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TWO American authors of a Christian study book have accused City
Harvest Church founder Kong Hee of plagiarising their work in his
books and website.
Mr Kong, 46, had been updating his website daily with an
inspirational passage which he called the ‘Daily Devotion’, before
being called up by the police last Monday to help with
investigations into alleged misuse of funds within the church.
A Singaporean blogger spotted that some of the passages in the
website were similar to the work of the Americans.
He then sent an e-mail to alert two of the book’s three authors,
Professor Sid Buzzell and Dr Kenneth Boa.
Both men told The Straits Times that Mr Kong had not asked them
for permission to use their materials.
However, they would not be pursuing the matter further, as long
as he stopped copying without crediting, they said.
‘In the spirit of our book’s notes (which talk about being
merciful), we prefer to let the matter go rather than create issues
for Mr Kong,’ said Prof Buzzell, a dean of the school of theology
at Colorado Christian University.
‘If he continues to copy the material, we can take it from
there.’
Should the plagiarism persist, Prof Buzzell would contact him
and ‘threaten him with exposure to his church’, and also ’seek
advice from others who are more legally sophisticated about such
things’.
On Mr Kong’s website, in his last entry in Daily Devotion last
Monday, there was a note which said: ‘We could have been more
careful to credit any source of inspiration used.’
It added: ‘There was never any intention to give readers the
impression that the entire contents were written by me.’
Mr Kong, who was among 17 people called up by police for
investigations, could not be reached for comment. Queries sent to
the church since Thursday also went unanswered.
In 2005, Mr Kong’s daily posts were compiled into two books,
volumes one and two of Renewing Your Spiritual Energy In 90 Days.
The two books also did not credit the use of outside sources or
texts, and claimed copyright belonged solely to him.
The book that Mr Kong lifted materials from, Leadership Bible,
was published 10 years ago and was written by three Americans. It
comprises lessons for 52 weeks, using biblical interpretations to
train and educate future church leaders.
The third author of the book, Christian writer Bill Perkins, 61,
was made aware of the situation only this week by The Straits
Times. He said: ‘Plagiarism is wrong, regardless of the motive… It
misleads the reader into thinking something about the author that
is not true.’
The three authors would still have been in the dark, if not for
a Singaporean blogger who gave his name as Tee Kay Hetch.
Mr Tee first highlighted the plagiarism on his blog, entitled
Cheat Grace, on March12. Over nearly three months, he documented
similarities between Mr Kong’s postings and parts of Leadership
Bible. In some instances, entire passages of about 400 words had
been copied.
Apart from Leadership Bible, the blog also highlighted other
works that may have been copied, including content by well-known
Christian authors Derek Prince and Neil Anderson.
Mr Tee stopped posting on his blog on Tuesday, citing threats
and possible account hacking as his reasons.
While borrowing the work of other pastors is common in sermons,
preachers will often credit their sources, said a cell group leader
from another church.
Mr Robin Thor, 35, managing director of Attributes Publishing,
which printed Mr Kong’s books in 2005, said the uproar was due to a
‘lack of citation’.
The City Harvest Church member added that, at the time of
publication, both himself and Mr Kong were aware that certain
portions of the content were not original.
So far, no legal action has been taken against the publishing
company, said Mr Thor. Attributes has ‘made amendments to our soft
copy to include the citation’.
While Attributes no longer sells the books online, both volumes
are still on sale at major Christian bookstores. Prices range from
$15 to $18.90. No more print runs for the books are currently
scheduled, but no recall has been made either of books still on the
shelves.
Numbers for books in circulation and sales were not
available.
City Harvest member Amanda Ng, 25, said: ‘It’s not right to
plagiarise… but we always take references from everywhere when
studying the Bible.’
Mr Kong should apologise, the teacher added, and stop selling
his books.
Source:
http://www.transitioning.org/2010/06/12/city-harvest-founder-now-accused-of-plagiarism/
