Baptist Press Article on Paul Negrut and Plagiarism

Baptist Press has released its story on the plagiarism accusations against Paul Negruţ. The writer, Art Toalston, quoted me at length several times. Below are some of my quotes from the article. View the full Baptist Press story here and view my previous post about this situation here. To see this article in Romanian, click here.

Student disputes plagiarism charge against Romanian leader
Mar 5, 2007
By Art Toalston
Baptist Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–An unfair, “flimsy” plagiarism charge has been leveled at Romanian Baptist leader Paul Negrut, according to an American student who took a course under Negrut that is the focus of the accusation.

Various course-related materials were not plagiarized but were identified in a course description and syllabus distributed to students in the class in the fall of 2004, said Trevin Wax, who studied at Emmanuel University in Oradea, Romania, from 2000-05.

Wax told Baptist Press March 5 he believes Negrut, who is president of the university and also president of the Baptist Union in Romania and pastor of Oradea’s Emmanuel Baptist Church, has been accused “unfairly. The accusation is flimsy at best. And because the accusation of plagiarism against Paul Negrut is so flimsy, the people who have launched this attack are afraid to do so publicly. If they really had a case, they would put their names behind it.”

Wax said he first noticed the accusation Feb. 28 on the website of a tabloid-like newspaper, Informatia de Vest (translated, “Information from the West”) based in Oradea. That day, Wax sought to set the issue in context on his weblog, http://trevinwax.wordpress.com/. But at least one media outlet proceeded with its version of the story on March 1 without accessing Wax’s clarifying comments on his website.

At issue are printed materials related to a Christian ethics course Negrut was teaching. The plagiarism charge involves eight chapters that were translated from a 1995 book by a California professor.

Wax noted that the printed materials at issue were resources on file in the university’s library for students to access for the course exam. The materials were for “internal use for students,” Wax said, and could be copied via a copying machine or by hand. They could not be removed from the library and they were not for sale.

Although the materials, from a book by Biola University professor Scott Rae titled “Moral Choices,” were listed in the course description and syllabus, Wax recalled that their source was not identified in the university file.

The translation from English was not a professional-caliber translation, Wax said, but was done simply “to make the material accessible to students who don’t know English.”

As Wax noted in his weblog, “This is not unusual in Romania. Most courses were done this way, since few of the books needed were translated into Romanian.”

On his weblog, Wax recounted that, contrary to other reports, the file in the library “was never a book, in the proper sense, and was never published. It was a collection of materials placed into a notebook without a [book-like] spine. Students could not ‘buy’ the course. We had to go to the library and make copies of the materials needed for the exam in order to have study material.”

Wax also recounted, “Bro. Paul did not teach the printed course as his own…. He certainly didn’t use it when he taught the class. He used his own notes, current events, and occasionally quoted other authors.”

The class, Wax said, was “one of the most exciting classes during my time in Romania.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree at Emmanuel University in 2005, Wax studied at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., until becoming minister of education and missions at First Baptist Church in Shelbyville, Tenn., in January. He is continuing his SBTS studies by extension.

Wax commented to Baptist Press, “I think this accusation is a symptom of a greater problem in Romania. Baptists in Romania were united under the persecution that came from communism. But the blessing of freedom has brought a new set of challenges. Unfortunately, good Baptists have since turned on each other often over trivial disagreements on non-essential doctrines of the faith.

“It is difficult for people to be objective regarding the charge leveled against Paul Negrut,” Wax continued. “Those who dislike Brother Paul for other reasons too quickly accept these charges as true and uncontested. Those who support Brother Paul’s leadership quickly dismiss the charges as completely inaccurate.

“In the end, though, my comments are not about the church political climate in Romania,” Wax said. “This is about a man being accused of plagiarism, and I believe unfairly.”

On his website, Wax wrote, “It seems odd to me that in all of these press reports, no one is interviewing students who actually took the class! The motivation of the ‘group of Baptist believers’ in question is not to obtain justice of Scott Rae or to demand better academic accountability, but to discredit and demean Paul Negrut. If they were truly motivated by academic integrity, they would not be anonymous.”

See the rest of this story.