Category: Warren Throckmorton

A casualty of this election season is Eric Metaxas’ reputation as a scholar. He acknowledges this in an interview published yesterday on NPR. In addition to his political statements, Metaxas again hurt himself by continuing to misattribute a quote to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the service of support for Donald Trump.

Metaxas said he has been misunderstood and that he was only quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As we now know, Metaxas wasn’t quoting Bonhoeffer but using a quote he has misattributed to Bonhoeffer.

To his dismay, Metaxas’ suggestion that Christians who do not support Trump will have to answer to God for their vote quickly got him in trouble with other Christian leaders.
“I have been horribly misunderstood, and it’s really damaged my reputation,” Metaxas told NPR. “When I put that out there, I didn’t realize most people aren’t going to get the joke, so to speak.”
Metaxas explained that when he said “God will not hold us guiltless,” he was simply quoting the German theologian and anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the subject of one of Metaxas’ numerous books. Bonhoeffer famously said God would not hold Germans guiltless for appeasing Hitler, because “silence in the face of evil is itself evil.”
“The point of the quote,” Metaxas said, “Is that you can’t say, ‘Oh, I’m not going to vote.’ You have to make a sober, difficult choice, because people are depending on you.”

I don’t understand what keeps Metaxas and his publisher Thomas Nelson from issuing a correction. His continued misuse of quote now seems to be willful and fraudulent. Ethical scholars make mistakes but they don’t keep on making them when evidence is presented. I have reached out to him and his publisher. I know he has received messages from mutual friends and his twitter followers. He has offered no source for the quote nor an explanation for why he keeps using it. Even a cursory review of academic ethics demonstrates that he should correct and is damaging his reputation by not doing so. For instance, read what Des Moines University says about proper citation:

Locating scholarly resources and then citing these references accurately should be the foundation of your own academic and professional writing.
Why is this an ethical issue? Correct documentation

1. Provides attribution or credit to the original author or creator.
2. Allows someone to find the documents you cited on their own.
3. Enables the reader to follow the continuum of research. What important contributions were made before your work and where does your body of research contribute to or add to current knowledge?
4. Enables others to verify the accuracy and completeness your work. A thorough reference list demonstrates that you are knowledgeable about your field of inquiry.
5. Communicates transparency, trust and integrity and helps you to avoid plagiarism.

Incorrect Documentation
Ethical research and writing means giving proper attribution and credit to the work of others. In the academic community the ideas, words, and formal or informal publications of others is considered intellectual property. Failing to provide the correct citation may not always be plagiarism. However, if another scholar cannot easily find the research you claim to have consulted, one may reasonably conclude that you either “raided” the reference list of someone else, or that you made up the reference(s) on your own. In either case, you did not actually do the work of reading and analyzing the source material yourself. Citing sources without reading them is considered fraudulent because you are lying about the work you have done.  Finally, you should not blindly trust the conclusions of others.  Always track down and read the original research yourself to make sure that the data is accurate.
Finally, sometimes the expression of someone’s creative work is copyrighted. You may see official copyright or creative commons licensing information on a website or publication indicating that the work is protected. Regardless of whether or not you see an official notice, you should always consider any written, visual, multimedia, or auditory work as protected under copyright law whether or not you see an official trademark or warning.

I have repeatedly asked Metaxas for a source for the quote. He has not answered. A review of ethics standards for scholars is clear that being able to provide sources for one’s work is foundational.

K.P. Yohannan once rejected materialism and ministry that wasn’t Gospel focused. Now he is “His Eminence The Most Reverend” benefactor of a first rate medical college and hospital partly built with the donations of American donors who thought they were helping poor people in India.
On October 5, Believers’ Church Medical College held a ceremony commemorating the first class to attend the college (“Pioneer Batch”).

H.E. The Most Reverend Dr. is another Christian luminary who uses an honorary doctorate as if it had been earned. Note that the ceremony took place “in the presence of” His Eminence.

You can see more pictures here.  Yohannan is listed as the patron of the project.
For more on GFA, click here.
 

Gospel for Asia’s School of Discipleship has decreased over the past two years of scandal involving GFA’s financial dealings. One alum recently addressed issues involving illegal cash carrying to India at the Donor Be Wise blog. In it, we learn that GFA encouraged students to keep the cash from customs agents and that GFA appears to be under federal investigation.

Q: When you got ready for your trip to India, did you know you were going to be taking cash?
A: Not at all. They didn’t tell us that we would be carrying cash until a day or two before we left. I do remember a student from the class before me mentioning something about cash that I didn’t understand at the time, and it was only after I was asked to carry the cash that I remembered that previous conversation.
Q: At what point during the trip to India did you receive the envelope of cash?
A: We were given our envelopes less than 30 minutes before getting on the bus to the airport.
Q: Were you told how much was in it?
A: We were told that there was $4500 in it.
Q: Who gave you the envelope of cash?
A: Left blank intentionally due to investigation.

This is consistent with information that I am hearing from my sources that GFA is under an investigation by multiple federal agencies.
Go read the entire interview. Initially, GFA claimed the cash carrying to India was legal and then later claimed ignorance of the law, saying their auditors had advised them to get cash to India by sending it in the backpacks of their School of Discipleship students.
Gospel for Asia was removed from membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability in October 2015 due to multiple violations of ECFA’s financial principles.

Charity Christmas catalogs are here and many want you to give an animal for a needy family. World Vision and Gospel for Asia are two catalogs which arrived recently. I wouldn’t give a nickel to GFA but if I gave to national charities, I would consider World Vision (with this caution – almost all of my donating is local). Since the Christmas giving season is underway, I thought a little review from two years ago might be helpful. Here I reprint a post about animal giving to World Vision from 2014.
Reprinted from December 5, 2014:
Pop quiz, gentle readers.
When you donate money to buy a goat from the World Vision catalog, who gets that goat?
Answer in the comments section; base your answer on the screen capture of this online page from the World Vision website.
If you provide any more information about this appeal, please provide your source.

More to come this afternoon…
UPDATE:
I asked World Vision for an answer to this question. Amy Parodi, spokeswoman for the organization, told me:

When people purchase a goat from the World Vision gift catalog, their donation goes into a pool of money designated to purchase livestock and related agricultural projects, including goats.  Those animals are then distributed to families participating in World Vision animal husbandry programs in a variety of countries around the world.
We use the slightly broader categories because it’s nearly impossible to encourage the exact number of donations to match the exact need for specific animals in our programs, but it’s still critical that we honor our donors’ intentions with their gifts.
The “related agricultural projects” I mentioned above are efforts that help families care for the animals they’ve been given.  Providing watering sources, farming assistance, famine relief and other essentials help families truly benefit from their livestock.
If people want to give to a general fund, the World Vision catalog has an item called “Where Most Needed.”  These donations are placed into programs – in any country and within any sector of World Vision’s work – that are partially funded and need more resources to be fully operational.

I appreciate this answer. The one on the website is less clear than this.

We promise to honor your generosity and use your donation in the most effective way possible. The needs shown in this catalog reflect World Vision projects at the time of writing and the suggested donation amounts are based on periodic surveys of the countries we serve. Each item is representative of the gift category in which it appears and donations will be used to provide assistance where it is needed most within that category or to address a similar need.

The multiplying effect from grants and donated goods may change throughout the year on identical or similar offers due to variations in the start and end dates of donor grants and our programs.

Givewell.org calls an approach like this a donor illusion. Although I might not go that far, I can understand how some could be disillusioned when they thought they were buying an animal for a family. Many people I have spoken with believe that is what the promotion promises and that the fine print should be a bigger part of the promotion.
I am not saying the money goes into questionable places. I believe it is necessary to support the efforts with education and training. I do wonder how many animals are requested versus how many are purchased. And I wonder how much the Christmas push to purchase an animal raises as compared to how much is spent to purchase animals.  However, I do know that some people get animals and that much of the money does go into assisting needy people.
So if you thought you were buying an animal for a needy child/family, now you know some of the rest of the story.
Additional information:
You can also give nativity animals according to the print catalog. While I understand the explanation given by Ms. Parodi, I wonder if it is pushing it to ask, “What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than to share those same animals so that families can prosper?”
Also read More Facts about Buying Animals from World Vision

Recently, several big name Christian leaders have made a case that a vote for a third party/independent candidate is a waste of a Christian’s vote and will only serve to elect Hillary Clinton. Dire warnings and shaming accompany these appeals.
Here are several reasons I disagree and believe that voting for an independent or minor party candidate is a good option.*

1. No one owns or is entitled to my vote and support. If the GOP and Democrat parties put up unqualified and unfit candidates, I am not obligated to support one of them. In this instance, for different reasons, I believe Clinton and Trump are equally unacceptable.
2. There is no biblical mandate to support one party or another in a two party system. The two party system is not divinely inspired.
3. Party loyalty was considered a problem by some of our key founding fathers. In his 1796 farewell address, Washington warned about party spirit. He said, “There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”
4. A viable third or even fourth major party would be a benefit to the nation and allow representation for important viewpoints now stifled by the two-party system.
5. At some point, an independent party must gain votes from citizens to gain viability. An independent movement will not grow unless citizens cast a ballot for independent candidates running for office. This election featuring two of the most unpopular candidates in history is a good opportunity for citizens to exercise their right to declare a pox on both houses.
6. From the perspective of someone who doesn’t support either Clinton or Trump, now is the time to declare independence from the two-party stranglehold on what is possible.
7. I don’t believe a sufficient case has been made by evangelical Trump supporters that Clinton will destroy the country. While I think the Republic will survive Trump, I think his weaknesses may actually be more dangerous to our safety than Clinton’s. Having said that, I believe both candidates bring unacceptable qualities to the table.
8. My position has nothing to do with “moral preening” or “fig leaves” or some other self-righteous way to dismiss reasoning which results in support for an independent candidate.

From my point of view, voting third party/independent is the long run option. We must start somewhere and now seems like as good a time as any. In any case, no advocate for holding one’s nose and voting for Trump has been able to provide a biblical basis for staying with the status quo. That is because there isn’t such a basis. The Bible doesn’t address a republic such as ours and only endorses the selection of moral and upright people as rulers. If anything, the Bible promotes the selection of upright people for leadership. Other than independent candidates, there is no real option to exercise that value this year.
Some (e.g., Wayne Grudem, Eric Metaxas) have suggested that pragmatic voting is how we should proceed. They believe God (and in Metaxas’ case Bonhoeffer) would get behind Trump because the consequences will be better in a Trump administration. This position requires an omniscience which no human possesses. No one knows what the consequences of each selection will be and it is presumptuous to assert that one does know. Since these pragmatists don’t have a direct line to God, we cannot accept their warnings and guilt trips as inspired revelation.
If you think Donald Trump has made a good case for himself, vote for him. If you think Hillary Clinton has made a good case for herself, vote for her. However, if you believe neither candidate is acceptable, then find someone you support and vote for that person with thanksgiving that you have the right to do so.
*Full disclosure – I favor independent candidate Evan McMullin.