Seest thou what they do?

This record did not begin as an investigation; rather, it began with a duty no one wanted and none of us sought. In the ordinary work of preparing the ministry’s publications, one of us found material copied, often word for word, from the works of other writers, without citation of any kind. It was raised quietly and more than once, in the hope that it would be corrected, but it never was. And so each instance was documented as it was found, until the documentation filled a notebook. The Scripture leaves the witness no room for silence: “And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity” (Lev. 5:1).

In May 2025 that notebook was laid before the boards responsible for answering it, together with a letter of resignation. The ministry’s own Constitution and Bylaws give the board ten days to address charges brought against a minister. We allowed fourteen, and ten days later the boards’ answer came in writing from the then Vice President, Dr. Dennis L. Lowry, the officer to whom the Constitution directs charges against the President, at that time Dr. H. T. Spence. It did not engage the evidence: not one example, not one source. It called the concern a “matter of footnotes,” turned instead to attack the character of the one who raised it, and closed the correspondence: “I do not intend to respond to anything more that you have to say on the subject.” At least twenty-four years of verbatim reproduction of others’ work, presented as the writer’s own and without attribution, were thus reduced to an oversight. This response raises many questions, two above all: How does one attain a post-graduate education and long tenure in academic office and not know that sources must be cited? And how did those nearest him never suspect?

It was after that answer that we read Ezekiel 8. The prophet is not shown the abominations of the house all at once. He is brought to the door of the court and shown a hole in the wall; he is told to dig; and when he has digged, behold a door. Behind the door is what the ancients of the house do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery, for they say, The Lord seeth us not. And each time he has seen, he is told: turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.

So we turned again. The plagiarism was but the hole in the wall. What lay beyond it, in the institution’s governance, in its public representations, and in the records it has since altered, is what the rest of this collection documents. Nor is the digging finished: the record grows as it goes on.

Our convictions are on this page and nowhere else. Behind the door is a record of facts: simple facts. Each entry is dated, tied to its primary source, and labelled for how much weight it can bear. Where we could not confirm a thing, the record says so plainly. The passage puts one question to the prophet, and we put it to you: hast thou seen?

The record contains facts. Simple facts. Once the reader becomes conscious of them, his conscience is accountable for where they lead. Once they are “seen,” they can never be “unseen.” If you are not prepared to deal with the conclusions to which the facts lead, go no further, however curious you may be.

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The record is kept apart from this statement. It sets down facts and their sources, not conclusions. It holds two timelines: the institutional record, concerning Dr. H. T. Spence, and the faculty outside-business record, concerning Brad Lowry, now Vice President and Academic Dean. Access requires a valid email address, and you'll be asked to sign in before it opens.