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missler-plagiarism

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 9 months ago

Evidence of Plagiarism of Chuck Missler

by Christopher A. McHorney

 

This section contains a detailed page by page comparison of the Chuck Missler ©1995 book Magog Invasion (MI) to Edwin Yamauchi's ©1982 book titled Foes from the Northern Frontier: Invading Hordes from the Russian Steppes (FNF).

 

Missler has copied over seventy percent of the material in the chapter entitled "The Scythians" from FNF. This extensive plagiarism in undeniable.

 

After we exposed this, Chuck Missler confessed to the plagiarism.

 

Front cover Magog InvasionRear cover Magog Invasion

 

Plagiarism examples

 

The following shows just a small sampling of the many examples of plagiarism by Missler of FNF. Missler even copies the footnotes as if they are primary quotes, and not secondary.

 

Magog Invasion (MI, page #)Foes Northern Frontier (FNF, page #)
MI p 51FNF pp. 63-64
MI p 52FNF p 65
MI p 52FNF pp 112-113
MI p. 54FNF pp. 72-73

 

Who is Dr. Yamauchi?

 

Dr. Edwin Yamauchi is a world renowned history professor at Miami University in Ohio. Yamauchi is frequently cited as a source by many authors.

 

Who Really Wrote Magog Invasion?

 

Magog Invasion Book Ad (from Koinonia House Publishers 1996 "Relevant" Gifts catalog).

 

One of the first things that we noticed was that the cover of the actual book was that the artwork shows "Forward by Hal Lindsey", but the authors listed under the title in the KHouse ad text itself are "Missler/Lindsey".

 

This initially created some uncertainty about who was the actual author of the book. Certainly Missler would want to leverage the Lindsey name as it sells books, but writing a forward is not the same a being a co-writer. Missler said at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, on 2-14-97, that the book was written by himself and not by Hal Lindsey.

 

The best answer to the question Who really wrote the Magog Invasion? is that we still do not know for sure. Chuck Missler has at least partially blamed the plagiarism on the staff and volunteers that assist the K-House ministry.

 

At this point, we are not sure which is worse. Either, Missler did not write the book (at least large parts of it), and his staff wrote it without much of a review by Missler, or, secondly Missler wrote the book and is not confessing his personal guilt in the plagiarism.

 

The Magog Factor factor

 

The book Magog Invasion was apparently generated from a previous book by Missler and Lindsey called the Magog Factor. This is apparently the book that the 1992 article in the times referred to. Missler took the materials from Magog Factor and used them as a basis for Magog Invasion, repeating the same plagiarism as the original (which he was already aware of).

Other articles on this subject

 

This was originally covered in two books (the 1992 incident of plagiarism). They are:

 

Fakes, Frauds, and Other Malarkey - 301 Amazing Stories and How Not to be Fooled, Kathryn Lindskoog, Zondervan, ISBN 0-310-57731-4, pages 121-122.

 

Bible Prophecy - Failure or Fulfillment?, Tim Callahan, ISBN 0-9655047-0-0, pages 218-219.

 

Although we would like to take the credit for uncovering this first, the original reference was in a Los Angeles Times article Question of Attribution. The abstract of the L. A. Times article follows:

 

Thursday, July 30, 1992

Home Edition

Section: View

Type: Sidebar

ID:0920085031

Words: 296

Byline: ROY RIVENBURG

Inasmuch, however, as the kingdom of Gyges did not

extend to the areas of Meshech and Tubal, as is implied by

Ezekiel 38:2 with respect to the kingdom of Gog, there is

a problem with assuming that Gog is identical with Gyges,

the similarity of the names notwithstanding.

--Edwin Yamauchi, in his 198 ...

 

Recent books

 

Abanes, Richard. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568581041/sr=8-1/qid=1149366362/ref=sr_1_1/102-3814612-9843323?%5Fencoding=UTF8|End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon?]

 

MacPherson, Dave. The Three R's: Rapture, Revisionism, and Robbery

 

Our Most Recent Follow up To This Story

 

Prior to making this information public many steps were taken to have Chuck Missler privately account for his actions.

 

1. Christopher McHorney sent several e-mail messages to Chuck Missler's Koinonia House asking for answers.

2. Christopher received no answers.

3. Finally, Christopher sent out a package containing the plagiarism information to Pastor Chuck Smith, Pastor Greg Laurie, Warren Duffy (KKLA personality and Missler friend), as well as the editor of Christianity Today.

4. Many months later, that letter was acknowledged by Chuck Missler with an attack on the integrity of Christopher. (Read the letter from Missler).

5. After becoming aware of this information, Doug also sent e-mail to Missler's Koinonia House (along with copies to other individuals in the body of Christ).

6. We have received no written response from Chuck Missler or his representatives at all.

 

We initially contacted Dr. Yamauchi via e-mail and received an response from Dr. Yamauchi saying that the material was originally used without his permission and that Missler/Lindsey promised to desist using it after the LA Times article from July, 1992. Dr. Yamauchi expressed surprise that the infringement was still happening as the Baker Books attorneys had settled the matter in 1992. We recently purchased our copy of the book at CCCM (in January 1997) and it bore a ©1995 date on it (3 years after the LA Times article). The book is also being sold at Calvary Chapel of San Juan Capistrano, CA. The publisher is "Western Front Ltd.", of Palos Verdes, CA. It had all of the quotes as above.


 

Missler Admits Plagiarism Again

 

Portions of this page are Copyright (C) 1996 by Koinonia House Inc.,

P.O. Box D, Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816-03 and are included for critical commentary only.

 

This page analyzes Chuck Missler's admission of plagiarism as documented on our page. Missler's confession is on the Koinonia House site

 

Note that the word plagiarism is totally missing from Missler's page. We're not letting Missler off the hook just yet as there are serious discrepancies between his current story and the actual truth as we understand it. Missler's comments are indented and in italics.

 

We suggest that everyone that cares about this issue read it.

 

It has come to our attention that portions of our book, The Magog Invasion, contain excerpts from a publication of Dr. Edwin Yamauchi that are insufficiently acknowledged.

 

This is in direct contradiction to the posts of Missler's defenders that have claimed that a bibliographical reference is a sufficient acknowledgement. Missler admits that it was not enough for scholarship. Good one Chuck Missler.

 

The big problem here is that this was brought to the attention of Missler, Chuck Smith, Greg Laurie and Warren Duffy by a letter from (Mr. X) Christopher McHorney dated June 21, 1996. That's 7 months prior.

 

IMHO, if the Internet did not exist, Missler would have gotten away with it again.

 

We have posted the response letter from Missler that is dated October 3, 1996 and includes an attack on Chris for having brought this matter up (IMHO, based on Missler's misreading of Matt 18) as well as the excuse that "Magog Invasion" had a acknowledgement to Yamauchi in the front. Missler repeats this weak excuse here.

 

In our opinion Missler now owes a public apology to Christopher McHorney as well as to Dr. Edwin Yamauchi. He has treated Chris badly and falsely bore witness against him.

 

Missler's statement "it has come to our attention" is missing a critical time element. It came to his attention almost 6 months prior. It came to his attention several years ago when the initial point was made. It was even in the LA Times.

 

This unfortunate result was caused by carelessness in drawing from speaking notes assimilated from over 25 years of public presentations on these and related subjects. Over four hundred endnotes testify to our attempt to properly reference the variety of materials that had been gleaned from past library research or gathered for our benefit. Assistance was also contributed by well-meaning volunteers, and material gathered during speaking tours, etc.

 

This is where he blames it on the staff. This raises an entirely new question; when we buy a Missler book, who really wrote the book? Was it Missler or some volunteer who put it together from stuff sitting around in the files? This is passing the buck. Nixon did not get away with it and Missler should not either. As he admits, he is responsible solely since his name is on the cover as author and blaming anyone else is wrong.

 

While we specifically and uniquely acknowledged our scholastic indebtedness to Dr. Yamauchi's several works in the front of the book, and in other endnotes, we are embarrased to discover that substantial portions of Chapter 4 clearly appear to have been excerpted from Foes of the Northern Frontier, a book which is no longer in print.

 

Whether the book is in print or not is relevant. If the material is copywritten, it is a copyright infringement. If the material is out of copyright, it still needs to be acknowledged. Over 70% of the chapter was copied verbatim.

 

An acknowledgement is not a proper attribution. Try this if you don't believe it. For example, copy a Steven King bestseller and put a note in the acknowledgements section "I owe a debt of gratitude to Stephen King for his materials which have aided me in writing this book". Let's see how fast the lawyers descend.

 

(What compounds our embarrassment is that this was called to our attention in an earlier draft, and in our haste to make a publication deadline remedies were overlooked.)

 

This was several years ago. It was more than an earlier draft, but was a printing of the book. The attorneys for Dr. Yamauchi's publisher got Missler to agree to cease using the material in future printings. Until we contacted Dr. Yamauchi in November he thought the matter was dead. We recently bought a copy of the book at the Chapel Store.

 

Here's the approximate time-line.

 

1. About 1992 - Missler and Lindsey published Magog Factor with a chapter that was plagiarized from Yamauchi's 1982 book.

2. Thursday, July 30, 1992 - Reference to the "missing attribution" appears in the Los Angeles Times.

3. 1992 - Attorneys from Baker book approach Missler with evidence of the plagiarism.

4. 1992 - Missler agrees to remove material with the next printing.

5. 1995 - Missler publishes the book "Magog Invasion" with the chapter that was stolen from Yamauchi still in it

6. Early 1996 - Christopher McHorney sends several E-mails to Missler asking for an explanation. Missler never responds.

7. June 1996 - Christopher McHorney sends a letter to Chuck Smith, Greg Laurie, Warren Duffy, etc explaining plagiarism.

8. Late 1996 Missler gets a copy of the letter and sends a nasty attack letter to Christopher McHorney.

9. End of 1996/early 1997 - Christopher McHorney sends us the information.

10. End of 1996/early 1997 - We read the information and see that the charge is BLATENTLY TRUE.

11. End of 1996/early 1997 - We contacted Dr. Yamauchi with several e-mails. He kindly responds and discloses item 3 above.

12. End of 1996/early 1997 - We wrote to Missler asking for clarification of the plagiarism. We got no response. We BCC'ed other's for proof.

13. End of 1996/early 1997 - We publish the page showing plagiarism.

14. Early 1997 -Dennis and other Missler supporters in the alt.religion.christian.calvary-chapel newsgroup deny plagiarism charges.

15. Feb 1997 - Missler admits plagiarism (again).

 

There was no intent to harm or defraud either Dr. Yamauchi or Baker Book House. Our error was due to inexcusable carelessness and oversight.

 

I will take that at face value. Although there was no intention to defraud Yamauchi, that was the net effect. What form of restitution will be made to compensate Dr. Yamauchi for this? Regardless of intent, there was still harm done.

 

Hal Lindsey, incidentally, supplied only a foreword and in no way was responsible for the content of the book. The responsibility is entirely our own.

 

That answers that question and shows that Missler has read our site. I'd like to see him address the other issues on the site sometime, as they are substantial misstatements of fact that have been clearly documented.

 

The question here is why does the ad in the Missler catalog "Relevant Gifts" show the authors as Missler/Lindsey? That's false advertising if they are not cowriters. Missler needs to clean up the ad so that it's not misleading also.

 

Hey, Chuck, if you are looking for a proofreader, Chris may be interested in a part-time job. He seems to have caught a lot of your errors. You have the name and he has the scholarship. If you hired someone like him to check your stuff out, you'd be in much better shape now. Send me e-mail and I'll get you in touch with him (if you want).

 

This will, of course, be corrected in any reprints, revisions or related publications in the future.

 

That's what you said in 1992, too. I'm sure that the attorneys for Baker will ensure that happens.

 

We just have a few questions left.

 

1. What about withdrawing the books that are on the shelf now? They are certainly tainted badly. Let's see the money put where the mouth is at. They are still being sold at most Calvary Chapel Stores.

2. Will there be a similar published response in your Personal Update Newsletter? After all this satisfies just a very small part of your audience. Or do you figure this will shut me up?

3. Was this part of a settlement with Hanegraaff? Will Rich get cut loose from CRI as a result of this?

4. Can I get a refund for the copy of Magog Invasion, as we no longer need it? That's the big question to me. It cost me $15 to prove a point. I then got slandered by lots of Missler supporters. One even called me a liar here publicly over this issue.

5. Will you renew our subscription to Personal Update for free at least? As a journalistic courtesy?

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