By Jim on
Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism
Plagiarism
AACC
Tim Clinton
American Association of Christian Counselors

Tim Clinton’s Bad History and Questionable Publishing (UPDATED)

James Dobson and Family Talk: Who Really Wrote These Articles?

Discussion

Sun, 08/12/18

Followed several of the links. Could have a case of “sloppy content manager” here, though that seems not to account for all of it. Could be most of it though… assuming Dr. Clinton doesn’t maintain these websites himself (not at all unlikely).

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Mon, 08/13/18

We should be somewhat careful about applying academic definitions of plagiarism in the church, as historically the attitude of the church has been that the content we develop is shared—even the copyright laws are looser in church contexts. Not that people get off the hook for using materials without attribution, but it probably is unreasonable to hold pastors to the same standards as professors.

That noted, it is reasonable to point out that pastors ought to be men of truth, and Clinton’s nonsense claims about the Declaration of Independence suggest he’s got some boning up to do in that regard. Not that everything in Snopes and the like is 100% true, but a lot of these resources are a wonderful shorthand for “you might do well to make sure you’ve got a good source for that claim.”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.