TSTT A Response to Plagiarism Charges from Joel McDurmon

Welcome to The Sword in the Trial, a podcast the Founders Ministries. Founder's Ministries exist for the recovery of the Gospel and the reformation of churches. Andre Longshore and I'm Tom Askell, and this is a special edition of the sort. Edition of The Sword in the Trial. We're glad to have you with us, and we're delighted to have our dear brother voting. Back them with us. Author of fault Lines, the Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's looming catastrophe. Before we get into our discussion today, you should know that we're having a conference down here January in Southwest Florida called Militant and Triumphant Vote. You're going to be with us. You'll be preaching, I'll be preaching, James Coast, We'll be preaching. Conrad and Bayway will be preaching, and our Travis, Travis Allen will be preaching. You can register at Founders dot org. Yeah, let me also say this has not been announced until this very moment, that the Vote's going to be with us September the twelfth and thirteenth as well, which is just right around the corner. So here in Cape Cora be preaching our church on the twelfth, and we'll be having an evening with him on the thirteenth, doing something for pastors noon on that day, so you want to check your calendar. Get here, So Vodie brother, it's good to see you all the way from Usaka. Tell us first of all, how's your health. Matt health is great. I'm doing fine, just getting stronger, you know, training like a mad man, just trying to stay healthy, trying to take care of all of this work that they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You had a long time away, so I'm sure you're playing catch up still at African Christian University. And I know y'all been with COVID again and so you've had to scale back some things. And we're grateful that you're there, grateful that you are here with us at Founders too, part of IOPT, one of the founding faculty members. We opened our classes up in just a few weeks here, so if you want more information on that, you go on Institute of Public Theology dot org and get information there. Well, but we know what we need to talk about. We're talking to today because we heard a rumor that somebody's upset with something you wrote and said and I'm not sure, but it seems like somebody said something somewhere. Yes, Joel mcdermay said something. He said something. And look, we take plagiarism very seriously. We've got the ad litting thing going on. We've hit that. We don't take nitpicking as seriously, we don't take dishonesty as seriously. But Vodi, here's such a kind, faithful brother. You want to be willing to come on here and let's talk about what Joel has said. McDermott wrote this piece and he's charged you with plagiarism and some other kind of things that are going on. So we thought, why don't we just get down into the nitty gritty and talk about these things. So let me tee it up for us. Yeah, he began by pointing to a block quote in your book. At least it's indented off, And so you've got this indentation, and then in there you begin to list off some items about racism being normal and other tenets of critical race theory. And he is claiming that some of the things you say in there are not words from Richard del Gatto. So what do you say to that first charge about, Hey, here's this place where you're saying things about CRT kind of in the wake of signaling Richard del Gatto. But these aren't really Richard del Gatto's words. What would you say to that vote? Yeah, well, first of all, I'd say, you really hit the nail on the head when you said, you know, block quote, but actually these things are indented off. The format is an ide there, and it's not a block quote. It's not a direct quote. Even from the first words, you know, I'm giving an outline. I'm using de Gato's outline as an outline that I'm giving to the reader. And the first thing is that's part of the front matter of the book. The idea was, hey, you know, when people get into the book, we immediately start off with some assumption, some assumption. So the editor said, what if we put something you know, before that, or what if we extended the introduction, And I had the bright idea of doing this this thought line, you know, getting fancy with spices, and so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to give people a view from thirty five thousand feet, a view of what I'm going to be talking about, a view of the arguments that I'm going to be making and a view of the ideologies that I'm going to be dealing with that section of it. It is indented, it is blocked off, but it's not a block quote. That's obvious from the first words that it's not a block quote, because I'm giving a headache. That's not deug Gatto's headache. I'm using Delgado's order an organization and structure, but I'm not directly quoting Dougado. Another thing that sort of indicates that it's not a block quote is that you know, in the middle of I think that that second paragraph, uh, there's a footnote in the middle of the second paragraph, which is something that you wouldn't do right in a block quote, right, So you know, on the one hand, there's some structural and formatty issues there that that are unfortunate and and and that are unclear. You know one thing too, Brodie. I I it's been a long time since I've gone back and read Arabian, but I had to live in it for a long time as well. But I don't even think this is conformable too to Arabian style for block quotes, because you you have indentations at certain points for your headings, which I don't think Trabian does, and block quotes. I think every paragraph starts uh, non indented. But again, if we want to play nitpick, I'm nitpicked, you know. But that's not even the point. Yeah, yeah, but it was not It was not me, and I think you're just making the point that I'm making. It was not meant to be presented that way, to be understood that way, or to be read that way. Exactly. I wish that we that I had made up the choices. Again, I don't want to throw my editor as or everybody else under the bus. This is me. I did that. I presented it that way. I was, you know, trying to trying to really give a big picture and separate those ideas off. But it was not intended to be understood as a direct quote. You know. I didn't use quotation marks. I have block quotes in the body of the book. And again, this is front matter. This is not my argument. This is you know, I want to introduce some ideas, I want to make some connections for you. I want to explain some things to you, you know, before we you know, sort of get into this. So that was the that was the first issue there. What's interesting though, is, you know, just like you said, Tom, if you read this, it's pretty obvious that this is not direct quotation exactly, you know, I mean, it's just it's pretty obviousite that this is not direct quotation, right, yeah, you know, especially with there being footnotes in the middle of what's blocked off. It's a very poor block quote. Well. Yeah. Also, you also have this problem of McDermott when he's he's quoted you here, he's kind of past a part of your book and he's highlighted certain sections and he's saying that, well, you're misrepresenting him here. I mean, that's the general nature of what he's trying to say. Hexley has a section where he says, to be redundantly clear, these red sections are not in Richard Delgado's words nowhere in the book. Vote he sides do these words peer Now? One of the red sections that McDermott has highlighted of your words is where you say racism is normal. And you're saying racism is normal, you go on to say the usual what a society does business, the common everyday experience most people of color in this country. Well, I've read del Gatto, And when I heard that, I said, you know, this actually is sounding a lot like del Gotto. I don't think the vote is misrepresenting what del Gatto was, how he was using it as a framework. And so I went back to look at del Gotto. You actually footnote the end of the sentence I just read. You footnote this very page in del Gatto and Delgatto is explaining the tenets of critical race theory, and he says first that racism is ordinary. Okay, so in yours you say racism is normal. He says racism is ordinary, and you have mcderman trying to hold that up, highlighting your word normal and read and saying, well, so Gotto has never said that, Okay, Well no, he said racism misordinary. And then he goes on del Gatto to say the usual way society does business to common every day experience in most people of color in this country. I'm saying vote is not misrepresenting what he is the word. Normal elsewhere when he's talking about this same point as well. But again the idea here is that I'm not quoting del Gato directly, I'm using del Gado's framework. There are a number of people who give you know, various versions of this, you know, same framework, and whether you're talking about ordinary or normal, you know, you'll see that in various frameworks. But you know, I mean it's it's not it's not a direct quote of del Gato, that's true. Let's talk a little bit about another charge of McDermot. So McDermott has a section in his piece where he's claiming that you copied from James Lindsey, and so in that section we talk about storytelling. And as I went back and looked at Delgatto, there's massive portions of the topic of storytelling. So it didn't strike me as you taking what lindsay said, somebody have to read mcdermot's piece to look at that. But what do you have to say about that particular charge everybody? Yeah. I also in the next section I quote Terry Asso from another very popular piece on this, and again this was not a direct quote of del Gato. This was giving people a picture of the basic tenets of Greek race theory, a view from thirty five thousand feet. Del Gatto is being used there, really, I mean, it's his his structure that he gives to this, and you know, much of the essence of what he says about this structure that he gives to this. But my goal here was not to give direct quotes to del Gato or to even argue that del Gatto is, you know, the definitive person on critical race theory. I mean, his book is similar, right, and so I did. You don't want to acknowledge that. But just like I said before, this is not a direct quote of del Gatto. But here's what's also interesting about that. I quote Lindsey several times, not only in the book but also in this you know sort of thought line. Why is it that, I mean, why am I going to cite Lindsey and then not cite Lindsay in other places? I have no qualms about the fact that I worked with Lindsey. I have no mooms about the fact that, you know, James and I became friends. James and I have had many discussions about these issues. What am I hiding from? I'm I mean, why am I hiding? That's number one. The other issue is that if you read the literature, I mean, these things are ubiquitous in the literature, and my goal was to communicate these main tenants, to get people to understand these four main tenants. So you know, I, you know, I agree with Lindsay. I don't see it. Yeah, James Lindsay said this Vodie allegedly plagiarized me, and I'm not saying it. They're just trying to discredit people who are upsetting their racket. It looks desperate, and I think that's a very good analysis of this. I mean what you said, and when they try to put your words next to Lindsay's, it's not word for word. Are you saying the same thing absolutely when you're reading the same literature. Yea, And it is everywhere in the lature yep. So people have to go and you can go read mcdermant's piece if you want to see the exact words. I'm not even gonna take time to read it because I agree with what both of you men have said about it. The other irony there, of course, is that on the one hand, I'm guilty of not quoting directly in a box or a block quote, right, and a block quote says these are not my words. But then on the other hand, I'm go to your plagiarism, which means that you're saying these are my words, right. So I don't know what to do with that. I mean, I acknowledge the fact that structurally, from a format perspective, you know, this was a this was a bad choice. This wasn't as clear as it could have or should have been. And I own that. That's that's that's miles away from plagiarism. So that's trying to charge you with plagiarism on that slim evidence is skating on very thin ice, on. A phrase, on a on a yeah, that's yeah. And that's let me just say this too. I haven't I haven't been addressing you know, criticisms, arguments, you know, all this kind of stuff. I haven't been doing that. One of the reasons that I wanted to agree to talk about this now is because people are trying to use this as a wedge and sort of leverage it, specifically with the stuff that's going on in this other matters you mentioned, right, Latiarism is a big deal right now, and so you know there's this kind of well, hey, vote he's guilty of it. And you know, a mutual friend of ours, yeah, I talked to you yesterday. He was getting ready to get on the phone with somebody who was pressuring him to call for my resignation because he had been calling for Ed Linton's resignation. Yeah, yeah, over a phrase that's similar. Yeah, there's a difference between reading another person's sermon at script, telling his illustrations that happened in his boyhood as if it happened in your boyhood, and indenting words that shouldn't have been indented. And let's get down to the nitty gritty. Well, what McDermott is charging you with is misrepresenting Delgatto. That's really what it's about. That's what he's trying to claim. And I've already read a portion to show in the first tenet of critical race theory that you identify, you call it I believe normal, and Dogatto calls it ordinary, and then you both use very similar terminology to describe what that ordinary or normal tenant is. So there is no misrepresentation. And probably the most important, as I see it, the most significant thing to address is mcderman claims that you're basically making a false implication of interest convergence, and that is that white people are therefore incapable of righteous action. He talks a little bit about you word you using the word righteous and attributing it to Dogado. You can address that if you'd like to. But the more important thing in my mind is is it true that interest convergence the way that Delgatto and other critical theories in general define it, does it then result in white people being incapable of righteous actions? Sounds like McDermott says, no, you're wrong about this. I don't think you're wrong about this and would love for you to speak to it. Yeah, there's two issues here. One issue is the substance and whether or not it's right to make that statement about the substance, about what interest convergence means, what interest convergence implies. There's a second issue, and the second issue is, you know, the attribution of that statement to del Gatto, and you know, let me just say that that is not del Gatto's statement. And what's interesting about that is, you know, you know, I've been talking about this a ton, right, I've been talking about this all over the place, and unfortunately, what I have done is I have read that statement the way it is in the book without making a clear distinction between where that footnote is and where I'm making a clarification. And I've done that. I don't know how many times I've done that, but I've done that, and man, I regret doing that because number one, as you see in the book, I put the footnote there and then I give an explanation, right, and I mean, it's clear that that's what I'm doing. Let's, you know, set aside the fact that it's in the block. We've already dealt with that. It would have been much clearer if it wasn't in the block. And not only does that lack of clarity, you know, show up in terms of you know, what people are reading, but it's also showed up in terms of me reading that same thing. I've read that. I've read that as though that was about It wasn't. That's my comment on interest convergence. And so that's just that's a mistake. And when you read it as if that was that's just a mistake. Yes, okay, let me let me just apologize. I want you to finish your thought. But we got a teaching moment here. Okay, there's a difference between what we just heard from you saying this was wrong. It was a mistake. I misread this as my words, as got those words, they were my words. There's a difference between that owning it and saying, well, you know, if anybody was offended by what I did, I'm sorry. I just want to apologize to anybody that might have been offended by what I did. All right, Well, we just. I do. Yeah, And he's been gracious in his response to this, and I really appreciate that. I don't I don't know him, but I really appreciate how gracious he's been in this. And I believe even saying that, you know, I must have been mistaken or I must have not you know whatever, and I was, And ironically it goes back to the same thing. So here it is, I'm like, you know, I want to give people, and I think it's helpful when you give people this view from thirty five thousand feet. You know, when you talk about these ideas and you know, express these ideas. You know. One of the things that we've talked about this before. One of the things that I do often when I speak about it is I'll take that first point and I'll say, because again, this is going to go to what we're talking about with using the word righteous, because I stand by that. I stand by my assessment of the fact that interest convergence theory implies that that white people are incapable of righteous action when it comes to issues of race and racism. I'm going to come back to this, but what I've often done is I'll get that first point, and that first point is you know that racism is normal, you know, so on and so forth, and I'll say this, this is akin to original sin. And again I'm talking about the way that it's used. I'm not saying that Delgado says that this is original sin, right, I'm saying that this first tenant as it's deployed in practice, because there's theory and then there's practice. With critical race theory, as it's deployed in practice, you get this idea of original sin. For example, Jim Wallace in his book America's Original Sin ABRAMX Kindy and his proposed amendment to the US Constitution, the Anti Racist Amment to the US Constitution, he talks about because the original sin of racism. Right now, these guys are doing critical race theory. And I know there are a lot of people who don't like it when I say that, because what people want to do is they want to say no, no, critical race theory only exists within law schools, within particular frame. It's never gotten outside right, and nobody else is doing critical race theory except for you know, you know, Delgado and Crenshaw and you know a few other people as the only people who are doing critical race theory. So when I talk about the fact that D'Angelo and Kindi are you know, the two principal exponents of critical race theory today, what I'm arguing is that based on these principles, and the first one, you know, that idea that racism is normal, and I argue that that's akin to the idea of original sin, and they use that. And then the second one, the idea of interest convergence that white people, that white people only undo racism when it benefits them. That is what I mean when I say the implication is that white people are incapable of righteous actions in the area of race and racism. And I still argue that that is consistent with the tenets of critical race theory, and it is consistent with the practice, with the way that people are working out critical race theory. And so again that's the second issue. Then the first issue, again, no, those are not Dogto's words, and I make that clearer unfortunately in the book than I have in using my notes from that. But at the same time, I am arguing, and I mean to argue, that the second premise of critical race theory implies that white people are incapable of righteous actions in the area of race and racism. One point that needs to be highlighted here as we go on is it this is just the warp and woof of theological argumentation. You look at positions, you critique those positions, you try to make your case. And so the fact that Delgado never says white people are incapable of any righteousness or do anything right doesn't mean that there are no implications to the position he has outlined. And it's a it's a really useful, necessary way of argument arguing. This is showing this is what you believe. Therefore this is the implication. What do you do with the implication? And that's how the argument is further down the road. Yeah, and there's also this is a there's a fine point. But there are theological discussions where you have where we could say, if you hold A, then it seems you're going to have to hold B. But another person might have a caveat that would stop them from holding that particular implication. But I don't think that's exactly what's going on here. Honestly, there's also no you have stated this particular statement, right, interest convergence. This is what you call interest convergence, and that very definition of the thing you say, this is an implication that's undeniable. It's not. I don't see a caveat, and maybe somebody could show me one, and I'll say this and then voting. Maybe you could speak to this. This is why it seems perfectly accurate to me for you to say that interest convergence implies that it's that white people are incapable of righteous action. Because Delgado himself, in the glossary of his book Introduction to Critical Race Theory, I believe is what it's called the online PDF verse in page one forty nine, he has interest convergence glossary term. Then, this is a quote thesis pioneered by Derek Bell that the majority group tolerates advances for racial justice only when it suits its interest to do so. Now, if white people are the majority group, and they are, and they will only tolerate advances of racial justice, White people only tolerate advances of raisal justice when it suits them that is unrighteous, that that means they're in cable rights. His action connect the dots for us. Rodi Yeah, and again, Jared, you and I have talked about this, and when you're dealing with critical is theory, when you're dealing with the literature. And when I say the literature, what I mean is the academic literature, right, this this sort of history of how it's come to be, and also the contemporary literature. You see this playing out. You know, for example, I've argued that DiAngelo is dealing with this in white fragility. You know, what she's talking about in white fragility is this idea of interest convergence when she talks about, for example, white complicity and white equilibrium, and then the idea of white fragility, the idea that that white people dismantle whiteness and that they'll fight to hold on to white privilege in white supremacy and so on and so forth. You know, when this really struck me, there are a number of things that struck me about the religious nature of this ideology, especially the way that it's being used today. But DiAngelo uses the word righteous more than half a dozen times in White Fragility. Is it's clear that we're talking about this in religious terms, that we're taking these principles, we're taking these major tenets of critical race theory, and then we're applying those tents in terms of its practice. And again that's just one example of many of the way that this is used. And people want to critique you on this, they can go to chapter four and engage you there, where you deal with this at. Length, right, whole chapter on the religious nature of really I'm talking about critical social justice more broadly, but I write a whole chapter on the religious nature really anti racism and these things which are advancing the core tenants and principles of critical race theory that I mean, there is no doubt and so yeah, that that's that's why I make that statement. That's what that's why I make that clarifying statement. I'm signaling to the reader that this is why this tenant is important. I think that's such an important point that we need to put this book on discount. Let's do it. Discount many copies, however many you want to order, fifty percent discount between now and a week from now. So a week from today when this, whenever you hear this, fifty percent discount. But we're going to need a special code, special code that you're going to have to enter whenever you order this book. So h McDermott McDermott mcdermoty in the special code fifty percent off. So what he has attempted to discount and could not do, we're going to discount for you so you can have the real deal. You can actually have the book. But more than that, let's give away some copies. Okay, all right, I want to give away ten copies of this book. Because these accusations that are so flimsy and some of them godless, have been made against our brother. We want to spread his words as far as we can. So if you'll share this episode of the sort of the trial and get people to watch this, listen to this and then tag Founders in it. So when you share it on social media, tag Founders in it, we're going to have a drawing. We'll give away ten of these books. It won't cost you anything. We'll sorb all the costs in shipping and get them to you. So we want people to read this book. We want people to hear vote and before we go again. It's a teachable moment. Why have so many people jumped on this and this and said, oh look, it's a morally equivalent situation to what Ed Linton did when he was reading off of scripts for sermons that he claimed to be his own that were not his own. This is a morally equivalent thing. Why have people done that? We need to ask the question what's motivating people to do this? And I want to add man Vodie, I praise God for you, Thank you brother for being an example to many. When you do good work, they're going to be They're going to be mistakes, they are going to be people that slander. There's going to be a mixed bag sometimes. So praise the Lord for coming on here and say, look, all right, the little the indent you know, hey could have edited, could have type set that better. And hey, no, straight up, I didn't lift from Lindsay just faulse, I'm not gonna sit there and do that righteous. Sorry I attributed that word to Delgado, but hey, by implication, I mean what I said I do that is a wonderful example to so many people. And you guys, you got to learn to do the work that down own rightly own what you can just how vote is demonstrated for us, and don't own things that are not legitimate. You've really demonstrated that well. But absolutely it's it's underscored the grace of God and the Gospel in your life. And let me just say though that you know, the reason that this is important to me is because I do believe that this is a sinister ideology that is confronting the bride of Christ. And you know, that's more important to me than you know, saving faith, that's more. I mean, I'm grateful that that this was brought to my attention. I didn't I didn't even realize that I had, you know, basically when I when I put it in my notes and you know, began to speak about it, that I didn't realize that I had done that, that I had taken this formatting issue, you know, and and uh and and taken that that statement that I absolutely mean and that it's absolutely meant to clarify, but just sort of read it together and in a way that you know, sort of attributed it, you know, in a way that it shouldn't have been attributed. So listen, my my goal is truth, you know, my my goal is the Gospel. I hope I never think so much of myself that I can't acknowledge if I make a mistake, you know. But at the same time, to turn this into what it's been turned into is incredibly unfortunate and disheartening. And you know, I just hope that as this goes forward, that that the Lord is his truth is vindicated, that I don't serve as a stumbling block, and that people will recognize what's happened here, and that it doesn't principally change amen argument, doesn't principally change what I'm doing, doesn't principally change what I'm teaching. It doesn't principally change what I'm trying to achieve. Yeah, body, that's well said, and it is unfortunate, and that's true. I think for most people. For some other people, it's wicked. They are wickedly operating outside the boundaries of scriptures, and those who are Christians, especially those who are Christian leaders, ought to be ashamed of themselves for doing so. Proverbs eighteen seventeen says the one who stays this case first seems right till another comes forward and questions him, And anybody who decides the matter before he hears it is a fool. And may God help us all to learn lessons from this and to humbly submit ourselves to his word and do the best we can. When we make mistakes, own them. Where we send, where you pent, we get up, we start over. But we are operating as truth brokers. We're not operating as platform builders or those who are trying to say. Face Amen, brother vote. Thanks so much for being with us today. It's been wonderful, and thank you all for listening. Love you the sword in the trial today. Thank you, Hey, I appreciate you guys. Man see that