About eleven months ago Rachel Miller discovered that Douglas Wilson & Randy Booth plagiarized large swaths of body text from a wide variety of sources for their book A Justice Primer (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2015). Rachel established the fact of plagiarism by uploading a number of side-by-side images that juxtaposed pages from A Justice Primer with pages from the original source — that is, pages from whence Messrs. Wilson & Booth stole their content. Rachel highlighted the filched content in bright yellow, which closed the deal. She made it spin proof.

Randy Booth owned 100% responsibility for the poached text as well as 100% of the accountability. So Doug Wilson:

On Thursday, Rachel Miller revealed that significant portions of A Justice Primer, coauthored by Randy Booth and me, had been plagiarized. The same day Canon Press discontinued the book, posted their own statement about it, as well as separate statements from Randy and from me. They can be found here. In addition, a second statement from Aaron Rench, CEO of Canon, has now been posted here. . . . The day it was revealed, Randy resigned from the review committee that was looking into our previous two controversies. More about that can be found here. He also resigned his position on the NSA board on Thursday, and the board accepted that resignation today (Saturday), and issued a statement about it, which can be found here. . . . In addition, Randy was serving as the pro tem presiding minister of the CREC. Resigning that position is a bit more complicated constitutionally, but that process has begun. (Blog & Mablog)

Randy Booth lost his position as pro tem Presiding Minister of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches; he lost his position as chair of the CREC Review Committee; and he lost his position as a “permanent member” of the board of directors for New Saint Andrews College. But he did not lose his pastorate and he did not lose his position as a member in good standing in the CREC. Further, the CREC Constitution provides no mechanism for its communicants to discipline Mr. Booth. They may either expel his church from the federation or live with it — which is by design. Doug Wilson wrote the CREC Constitution to ensure it had no means to touch him. Therefore, it contains no defense of God’s standard for ministers of the gospel, such as these brave words:

In Titus 1, and 1 Timothy 3, God’s requirements for leadership are strict — and clear. According to those requirements, John Wesley was not qualified to be a leader of God’s people; he was not “blameless” in the text’s sense. He stole the words of another and did not acknowledge that he had done so. (Doug Wilson, “Wrestling With Wesley”)

If the CREC applied Doug Wilson’s high standard for ministry to Doug Wilson & Randy Booth, they would remove both churches where these men pastor from the denomination. The cause of action would be serial plagiarism. But the CREC exists for another reason. Moreover, if Doug Wilson & Randy Booth applied Doug Wilson’s lofty standard for Christian ministry to themselves, each man would have already resigned his office. The cause of action would be serial plagiarism. But these men stand in their pulpits for another reason.

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Earlier this year Randy Booth scrubbed his blog from the worldwide web. We don’t know the exact date but it followed not long after Rachel Miller discovered that plagiarized text crawled all over it. First he scrubbed just a few posts (as noted), but then he nuked the whole site, completely destroying the proof of his sin. Criminal law describes Mr. Booth’s behavior as “consciousness of guilt”:

The commission of a crime leaves usually upon the consciousness a moral impression that is characteristic. The innocent man is without it; the guilty man usually has it. Its evidential value has never been doubted. The inference from consciousness of guilt to “guilty” is always available in evidence. It is a most powerful one, because the only other hypothesis conceivable is the rare one that the person’s consciousness is caused by a delusion, and not by the actual doing of the act.¹ . . . Evidence of consciousness of guilt has long been admissible in criminal trials for the purpose of proving the guilt of an accused. As early as 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court spoke of its use as a foregone conclusion. . .²

Randy Booth wiped out his blog because he knew it declared his guilt. Eight years’ worth of blog entries gone with one click of the mouse. A few months later Mr. Booth launched a new blog. He did not migrate his site by importing his old content into a new platform, which is customary. He launched a new blog without comment, acting like nothing happened. Consciousness of guilt.

Last Saturday Mr. Booth sent a tweet from a rogue CREC Twitter account. The tweet linked to a blog post on his new website. He titled it Victim vs. Victor and it instantly struck me as a hit job on Natalie Greenfield, which was how she saw it:

This the denomination I grew up in. Here’s their take on what a victim is. “Dear Victims, get over it already.” #whereisthelove @crechurches https://t.co/0L4xhoMLyi

— Natalie Greenfield (@NatalieGfield) November 19, 2016

The administrators of this Twitter account represented it as an official CREC account, but it was not. The administrators included the CREC Presiding Minister Doug Wilson, as well as Randy Booth, and possibly others. No one has explained who opened the account or why. But like Randy Booth’s original website, it disappeared. And as he did not apologize for the stolen text on his first blog, so he didn’t apologize to Natalie for this blog post.

So with this cheesy entrée, I now dish up leftover turkey from Randy Booth’s now-deleted website, to remind him and the CREC that he has no credibility. Rachel Miller discovered this example of plagiarism several months ago and kindly sent it over (click to enlarge). To be sure, she found countless other examples like this, but he scrubbed them all. This instance is dated November 24, 2008, exactly eight years ago. Mr. Booth ripped it from a site called Big Oaks Ranch. He lifted the text word for word without giving credit to his source. The blue highlight indicates where Mr. Booth shuffled the order, but it’s still verbatim. And scrubbed or not, Randy Booth is still a disgrace.

¹ “See United States v. Baldwin, 54 M.J. 551, 555–56 (Army Ct. Crim. App. 2000) (citing 2 JOHN H. WIGMORE, EVIDENCE IN TRIALS AT COMMON LAW § 173 (1983 ed.)).”
² “See Hickory v. United States, 160 U.S. 408 (1896).” [Blockquote & both footnotes taken from Prosecuting Raskolnikov: A Literary and Legal Look at “Consciousness of Guilt” Evidence by Dan E. Stigall, Judge Advocate, U.S. Army.]