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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: Trouble at Cwmbran / Richard Taylor
Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

It's easy to be caught up with the atmosphere, be that in a revivalist service or a bells and smells one ...

There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself - we are creaturely creatures after all - but if it stops there then there are problems.

Oh yes, indeed! There must be effective follow-up and pastoral care. we are after all told to go and make disciples, not go and count raised hands in a meeting!

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
When all else fails, perhaps the church will pick up the cross of the suffering and suffer sharing the load with them. THEN something would be seen, known to be going on. Until then, there will be this chaff, where God suffers us.

As a Salvationist I say Amen to that!

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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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Rewinding the thread a bit...
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus
Well, to get this back on track, it's disappointing, although sadly not entirely surprising, that to date there's a deafening silence from Victory Church, from Victory Outreach of which Richard Taylor is or was CEO, and indeed Elim (even if they are only tangentially involved).

This is what happened when the issue of plagiarism was raised. The church simply pulled the evidence and did nothing more (at least publicly).

You mean to say that the church actually listened to you and removed the offending material? Well done to them, is what I say. What else were you expecting?

quote:
Originally posted by sidefall
That's on top of the problems associated with the revival, which seems to have began with a false claim that someone was healed from being in a wheelchair.

What is your evidence that it was a false claim?

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Martin60
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The fact that it was made.

Mudfrog - I knew that you would [Smile] As long as we do it without ANY expectation, ANY exclusion.

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Love wins

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You mean to say that the church actually listened to you and removed the offending material? Well done to them, is what I say. What else were you expecting?

The two of us already discussed this before on a previous thread.

I note that in contrast to the impression you gave on that thread, you now seem to acknowledge that the material was actually "offending", i.e. plagiarised, and therefore cause for serious concern. What made you change your mind?

As explained before, I was expecting the church to acknowledge, in the same medium as that used to publish the "offending material", that it was plagiarised and that they were taking the matter seriously. Simply removing it looks like an attempt to conceal the evidence, rather than an acknowledgement that anything is wrong - a similar tactic to the one they appear to be taking with RT right now. It would also have been polite to respond to my correspondence, which they didn't. Even the pagans generally know how to do that.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus
I note that in contrast to the impression you gave on that thread, you now seem to acknowledge that the material was actually "offending", i.e. plagiarised, and therefore cause for serious concern. What made you change your mind?

I'd be interested to know where I gave "the impression" that plagiarism was OK. Perhaps a link to the relevant comment(s) would be helpful. I can only hope you seriously misread my words, otherwise you would just be making things up and thereby grossly misrepresenting the position of another person (which, in my view, is worse even than plagiarism).

quote:
Originally posted by Martin...Biohazard
The fact that it was made.

[Confused]

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The fact that it was made.

Mudfrog - I knew that you would [Smile] As long as we do it without ANY expectation, ANY exclusion.

Indeed. No discrimination and no strings.

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Martin60
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Your track record is impeccable in this matter as elsewhere Eutychus, furthermore on this matter you did us all, the church, the truth a service.

Something else is going on here.

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Love wins

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus
I note that in contrast to the impression you gave on that thread, you now seem to acknowledge that the material was actually "offending", i.e. plagiarised, and therefore cause for serious concern. What made you change your mind?

I'd be interested to know where I gave "the impression" that plagiarism was OK. Perhaps a link to the relevant comment(s) would be helpful.
Immediately after my discovery of the plagiarism here you accused the critics of Cwmbran of looking for
quote:
something dodgy - no matter how small

(emphasis mine). Which appears to me to be an attempt to minimise its seriousness.

You then went on to say
quote:
OK, so he's plagiarised some content for his blog. His bad.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that his ministry is dodgy.

While you do admit that his plagiarism was less than good, you again seek to minimise it (it can be brushed off as "his bad", which sounds like a minor or even inadvertent mistake) and argue that this did not impugn the rest of his ministry (I said it raised warning signs that the trustees would do well to address).

You then went on to speculate, in the face of RT's claimed credentials as pastor of a Bible college,
quote:
It could be that he just misunderstands 'fair use'
and went on in the same post to speculate on fair use being in the realm of the
quote:
technically moral, but which may involve a certain ambiguity
So the "something dodgy" appears to have been further minimised by you to a technicality with plenty of attendant ambiguity.

You later argue that the plagiarism does not prove that that he is a deceitful person. My position is to make a call on acts, not people's inherent traits, but as far as I can see the act of plagiarism is essentially deceitful. RT may not be aware of this, but if he or those around him cannot see it's a problem, then that is highly serious in my view.

From all this I conclude that you see (or saw) the specific instance of plagiarism here as inconsequential, little or nothing more than a moral technicality, and quite possiby nothing more than a misunderstanding of "fair use" - especially when balanced up against the possibility (in your view) that a Work of God was in progress in Cwmbran.

As I wrote to a trustee of Victory Church at the time,
quote:
It may be that Richard is unaware of the gravity and ethical implications of plagiarism and that this is an ‘honest’ mistake that can be properly and swiftly addressed. However (...) I would suggest that its existence is grounds for serious concern on the part of the church trustees and a possible indicator that all is not right.
It could be that the current fuss is all lies, and certainly the attitude of the blog in the OP is, as has been widely acknowledged, also extremely regrettable, but at the moment it looks to me like my initial assessment was correct. Plagiarism of this nature from someone in RT's position and making the claims he was making is not trivial.

[ 17. August 2014, 16:53: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Gamaliel
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The initial claim of a healing at one of the Victory Church meetings has not been substantiated. On the older threads on this, I seem to remember reading that Victory Church were keeping the guy out of the public eye, claiming that they were respecting and protecting his privacy.

That may be the case. It's also true that on some of the websites of churches around the area which have been quite scathing about he whole thing there have been claims that the bloke wasn't actually healed and was still seen in his wheelchair from time to time ...

One comment I saw suggested that the man wasn't even 'born again' because he still smoked ...

[Roll Eyes]

A friend of mine who saw the alleged miracle on a video said that it 'looked convincing'.

I've seen 'miracles' that have looked convincing too. I've seen people get up out of wheelchairs in meetings ... only to be back in them the next day or even later on the same evening.

I've shared before on this Boards how my brother once saw a girl's squint apparently rectify itself in response to prayer for healing. The very next day the squint had returned.

On one of the earlier threads on Cwmbran I remember reading that someone had visited and experienced some kind of relief for their arthritic pain during the meeting itself - only for that pain to recur as soon as they left the gathering to go home.

What we are tending to see are placebo effects and people experiencing temporary relief of largely musculo-skeletal pain in the heightened atmosphere of revivalist gatherings.

Victory Church has had ample opportunity to verify the claim of a healing miracle but has not done so.

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Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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Gamaliel
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My take on the whole thing is that Victory Church has simply gone down the route of overly exaggerated claims (I nearly wrote 'over-egged' but Eutychus doesn't like it [Big Grin] ) ... move along please, there's nothing to see here.

At the same time, it seems to me, some of its detractors, particularly in some of the other charismatic churches in the area are acting out of jealousy, spite and a gloating desire to see the whole thing implode.

What we haven't seen is:

- Revival.

- Any hard and fast evidence of healings.

I hope that they can sort things out and that Richard Taylor can get himself back on some kind of track or even keel.

The problem is that the heightened level of hype and expectation in outfits of this kind militates against cold, rational action in the clear light of day.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Martin60
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By something else I mean in EE.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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Eutychus -

Thanks for those links to my previous comments, none of which suggest that I am justifying plagiarism, but rather merely putting it into its proper perspective. I notice that you acknowledge in your letter to the trustee of Victory Church that this plagiarism could be "an honest mistake", so, in the light of that admission, I don't really understand why you are making such a big deal of this, especially considering that the church listened to you and took down the offending material. (BTW, I use the word 'offending' in the general sense of "that which has caused a problem in someone's estimation", which is not the same as saying that "it is a serious sin").

As for the fact that they failed to acknowledge to you - or to the rest of the world and his dog - that they had made a mistake, well, all I can say is this: if I were subject to such hostility from so many quarters and dismissed as a charlatan and a fraud, then I would be very reluctant to say anything that could possibly incriminate me. I would take correction, but I certainly wouldn't advertise it to my detractors, who clearly "have it in for me". In other words, Richard Taylor was very wise in his approach to this.

It is patently obvious to me that he was not trying to deceive people, because if he really wanted to do so, he could easily have posted other people's material and passed it off as his own with a superficial rewrite, in order to deflect the charge of plagiarism.

In the light of this, and the church's response, I consider your case extremely weak.

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Barnabas62
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Well, there are Commandment 8 factors to take into account at this point so I'll go carefully hereabouts.

I don't think plagiarism is trivial, whether practised by a harrassed student under pressure or a church leader trying to create some sort of impression. It tells you something significant about the moral malleability of the practising plagiarist. Misrepresenting someone else's ideas as one's own rings alarm bells about the misrepresenter.

Of course you do have to allow for inadvertence and keep a sense of proportion. The non-attribution of a short quote may just be a bit of carelessness or forgetfulness. And it is possible to come up with what you think is an original thought only to discover someone else got there first.

[That's happened to me. I thought I'd discovered a new variation for White against a standard sequence for Black in the Sicilian Defence; the sequence led to material gain or an early checkmate. Found it over the board in a practice game at University. Sent it off to Modern Chess Openings, only to get a nice letter back telling me that the variation would be in the next edition, but the sequence had actually been played 18 months earlier in a tournament game between two Eastern Europeans. I was a bit gutted to discover that my original thought wasn't original - but it was original to me.]

In the examples Eutychus quoted, however, such inadvertence or routine "de minimis" carelessness does not seem to apply. The complete "cut and paste" evidence was pretty impressive. The evidence points to the plagiarism as deliberate and extensive. Hence the ringing warning bells.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
(BTW, I use the word 'offending' in the general sense of "that which has caused a problem in someone's estimation", which is not the same as saying that "it is a serious sin").

Ah, so actually you're still trying to minimise it. My bad.
quote:
I notice that you acknowledge in your letter to the trustee of Victory Church that this plagiarism could be "an honest mistake", so, in the light of that admission
Yes. I was trying to "believe the best" as I have so often been enjoined to do. However, you'll note that I go on to say, that even if somehow it was some sort of honest mistake, it was cause for serious concern. The only way I can see it being so was if Taylor genuinely didn't see it as a problem - which is a huge problem in and of itself.
quote:
I don't really understand why you are making such a big deal of this, especially considering that the church listened to you and took down the offending material
How the person responds is definitely important.

In the original thread I said
quote:
How the person in question deals with the exposure of such shortcomings is probably going to tell you a lot more about their suitability for the ministry, too.
You said
quote:
I am sure he will respond as moral necessity dictates.
I wrote to a trustee having spoken to them on the phone. They never replied. As far as I'm concerned there's a problem with people who don't even acknowledge a non-inflammatory communication addressed personally to them. They didn't need to admit any responsibility, they could have just said "thank you for your letter, we are looking into this".

As it was, within a few days RT's blog had simply been pulled in its entirety with no explanation. Now, I understand his Twitter feed has similarly disappeared and, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no official communication from the church and a gagging order imposed on its members.

Again, I contend that such behaviour is more consistent with trying to hide the fact any wrongdoing occurred at all than with anything "dictated by moral necessity". It is making matters worse, not better. Do you agree?
quote:
I would be very reluctant to say anything that could possibly incriminate me.
The incriminating evidence was there for all to see. The key question is how the person responds to it.
quote:
Richard Taylor was very wise in his approach to this.
I'm not commenting on his wisdom, but I think he would have won a lot more respect and displayed more integrity by recognising what was wrong with what went out in his name and that clearly was not his.
quote:
It is patently obvious to me that he was not trying to deceive people, because if he really wanted to do so, he could easily have posted other people's material and passed it off as his own with a superficial rewrite, in order to deflect the charge of plagiarism.
You raised this defence on the first thread. On which Casineb (who, incidentally, was nonetheless hoping people would "find Christ" through the goings-on, so hardly an out-and-out critic) reported (emphasis mine):
quote:
Not only has he plagiarised those posts in his blog, but he's actually combed through them and tweaked sentences, attempting to pass it off as his own work.

I think that shows a greater level of deceitfulness than quickly copy-and-pasting a post he come about, and maybe absent-mindedly forgetting to attribute it.

For a leader who seems to present himself as a teacher, that's really poor behaviour IMO.

Do you disagree?
quote:
In the light of this, and the church's response
What response? All they have done about the plagiarism as far as I know is attempt to conceal the evidence, which I suppose counts as "wise" if you think "wise" means "hoping nobody will notice".

I was involved in another investigation which led an independent panel to conclude that a best-selling Christian autobiography was largely untrue. The book was (and indeed, is) endorsed by a senior, respected evangelical figure. He knows all the relevant facts and has consistently refrained from backing off his endorsement (I'm not sure if this is because he is afraid for his own reputation or hoping people will still come to Christ on the basis of a "true story" that is untrue, or for some other obscure reason).

Similarly, the organisations that gave the book awards opted not to withdraw the awards (they just quietly removed them from their website).

One result is that the author (albeit largely discredited by most observers because of those who have spoken out) is still touting the discredited book as having won those awards and continuing to exploit the silence of those who know better to pass off his story as true.

This sort of "response" (ie failure to act and speak out when people know better) enables charlatans and con artists to drive a bus through the credibility of the gospel and make christians the laughing stock of their more street-wise contemporaries. And then people wonder why these revivals are no more than a damp squib in the end.

Do you think anyone making this kind of "response" is acting out of "moral necessity"? If so, please explain how.

quote:
I consider your case extremely weak.
What case, exactly, do you think I'm bringing here?

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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Well at least we know that the entire Methodist Church has been built on a lie, and that the supposed revival under John Wesley was a scam. How do we know this? Answer: because there is clear evidence that John Wesley (well into his ministry) was a plagiarist!!

Yes! This article furnishes us with the sordid details of the crime:

quote:
Wesley's ministry included the time prior to and during the American War for Independence. How to respond to colonial demands was a hot political issue in England, and Wesley waded right into the middle of it. Reversing an earlier position, Wesley came out in strong support of the legitimacy of taxing the colonies. His position was put before the public in an address entitled A Calm Address to Our American Colonies. The tract caused a sensation in England (but not in America, where a friend of the Methodists destroyed all the copies, lest the Methodist preachers be persecuted).

The problem with the pamphlet was that Wesley did not write substantial portions of it. In the course of approximately ten pages, Wesley used numerous sections taken verbatim from Samuel Johnson's Taxation No Tyranny. In the first edition of Calm Address, Wesley did not indicate in any way that he had borrowed text from Johnson - Wesley represented the work as his own. This laid him open to the just charge of plagiarism, and those charges were not long in coming. In a preface to the second edition, Wesley acknowledged his indebtedness to the other pamphlet, but this was too late. A plagiarist does not cease to be a plagiarist because he admits the obvious after he has been caught.

Naughty man! And he obviously only apologised because he got caught!!

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Eutychus
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I see you have no further defence but to change the subject.

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Gamaliel
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Wesley also never experienced the things his followers claimed to experience in terms of 'sinless perfection' and so on.

He wasn't above polemics either, like most of his contemporaries (and indeed, many of us here, myself included).

However, I think we'd all concede that Wesley's achievements - for all his very human failings - were of greater import than anything that is likely to have come out of Victory Church in Cwmbran.

None of my relatives who live in and around the town are actually aware of Victory Church and what is supposed to have been going on there.

The evidence for this being a 'move of God' rather than a period of rather hyped-up meetings that have no largely run their natural course is hard to come by.

The only people claiming this to be a major move of the Holy Spirit are the leadership of Victory Church and their supporters. Sure, their detractors in the area aren't as pure as the driven snow when it comes to their own motives ... but I'd want to see rather more evidence than an unsubstantiated miracle claim and people travelling considerable distances from other charismatic and Pentecostal churches to 'catch the anointing' before I'd label it a 'move of God.'

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Praise the Lord for He is kind.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
However, I think we'd all concede that Wesley's achievements - for all his very human failings - were of greater import than anything that is likely to have come out of Victory Church in Cwmbran.

In my view Wesley is an entire red herring.

EE would, I suspect from his above post, like nothing more than to avoid answering the questions I put to him in my extensive post above by dragging in every misdeed from Jude plagiarising Peter (or is it the other way round?) onwards and inviting all and sundry to comment, and use the assembled catch of red herrings to invoke the special "well-the-gospel-was-preached-so-this-grants-complete-and-utter-immunity-to-those-in-charge-on-all-counts" pleading that, frankly, is in my top ten list of reasons to give up being a christian altogether.

This thread (within the confines of the 10 Commandments!) is about Cwmbran, the past evidence of misconduct and the current allegations of more. Anything else is a distraction.

[ 18. August 2014, 14:44: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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What I am asking for is moral consistency. If Richard Taylor is considered to be deceitful for being a plagiarist, then we should apply the same moral judgment to others.

Or isn't morality supposed to work like that?

As for comparing Wesley's ministry with Taylor's... well, all I can say is: exactly! In other words, the question of plagiarism is completely irrelevant. If we are going to judge Taylor, then let's judge him on other criteria. So I agree entirely with Gamaliel's approach, not with that of Eutychus.

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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Eutychus
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Wesley is long since dead and buried and appraisals of the ins and outs of his ministry are an entirely different matter.

They are also a convenient way of you sidestepping my direct questions to you in my post here.

Your argument (in which plagiarism is consistently minimised and indeed "irrelevant") appears to be that since God is allegedly at work, all other ethical considerations are secondary and/or inconsequential.

I disagree.

It's too late to do anything about Wesley. It's not too late to respond to what I see as the shortcomings at Cwmbran and make the case for the Church at large handling such matters better in the future.

When I stumbled across Taylor's plagiarism, I opined that it raised a red flag, not a red card (my exact words) about his ministry. Above all, to my mind, it was potentially indicative of a more serious problem. This was considerably compounded by the church not acknowledging this at all (simply burying the evidence).

To my mind, in our contemporary culture at least, plagiarism is indicative of someone being prone to play fast and loose with the truth. That is of critical importance if they are supposed to be preaching the word of truth.

Moreover, the greater that person's exposure, and the more fantastic their claims, the more serious any such actions on their part are and the greater the likelihood of other ethical issues being present.

The current lack of public response of the church to the latest allegations, and the allegations themselves, have not so far caused me to change my initial assessment.

If you wish to continue saying this is all a storm in a teacup and that any criticism of Taylor is "a bad witness" in the face of the mighty work God is doing, or that the rest of the Church should just keep mum, that's your right, but you certainly aren't convincing me.

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
What I am asking for is moral consistency. If Richard Taylor is considered to be deceitful for being a plagiarist, then we should apply the same moral judgment to others.

Isn't this just a variation on the tu quoque fallacy?

Of course, the fun thing about tu quoque is that it's basically an attempt to obfuscate the fact that on the substantive point there is no argument. The outworking of which on this thread is that EE is implicitly accepting that plagiarism both occurred and was covered up, and that that is a bad thing.

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Gamaliel
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Actually, I do agree with Eutychus and have done so all along. He was right to 'call' the leadership of Victory Church on the plagiarism issue and he is right in his assessments here.

No-one here is saying that the leadership of Victory Church are any worse sinners or any greater saints than anyone else.

But at the very least, I would have expected them to acknowledge Eutychus's very moderate challenge and either said, 'Whoops, there was some mistake ... we apologise ...' or else come up with some kind of explanation.

The Wesley thing is a bit different too insofar as his plagiarism occurred in the context of a political debate and not an apparent attempt to claim particular spiritual experiences or elements of other people's testimonies ... which is what seemed to be happening on the Victory Church website.

I'm not separating out the sacred from the profane, but it begs a few questions when people apparently start trying to pass other people's experiences off as their own.

If I've got the wrong end of the stick on the plagiarism issue then I'll take that last bit back ... I may have confused it in my mind with the other plagiarism issue that Eutychus helped expose.

More power to Eutychus's elbow. We need more Eutychus's to keep this sort of thing in check.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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Do I think that plagiarism is wrong?

Answer: YES. Plagiarism is wrong.

Happy now?

However...

Do I think that plagiarism bars a person from having a relationship with God within a productive ministry?

Answer: NO. Because God uses imperfect people.

I think I have now answered "the substantive question".

[ 18. August 2014, 15:45: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]

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Eutychus
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Well, you've still not answered, directly, the questions I put to you in the post referenced above.

Above all, you appear to have invoked the special "well-the-gospel-was-preached-so-this-grants-complete-and-utter-immunity-to-those-in-charge-on-all-counts" pleading I also referred to earlier.

Nowhere, but nowhere, have I asserted that
quote:
plagiarism bars a person from having a relationship with God
or even from having one
quote:
within a productive ministry
as your subsequent edit has it, or disagreed with your assertion that
quote:
God uses imperfect people
Where we appear to part company is that I don't believe the fact we are all imperfect* somehow dispenses us from the responsibility of calling out those imperfections, especially when the stakes are high.

In Cwmbran the stakes were incontrovertibly raised sky-high by the claims being made by Taylor. Too many christians seem to think that the more extravagant the claims, the less they deserve to be scrutinised, because the greater the danger of "touching the Lord's anointed".

In my view this is an invitation for the sheep to get ripped off by unscrupulous "shepherds" and for the Church be made fun of by the general public. Which is why I call it out if it crosses my path.

(Let me ask you another question. What do you think, if anything, should be done and why?).

We'll never get rid of all our imperfections, but we can perhaps work on how we and the Church at large address them. I really can't understand what of worth could be lost by striving to achieve this.

==
*If I have one regret with regard to my dealings with Taylor and Victory Church, it's that I posted on the Ship before attempting to confront the church in private, because that's the wrong way round in view of Matthew 18:15-17. So you see I'm imperfect, too.

[ 18. August 2014, 16:02: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Gamaliel
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I don't think anyone has been claiming that plagiarism in itself debars anyone from having a productive relationship with God, EE ...

That's not the substantive issue here. At least, that's not how I've understood Eutychus.

What the issue is whether a propensity towards plagiarism is indicative of how particularly ministries and groups might behave.

If they are guilty of plagiarism, why should we trust whatever other claims they make?

I'm not saying it's a black and white thing. I have come across people who might otherwise be quite sceptical of Victory Church who have said some very positive things about its drug rehabilitation work. That said, I've come across others who are sceptical of aspects of that same work.

I've got an open mind on that.

Whether there's a 'move of God' afoot in Cwmbran I rather doubt ... the last I heard was that numbers at the gatherings had tailed off and the frequency of the services had diminished.

There's only so long you can continue holding revivalist gatherings without getting tired and burning out.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel
If they are guilty of plagiarism, why should we trust whatever other claims they make?

If anyone is guilty of anything, why should we trust whatever other claims they make?

In other words, all churches and denominations are morally suspect.

Or is it a case of deliberately targetting charismatic churches, because they are an easy target? That is what it looks like to me.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In other words, all churches and denominations are morally suspect.

Inasmuch as each has the usual quota of fallen human beings, yes.

The next step is to look at what mechanisms are in place for protecting ourselves against our failings and the various churches' track records in this respect.
quote:
Or is it a case of deliberately targetting charismatic churches, because they are an easy target?
As far as I'm concerned, I engage with these things when I'm implicated in some way. As someone who is at the least highly familiar with the charismatic and evangelical worlds, and who finds himself incapable despite his best efforts of negating his own charismatic experience, I do tend to pick up on this type of church, but not exclusively so.

(And no, I don't go looking for these things. In the case in hand, I stumbled across it reading Purg, and as attested on the original thread, my casual research took less than a quarter of an hour before exposing the plagiarism).

That said, as far as I can see any charismatic churches in particular are extremely likely to be morally suspect, simply because their theology puts the bar so high. They make extraordinary claims. They often offer the prospect of instantaneous deliverance from various besetting sins and talk in terms of being completely set free from sin.

They (well, Victory Church certainly did) enjoin people to drop whatever they're doing (including their existing church commitments) and spend time and money heading on down to their venue and attending their meetings and the inevitable lengthy after-meetings (which as everyone knows is when the anointing really starts flowing).

In Jesus' terms, they claim that much has been given to them, so it follows that much can legitimately be demanded of them.

Their (and others') theology and preaching may well lay more than average emphasis on the moment and on action, which can also mean that dull boring things like proper administration, accounting and checking healing testimonies can be relegated to second place, which further sets them up for trouble.

And if there's a strong focus on individual personalities, to whom extraordinary powers are attributed, there are greater corresponding dangers of infatuation by people "over whom" these individuals are perceived to have "authority", and a temptation to fabrication should the Holy Spirit not show up.

(I remember hearing many years ago (in private) about the exposure of a prophetess who, lacking any genuine prophetic insights before one particular meeting, was found to have made stuff up based on the church notice sheet attached to her hosts' fridge. She was unmasked following the rather dated feel of her "prophecies").

[ 18. August 2014, 17:21: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If anyone is guilty of anything, why should we trust whatever other claims they make?

Sorry, I missed this question.

As I have said ad nauseam, to me plagiarism raises serious concerns about the relationship of the plagiarist to the truth and personal integrity - and if there's one thing that's vital when there are claims of extraordinary miracles abounding, it's a high standard of truth and the reporting thereof.

The whole Cwmbran thing was fuelled by sensational reporting which others took at face value - and, in the case of the blog posts and as reported on the first thread, by other pastors as a yardstick for seeing whether Richard Taylor was kosher.

I rub shoulders with convicted criminals all the time. I extend a measure of trust to almost all of them in some way (eg that they are not going to assault me, pick my pocket, poison me or take me hostage) and would have no hesitation about trusting many of them in a variety of ways.

However, there are some areas in which, given various individuals' history, I would not trust them at all.

And as it happens, I don't trust serial plagiarists with reliably reporting revivals.

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Gamaliel
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I agree with everything Eutychus has said here.

I don't think that special pleading and casuistry is confined to charismatic fellowships - these things happen right across the board.

No, it's simply that the particular characteristics of revivalist and charismatic style spirituality makes them particularly prone to maintaining the semblance of having something special happening when in fact it isn't.

The reason charismatic fellowships so often come in for censure on these boards is partly because they make such a big song and dance about things that they attract attention in ways which other traditions don't necessarily ...

And also because a good number of us have been involved with this sort of thing in the past.

If this was a case of a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary in an Irish village, I'd be taking a similar line to the one I'm taking here.

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Steve Langton
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One of the problems here is that we're discussing two different things "Revival" and "Revivalism". The former is God genuinely bringing new life into his people, which then 'spills over' in powerful evangelism. The latter is more a case of desiring and seeking to have a 'Revival' and doing things to make the superficial appearance of a revival happen.

Now on the one hand, the genuine revival will not be perfect throughout, there will almost certainly be some excesses and sloppiness; on the other hand, revivalism may well contain enough basic gospel to bring about quite a few genuine long-term conversions among the more shallow and worldly effects.

"Revivalism" tends to be associated with 'Arminian' theology which over-stresses the human decision side of faith and does not adequately challenge people with the concept that "You need mercy and mercy is not something you can deserve or force from God". Seeking revival can then end up uncomfortably like brainwashing; in particular it often almost attacks people in their emotions, by-passing the mind.

Revival is generally lower-key in that respect; it starts with the revival of individuals and/or congregations - Christians who seek first to be more Christlike themselves, to seek truth and real holiness, and then to share it with others. It can be associated with a dealing with a particular problem, as when the Reformers challenged the faults of the medieval RCC. It can come about when there is a widespread failing of churches with too many 'third-generation' (usually) nominal believers who much need their own faith starting off, let alone reviving. Seeking revival as an end in itself tends to result in revivalism rather than revival.

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Eutychus
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This is all very interesting, but it is entirely tangential to the issues here, which are relatively straightforward issues of ethics.

In my view, introducing theological differences into this particular debate is potentially an unhelpful distraction. Christians can happily discuss Finney, Moody, Whitefield, True Revival™ and Revivalism™ while blatant misconduct, about which it should be relatively easy to agree and straightforward to act on, goes on under our noses.

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Garasu
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
"Revivalism" tends to be associated with 'Arminian' theology which over-stresses the human decision side of faith and does not adequately challenge people with the concept that "You need mercy and mercy is not something you can deserve or force from God". Seeking revival can then end up uncomfortably like brainwashing; in particular it often almost attacks people in their emotions, by-passing the mind.

I'm not entirely sure that's true... Do you have anything to back that up?

It seems to me that "You need mercy and mercy is not something you can deserve or force from God" has been used as blatant emotional manipulation quite a bit...

(Leaving aside the question of how fair to Arminius you're being!)

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
This is all very interesting, but it is entirely tangential to the issues here, which are relatively straightforward issues of ethics.

In my view, introducing theological differences into this particular debate is potentially an unhelpful distraction. Christians can happily discuss Finney, Moody, Whitefield, True Revival™ and Revivalism™ while blatant misconduct, about which it should be relatively easy to agree and straightforward to act on, goes on under our noses.

First three are dead, next two are abstract. It's easy to discuss matters when there is no risk of being confronted face-to-face.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Wesley also never experienced the things his followers claimed to experience in terms of 'sinless perfection' and so on.

That might be because you have introduced a howling straw man by using the term, sinless perfection. He never ever used the word 'sinless' in relation to perfection. Don't forget, Wesley was using the KJV of the Bible which constantly and consistently uses the word 'perfect' in relation to our required state of holiness.

He used 'perfection' as a description of the holiness experience simply because it was the Biblical word.
I would find it very strange that he would teach the availability of such a blessing, and that his brother would write hymns about it, if neither of them had experienced something of it.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:


"Revivalism" tends to be associated with 'Arminian' theology which over-stresses the human decision side of faith and does not adequately challenge people with the concept that "You need mercy and mercy is not something you can deserve or force from God". Seeking revival can then end up uncomfortably like brainwashing; in particular it often almost attacks people in their emotions, by-passing the mind.

I think that, while I see where you're coming from, I have to disagree with you from an historical and a theological point of view.

Historically, a lot of Calvinistic churches were part of the great revival movements - and people like Edwards, Whitefield, etc...

Theologically, even Arminians and Wesleyans, would tell you that revival is a work of sovereign grace that cannot be engineered and/or planned for. Yes, non-Calvinists would point to personal decisions to follow Christ but even these are in response to the grace of God given freely and unbidden.

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Steve Langton
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by Mudfrog;
quote:
Historically, a lot of Calvinistic churches were part of the great revival movements - and people like Edwards, Whitefield, etc...
Whence my distinction between 'Revival' and 'Revivalism'. (I tend to go with Jim Packer's view that Wesley was a Calvinist in practice; but had been put off by 'hyper-Calvinist' types who overdid predestination rather than stressing the grace aspect of it).

My point, however, is less about the Arminian/Calvinist divide, more about different ways of looking at revival. Seek faith and understanding and God himself, true revival may follow; seek revival and all the hype and excitement, and you may get hype and excitement but not true revival. Cwmbran and the Toronto Blessing seem to me to be the latter type of event.

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Below the Lansker
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quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:


Historically, a lot of Calvinistic churches were part of the great revival movements - and people like Edwards, Whitefield, etc...

Theologically, even Arminians and Wesleyans, would tell you that revival is a work of sovereign grace that cannot be engineered and/or planned for. Yes, non-Calvinists would point to personal decisions to follow Christ but even these are in response to the grace of God given freely and unbidden.

The Welsh denominations most affected by 1904 and the less sensational (but perhaps more solid) expansion of Christian witness throughout the 18th and 19th centuries were for the most part Calvinistic in theology.
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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Seek faith and understanding and God himself, true revival may follow; seek revival and all the hype and excitement, and you may get hype and excitement but not true revival. Cwmbran and the Toronto Blessing seem to me to be the latter type of event.

And there you have it. Discussion of breaches of ethics which are, if proven, pretty straightforward to assess, and which most people could manage to agree on in any office environment, is replaced by a pseudospiritualised argument that can continue until the eschaton - and avoid the actual day-to-day in-yer-face incarnational issues.

Line up the Righteous™ on the one hand "seeking God himself" (and probably thus exempt from sinful temptations) and the Fleshly™ "seeking hype and excitement" (clearly ripe for succumbing to them) on the other.

Fallen into sin? It's obviously your lack of soundness that's responsible. Brush up on your mint, dill and cummin tithing, check your theological correctness and your revival pedigree, and don't mind that trio of elephants Justice, Mercy and Faithfulness that have just left by the back door.

Now we can all argue and introspect about which side we and our favourite christian stalwarts are on, and doubtless consign the ones we don't like to the "worldly" side, and debate whether Revival™ is a thing, and if it is whether it's a Work of God™ and whether tongues or falling over help one be godly or not, instead of looking at the straightforward issues of ethics.

[brick wall]

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus
Christians can happily discuss Finney, Moody, Whitefield, True Revival™ and Revivalism™ while blatant misconduct, about which it should be relatively easy to agree and straightforward to act on, goes on under our noses.

It is abundantly clear - even from the discussions on this site - that moral issues are not always clear cut and about which we can easily agree.

And if we are going to be selective about which misdemeanours to focus on, and which to ignore, then we will inevitably be biased in our appraisal of the moral condition of different churches and denominations.

In the past I have expressed my view about the use of personality tests in church life to organise the life and ministry of the church (especially those tests based on the philosophy of Carl Jung). Certain others thought I was making a fuss about nothing, whereas I regard this as an evil within the church, as I have seen the deleterious effect of it. So here is an example of how Christians disagree on what constitutes "misconduct". How therefore can anyone say that it is easy to agree on such matters?

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Martin60
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The very making of claims is bogus.

It's like denunciation in Stalinist Russia, innuendo in the gutter press, office gossip, spin on facts, interpretation of texts, management 'perception': as soon as it is said, it is true, no matter how untrue.

Any denomination that makes claims is deceived to the degree that it does, the more it does the bigger the target.

Treason must not prosper. So call it.

And yes, God, Grace, Love perseveres even in this morass.

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Love wins

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Eutychus
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EE: Okay, perhaps I should have said "easy to circumscribe" rather than "easy to agree on".

I persist in thinking that the alleged misconduct the OP reports, and the previous misconduct that has been discussed regarding Cwmbran, fall into a category that transcends theological differences about revival - one of basic ethics.

In much the same way that the use or otherwise of personality tests might fall into another distinct category.

I don't know about personality tests, but I'm convinced that it doesn't require detailed theological agreement or debate to make progress on how churches and christians can or should deal with "basic ethics" misconduct such as plagiarism, adultery, and financial fraud for instance.

And it seems to me that diverting the conversation into another category, whether intentionally or otherwise, is a good way of failing to make progress on the central issues at hand in this precise instance.

I think the blog in the OP attempts to conflate the author's own theological standpoint with the moral high ground, and that's just one of its shortcomings.

[ 18. August 2014, 21:08: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Gamaliel
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No Mudfrog, whilst my terminology was sloppy, I'm not introducing a strawman. Wesley himself fully acknowledged that he hadn't entered into the fullness of the experience that he believed some of the converts had.

That doesn't imply that there was anything defective, necessarily, in Wesley's own experience ... simply that he was using some fairly quirky measures to assess it.

[Biased]

The most balanced treatment of the whole thing, to my mind, comes in 'Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism' by Henry D Rack.

Rack makes a very convincing stab at rescuing Wesley's spiritual experience from reductionism on both sides ... those who'd seek to underplay the evangelical aspects and overplay the more sacramental aspects and t'other way round.

His is a more rounded Wesley, I think.

But this is a tangent. Eutychus is right ... the Arminian/Calvinist thing and whether one tradition is better than another yadda yadda yadda is something of a side issue here.

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Mudfrog
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mudfrog;
quote:
Historically, a lot of Calvinistic churches were part of the great revival movements - and people like Edwards, Whitefield, etc...
Whence my distinction between 'Revival' and 'Revivalism'. (I tend to go with Jim Packer's view that Wesley was a Calvinist in practice; but had been put off by 'hyper-Calvinist' types who overdid predestination rather than stressing the grace aspect of it).

My point, however, is less about the Arminian/Calvinist divide, more about different ways of looking at revival. Seek faith and understanding and God himself, true revival may follow; seek revival and all the hype and excitement, and you may get hype and excitement but not true revival. Cwmbran and the Toronto Blessing seem to me to be the latter type of event.

Agreed.

Just to clarify, Wesley was not a mere Arminian. He believed in total depravity (the T of TULIP)

[ 18. August 2014, 22:04: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

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Steve Langton
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by Eutychus;
quote:
And there you have it. Discussion of breaches of ethics which are, if proven, pretty straightforward to assess, and which most people could manage to agree on in any office environment, is replaced by a pseudospiritualised argument that can continue until the eschaton - and avoid the actual day-to-day in-yer-face incarnational issues.

I wouldn't wish to avoid the everyday issues; in fact I faced a couple of decidedly dodgy pastors myself in my youth and including dishonesty I can't talk about fully because I don't have sufficient evidence. Nominally one of the pair was Calvinist, the other Arminian; both used questionable versions of expecting people to 'turn the other cheek' and similar. But my outstanding memory of the Arminian guy was when in a private conversation I faced him with the fact that if he told the church a certain version of things he'd be lying, and his response was "Who cares so long as more people come to the church?" A colleague who had got caught up in the pastor's dishonesty once waved round a full church and said "By their fruits shall ye know them...." - apparently the church being full counted more than the deceit. That kind of attitude is 'revivalism' and then some.

That kind of value system is also behind lots of modern 'revivalism' or 'revival-seeking'. 'Results' are so valued that normal rules seem dispensable; and the temptations are considerable.

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With instant communication, what was once a local matter is now presented on the national stage.

I'd argue that means the burden of proof and truth is that much greater since, as always, the tale grows in the telling.

I don't doubt that God works in miraculous ways but I don't believe he wants nor needs us to hype it up. To those who asked for a sign, Jesus remarked that the sign of Jonah (ie pointing to the resurrection) is all that they - and we - need.

Before I moved to this green and pleasant land, a set of events similar to VC was taking place just a few miles away from my home church. The circumstances and conditions were similar - a church with a significant (and effective) ministry to the most needy in our society. A charismatic fellowship with exuberant worship and an expectancy that God would work in sign sand wonders.

Several weeks of meetings to receive the anointing followed with all sorts of claims of conversion, revival and healing. People who I thought I knew - and knew well - believed it was the real deal and urged me to get involved and get involved since they would be aware of my theology towards, understanding of and experience in such matters. I didn't do anything except to reflect where God might be in it. I watched and waited and prayed.

What is the fruit? No discernible change in the lives of the churches around and still a very real need for the (wonderful) social action projects of the host church. In other words, not a lot.

It wasn't the first time that something similar had happened: the church concerned had linked into Todd Bentley, Pensacola, Toronto etc. What happened 4 years ago and what happened at VC recently was, I suspect, something that they "did."

All that and VC seems to promote is some kind of superficial end times frenzy which masks the reality of the church's mission. In many places it's struggling owing to falling numbers, a disconnection from everyday life, unwieldy and confusing hierarchies, allied to an unwillingness to change. This latter is more like the NT teaching on the end times where a falling away not a coming together seems to be spoken of: it's rather like 2 Timothy 3: 1 - 9 "... their folly will be clear ....."

I read all of this with a heavy heart because you see, it's quite personal to me even though I'm many miles away from VC. I know someone who has been involved and it's not now very pretty. Suffice it to say that all the good work done in the rehab centre is now unwinding big time.

The temptation to gild the lily appears to be too great and the leadership at VC seemed to have succumbed. I agree with Eutychus that plagiarism is serious. It's even more serious on the scale that Euty picked up - after all we all probably repeat some stuff we consciously or otherwise take on board but most of us would hold up our hands and admit it once we knew or were aware of it. VC seems to have gone to great lengths to hide it or at least not admit it and to ramp up the spiritual temperature on the basis of one claim of healing.

It does the cause of the gospel and the reputation of the (wider) church no good at all.

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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel
The Wesley thing is a bit different too insofar as his plagiarism occurred in the context of a political debate and not an apparent attempt to claim particular spiritual experiences or elements of other people's testimonies ... which is what seemed to be happening on the Victory Church website.

I'm not separating out the sacred from the profane, but it begs a few questions when people apparently start trying to pass other people's experiences off as their own.

So the seriousness of plagiarism is dependent on the subject matter, yes?

I wonder if Eutychus agrees with that position.

I would have thought that plagiarism is simply plagiarism - i.e. a violation of someone else's intellectual rights, quite irrespective of the subject matter. To start making a distinction between different types of plagiarism based on subject matter seems to me to be quite unethical (and it only confirms my suspicion that this is all a campaign against a particular type of churchmanship, rather than a genuine concern for intellectual property rights).

[ 19. August 2014, 05:32: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]

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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis

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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I would have thought that plagiarism is simply plagiarism - i.e. a violation of someone else's intellectual rights, quite irrespective of the subject matter.

It's also "simply" lying, fraudulent and misleading - if the assertion remains that it is your own work. Who wants to trust anyone who does that?

You wouldn't trust anyone in the wider world if they did that, so why the church? (Ok Governments and their agencies excepted for the sake of this argument ....)

[ 19. August 2014, 06:35: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
....and it only confirms my suspicion that this is all a campaign against a particular type of churchmanship, rather than a genuine concern for intellectual property rights.

No it's not EE. If you'd ask I will tell you my motives for questioning VC: please don't presume or suggest you know.

Eutychus is pretty clear where he stands as is Gamaliel. FWIW my own position is one of believing that God can and does work in ways that we don't or can't understand - I've been part of (and led) 3 churches now moving into renewal. I would be seen as Charismatic and Evangelical by those who know me. I don't reject Pentecostalism but I don't embrace it personally more for stylistic than theological reasons (apart from ideas of 2nd blessings).

What I don't care for - because it harms the gospel witness - is hype and mistruths. The end does not justify the means; the church is to be above the manipulation and spin that is characteristic of wider culture. If it's the truth it'll stack up, if something is wrong (and we all get it wrong from time to time), then this should be admitted and dealt with not hidden.

If we embrace spin to bolster our position, then we are now in the world's mould and will never be the transformational movement God desires (see Romans 12: 1, 2). Truth and being truthful lies at the heart of what go wants us to be like.

[ 19. August 2014, 06:35: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Martin60
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Yours is the straw man EE.

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