/causes…and from the host and many on here.
“Please respect anonymity or the pretense of the same.”
Yes, same as others who we all know who they are, but it’s at their choosing as to when they want to peek out of the anonymity for a moment or two.
You can quit trying to kill it, it’s already dead.
Wasn’t there a movie made about the late founder of TBN and his wife?
…”Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”
Plagiarism has risen as a forbidden practice due to copyrighting laws and ‘intellectual property’ etc. It is always good practice to provide sources lest you sink in others estimation when they discover who you relied on for your ‘original’ ideas. A former pastor of mine would never let Warren Wiersbe’s materials be sold in his bookstore lest the ‘flock’ discover the source of his outlines, illustrations, and content. Another local pastor used Bob Coy’s sermons nearly verbatim until a home group recognized the teachings sounded familiar when they were listening to one of Coy’s packaged studies. As a teacher, it is one of the skills we hound students with until it becomes second nature. Some never get it…and they become pastors. 😉
(2)I can totally understand accidentally taking an idea from someone else without really recognizing it. If you read, watch TV, surf the web, listen to radio, you will absorb tons of ideas, to the point that when formulating your own idea, you don’t realize it came from one of these other sources.
If it happens frequently in publication then something is up. If it is not resolved upon discovery, then we have a major issue.
But that is Driscoll. That’s who he is. He doesn’t tell the truth. He’s a celebrity at all cost.
(4) Funny thing is we may also be killing things that are vital to our health and immune system. I know that wasn’t your point, but with an OCD wife, I’ve often wondering at what point does the hand-washing become detrimental? 🙂
(6) Good quote. I’ve been contemplating some paradigm shifts lately as far as my life goes. Unfortunately, sometimes you get very far down a windy path before you realiz that it is a road leading to death.
fil,
I’m framing that one… 🙂
Josh,
I read so much that I don’t know sometimes where I start and Packer or Calvin or Bowden ends.
That’s different from just copying and pasting someone else’s work and calling it your own, but I still try to be mindful of it.
I often attribute scholars in my sermons…even though my church has no idea who I’m talking about usually.
This could end very badly for Driscoll…or he might ride it out just like most celebrities.
As to #6….the frustration and depression from trying to get even a menial job at my age brought me to a crossroads where I either had to try to maximize my skills and think out of the box or just give up.
That’s why I’m trying so hard to build this platform to a point where through it and book sales I can support myself.
It’s like being born every day…and birth is a painful process…
A sermon is different from a publication, unless of course, the sermon is being packaged and distributed in some way. Still, best practice would be to say in the least intrusive way “PAcker says” or something like that. I always try to do that when I know that I am lifting an idea directly from a commentary, but like you, some things I have no clue where they came from. If, for some crazy reason, my sermon was being published, I’d have to be much more careful and specific about my sources.
I don’t think Driscoll will face any fallout from this. Celebrities get to skate by on so much. IF someone tried to sue, he’s got the lawyers to make it go away.
If I did in my book what Driscoll did, I would never be published again.
The only people that can hold him to account are his co-celebrities and his congregation…I wouldn’t count on either.
Thanks for another shout-out, Michael. Good news is, if Amanda’s article on the objectification of women isn’t compelling, there’s at least pictures of boobies that go with it.
Hashtag, SomethingForEveryone.
Doesn’t Driscoll own his publishing company?
Jason,
I just read HFTV for the articles…
Josh,
Tyndale published his last one…
In that case, I certainly hope they are looking into it.
The whole plagiarism issue has made me wonder how low the academic temperature actually is among the YRR leaders. (Is the term YRR still used?) I would argue that Christian communities need a vigorous intellectual life (among other things) in order to remain in good health. It is sad to see how poor things might actually be.
Scott,
The silence from TFG and the GC has been deafening.
That movement fell in love with celebrity…
a former superintendent in my district was ‘caught’ plagiarizing in his doctoral work. He was dismissed from the program and university, blacklisted from entering another program, lost his administrative license, and fired from his position.
The ethical profile of academia shames the church.
I concur with Amanda Garcia’s conclusions in the article cited above. It is worth the read.
Michael – I have a question in regards to #freesaeed / #savesaeed . I’ve been letting folks know about it on my Facebook & Twitter account, and I’ll do my best to use the hashtags on December 4.
I wrote up an article for my blog about it, and was considering posting it today rather than Wednesday. The reason being that we will be having a memorial service here for someone in our church congregation on Wednesday, and I’m not sure what kind of mixed message it would be on the blog.
I may be concerned about a whole bunch of nothing. That said…would it defeat the purpose of the Dec 4th date for me to post my blog article early?
Tim,
Not at all!
The more awareness we have before the event, the bigger it will be.
Send us the link so we can tweet it out as well!
fil,
I wearily concur with both posts…
wearily or warily? 😉
Amanda’s last article was great, but I can’t look at this one because of the art. Work doesn’t make a distinction between art and porn 🙂
Thanks Michael. I just posted the article… http://timburns.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/saeed-abedini/
fil said, “The ethical profile of academia shames the church.”
It does, in spades…also with regards to child abuse and financial accountability and most other issues.
I think it is safe to say that Academia has more “good fruit” than the church in many areas.
I could link to 100’s of instances of teachers sexually abusing students…etc. We don’t really need to do that do we?
Academia treats those issues, on average, with greater concern and has procedures in place to deal with accusations etc.
Look no further than Penn State’s recent example. Once it became known outside of the football team fraternity, Greater Academia acted with strong efficiency.
I don’t need to post the links of TGC (think SGM child sex abuse scandals) and CC etc etc who defend their do-nothing positions do I?
“You walk outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. Nowadays you breath and you risk your life. You don’t have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you’re risking it for.”
Hershel Greene, The Walking Dead
“Penn State’s recent example. ”
Awful example. That went on twenty years and was ran up to the president and nothing happened. Multiple times.
My point is not that the church has been great. It should be better. But the academic world has plenty of blood on its hands too.
“Awful example. That went on twenty years and was ran up to the president and nothing happened. Multiple times.”
Within that Group…but when Academia at large got a whiff of it, and especially the fellow NCAA “Affiliates”…all hell broke loose.
Alright. And again, I can link to dozens of “ministers” presently rotting in jail for their crimes…but whatever.
Jim,
I love your Hershel quote!
1. Amen!
2. A sorry expanding little affair there.
3. People who benefit off Paul Crouch’s death really demonstrate not much better behavior themselves. Feeding off corpses is sort of a thing a lot of people look down on.
4. Sad.
5. Nope, I got tired of the leader thing last deployment. Time to follow a bit.
6. Hmm..
7 Not just about leaders to me.
8 and 9. Too true!
10. Amen again!
Michael,
It isn’t just Driscoll or the church that is involved in unethical professional behavior.
I read this article a few weeks ago about how the world of science is riddled with things analogous to what Driscoll did ,professional unethical behavior.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20131027,0,1228881.column#axzz2iyoimL3X
I think it is on the rise in all segments of our society at this moment.
It could be a byproduct of the information age. Knowledge is now cheap and easily accessible. Perhaps people are subconsciously devaluing it?
Josh, I think that may have hit the nail on the head.
Although, I don’t think it is always subconscious.
True, but I’m thinking when you really have to work to learn something rather than just googling, you will innately see more value in it.
Hmm…true.
I myself value Google as a tool, but my formative learning years were all far before the internet had as firm a grip.
I know some people who seemed to have cloud sourced their brains.
I think you hit on it there though.
Regarding Michael’s #4b- So Michael used to get money for counseling but now takes porn instead? Please delete this post to protect my anonymity. Must keep up appearances.
Pretty low cheap shot.
Feel better?
I don’t even know what that means.
Where’s your sense of humor? If RB, fil, or MLD had said that you’d be rolling in the aisle.
I don’t have time tonight to deal with you.
I will later.
Derek I found your science article very informative, unethical behavior is often brought about by lack of accountability, financial / prestige motives and raw ambition. I have seen this in many studies that are looking for a high profile answer to very complicated issues. Personally if we would stop expecting results at the speed of light we might build a stronger foundation to build on.
Josh said, “I don’t even know what that means.”
I agree with Josh on something, LOL. What the heck was that all about?
We agree on a lot of stuff Ricky, just not God stuff. Apparently, we both liked Talladega Nights? I’m super pumped for Anchorman 2. Might even change my screen name to Ron Burgendy.
My old friend James Duncan posted a few thoughts on Driscoll’s plagiarism. Remember, Duncan is a professor at Anderson University, so he has some good insight:
http://www.pajamapages.com/on-driscoll-its-a-straight-red/
Good article, Josh.
Sort of adds a whole new dimension and shows that it wasn’t “by accident”.
Wow, that article nails Driscoll more than any I’ve read yet. Ouch. Some stuff sticks, much stuff doesn’t for some reason….this plagiarism thing seems to be sticking and won’t go away.
Josh, can’t wait for Anchorman 2, me and the Mrs. have the date already on the calendar 🙂
See, a baptist can get along with a heretic scumbag.
🙂 Joking, man. I’m joking.