Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, recently sent me a guest post. While I initially agreed to publish his post, I regretted doing so after reading it. After a day of contemplation on the matter, I decided not to make his post available to the readers of this blog. His vitriol towards LGBTQ people in general, and specifically transgender people, was enough for me to pass on publishing his post. You can read the post on Thiessen’s blog, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God.
In his initial email to me, Thiessen demanded:
Hello,
I have attached the document to this email, The instructions are the same as before. Do not let your editor or anyone touch the content or make changes. The content has already been through two spell and grammar checks.
It is written the way I want it to read.
DDavidT
I’ve been blogging for seventeen years. Scores of people have sent me guest posts to publish. Not one person has made demands of me as Theissen does with his post. Most people appreciate a professional editor going over their writing. Contrary to what Theissen says, his submission had numerous grammar, punctuation, and word usage errors. And Thiessen knows this. He just published his post on his blog. I used comparison software to compare what Theissen sent me and what he published on his site. Numerous changes were made to the text. So much for the text he sent me not needing an editor.
Since he was unwilling to allow Carolyn, my editor, to edit his post to make sure it meets the publishing standard for this site, I decided not to publish it. Both the content and the quality of the post were sufficient for me to say “no thanks.”
While waiting for me to publish his post, Thiessen said the following on several blog posts:
On another note, BG is asking for people to write guest posts. We figure he is getting sicker and it is harder for him to maintain his writing schedule. We submitted one a few days ago and are still waiting to see if it will be published.
We told him not to let his editor touch the content as we wrote what we wanted in the post. we have checked for several days now to see if it will appear and if it doesn’t,. we will place it here.
BG has often claimed that we do not write like a doctor so we did a post leaning towards an academic style of writing to satisfy his complaint. So we shall see. If he does not want to post it, he should send us an email so we can post it here.
Anyways, if anyone wants to write a comment below, use our initials DT, we are not upset if anyone does.
BG has failed to post our guest post. We wrote it because he made the offer and opened it up to everyone and on any topic. We see that he has made his own posts since we submitted it, so it is not like there is a long line of authors trying to publish something on his website.
We will give it one more day, and if it doesn’t appear, we will post the content here. We do not care where it is posted as long as it gets published. He may not like the concluding remarks, as those do not bode well for him and his LGBTQ friends.
Our initial thought for his delay is that he got very afraid to publish it, but we do not know the real reason.
Author’s note– This is the guest post we sent to BG in response to his offer to publish a guest post by anyone on any topic. We simply got tired of waiting for him to post it. If he eventually does, we may take this one down so there is no duplication.
Thiessen thinks his post is so incendiary that I am “afraid” to publish it. Child, please. When I read this post to my partner and read the line from Theissen that said, “Our initial thought for his delay is that he got very afraid to publish it,” Polly started laughing hysterically — rightly so.
Frankly, I am tired of Theissen refusing to use my name when he mentions me on his site. Why should I post anything of his if he can’t even bother to call me or Ben Berwick by our given names? Instead, he uses the initials BG and MM. Further, he refuses to properly link to our content when he uses it. I always use his proper name and link to his content when mentioning him on this site. That’s what professional, respectful writers do– which Thiessen is neither.
Finally, reader interaction is welcome on this site. I read every comment and try my best to respond, if warranted. Thiessen doesn’t want to participate in this process on this site. Comment on a post of his on this blog, and instead of replying, he turns it into a blog post on his site. And if you try to leave a comment on his blog, Thiessen will likely give it a one-sentence answer or delete it. If a guest writer is unwilling to interact with the fine readers of this blog, why should I bother to publish his writing?
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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From 1976-1979, I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan to prepare for the ministry. Both my speech teacher, Gary Mayberry, and homiletics teacher, Levi Corey, expressed the importance of giving credit to whom credit is due. If a preacher uses the words of someone else, he should always give proper attribution to the person being quoted. When giving a non-personal illustration or a quote from a book or sermon, preachers should always tell hearers (or readers) who said the quote. Not doing so was theft.
My partner, six months pregnant, and I left Midwestern in February 1979 and moved to Bryan, Ohio. Several weeks later, Jay Stuckey, the pastor of Montpelier Baptist Church in nearby Montpelier, asked me to become his assistant, primarily working with the church’s bus ministry and overseeing its visitation programs. The position was a full-time job that paid the astounding salary of zero dollars and zero cents. I didn’t mind. I was thrilled to have my first position as a pastor, even if it paid zilch. I was working for ARO, a large local union manufacturing concern that made industrial air tools, so we had more than enough money to live. All I cared about was serving Jesus.
Several months into my tenure at Montpelier Baptist, one of the church’s deacons came to me and leveled a plagiarism accusation against Pastor Stuckey. Bob, the deacon, accused Jay of lifting illustrations from the printed sermons in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) weekly newspaper, the Sword of the Lord. I already knew Jay was doing this, but said nothing, deciding it wasn’t my place to get involved in this controversy. Bob later confronted Jay, which led to a big controversy. Bob and his wife — both devoted followers of Jesus — left the church, and Jay stopped stealing content from the Sword of the Lord. I resigned from the church a few months later.
Several years later, 2005 found Polly and me living once again in Bryan, Ohio. I had pastored my last church in 2003, a Southern Baptist congregation in Clare, Michigan. In April, 2005, while still living in Newark, Ohio, I candidated at two Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia. Both churches wanted to call me as their pastor, but it was evident to both Polly and me that our hearts were no longer in the work; that we were no longer willing to make the personal and financial sacrifices necessary to continue in the ministry. We moved back to Bryan so Polly could return to her job at Sauder Woodworking in Archbold — a job she holds to this day.
Our focus turned to finding a church to attend; one we could support with our time, talent, and money. One such church was a new Evangelical church plant that was meeting at the local elementary school. We attended this church for about a month. Several weeks in, I told Polly after a Sunday service that there was something off about the pastor’s sermons. Sure enough, he was ripping off, without attribution, Rick Warren’s sermons, word for word.
I have heard a lot of sermons over the years. Some preachers always gave proper attribution when quoting others or alluding to their work. Sadly, other preachers routinely stole the work of others, passing off the stories, illustrations, and anecdotes of others as their own. Others would quote sermons or books without giving attribution, leading unknowing hearers to think that the words were their own.
Let me be clear, if you quote the work of others, you should always, without exception, give proper attribution. To do otherwise is immoral and unethical, and can be illegal. I have been quoted countless times in books, TV news stories, podcasts, newspaper articles, blog posts, sermons, and other media. With rare exceptions, my words were properly attributed by name and, if warranted, by an HTML link back to this site or the relevant material they were quoting. Occasionally, an Evangelical writer will refuse to link to this site out of fear that the Satanic atheist Bruce Gerencser will lead people astray. They mention me by name but don’t provide a link so people can verify the context of the quote.
As a writer, when I quote someone, I mention them by name and provide a link to their quote and website. As far as I know, I have never used the material of others without giving them proper attribution. The moral and ethical rules taught to me as a young college student guide me to this day.
Every Evangelical preacher KNOWS it is moral and ethical to give attribution when quoting the work of others. They know that using the work of others without attribution is theft. One preacher, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, thinks he has no obligation to give proper attribution when he uses my writing on his site: TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God. Over the past three years, Thiessen has used my work countless times, rarely with attribution. He thinks he has a God-given right to steal my work because he uses it to teach others (who those “others” are is unknown). Sometimes, Thiessen will say that a particular quote is from “BG” or BG’s website,” but never links to this site or mentions me by my proper name. I have repeatedly called him out on his unethical behavior, but Thiessen continues to steal my work (and that of Ben Berwick who writes at Meerkat Musings).
Berwick, who is a friend of mine from over the pond, recently addressed giving attribution when using the work of others. In a post titled Etiquette and Professionalism, Ben wrote (see how easy it was to give proper attribution?):
In short, I was (and still am) prepared to be held accountable for what I have to say. I am aware that others can read my blog, and share their thoughts. I cannot prevent people from copying and pasting my words. I am ‘out there’, so to speak, and I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is when people use my words out of context, do not provide credit, and fail to even provide a link to where they got my writing from. I have been guilty of these failures myself, and I now go out of my way to at the very least link to the page or post I’m quoting. That way, people can see for themselves that I am being transparent, and they can judge my arguments with complete context. I believe this is fair for any and all parties in any given discussion or dispute.
People who don’t offer up credit, who refuse to be transparent, and who fail to offer context, aren’t being particularly honest or noble. They aren’t being especially professional. It’s almost as though they are afraid. It’s even worse if they claim to be a professional. It’s one thing to use someone else’s writing for personal purposes as part of a personal disagreement; it is an entirely different matter to claim everything is being quoted as example material, whilst refusing to be truly open about where said material comes from. One could even suggest that fear is a motivator here. There is a fear of being shown to be wrong, or as being deliberately misleading, hence why some people won’t link directly to my site, to give me proper credit for my works.
Thus, I cannot take seriously the claims that my writing is used as reference material or examples, when the parties using my writing are afraid to give proper attribution to me. They are unwilling to even use my name, much less provide their audience with context. This is cowardly behaviour. What’s even more cowardly is the way they cry foul when I correct the record by responding. They are aggrieved by how I do not meekly suffer their dishonesty. They resent how I can back up what I have to say. They rage at how I contradict their deceitful narrative, and they lack the courage and conviction to confront me directly.
It seems these parties cannot comprehend that if you talk about me or my views, or use my material to make their points, I have the right to respond. This clearly upsets them, but it is a fact. If they have the right to use my writing, I have the right to respond. If they do not like this, they are free to stop referencing me, but I will not stop blogging, merely because it offends their delicate sensibilities. They will not silence me, however much they might mislead their audience via taking my words out of context, and by failing to give proper attribution.
I have offered to discuss this matter privately, only to be rebuked. I repeatedly this offer via a third-party site, and was rebuked again. I would urge the author of Theology Archaeology (one David Thiessen) to consider how this makes him look. He may skirt around giving me the proper attribution that he should grant, but I am not afraid to name him. His name is tied to his own site and his own words, via my responses, all of which are archived by Google for eternity. It will be painfully clear to anyone and everyone with even the slightest interest in all this as to who is refusing to be honourable, and who is being open and transparent. I urge him to consider discussing this entire matter like adults. I urge him to be professional.
Thiessen responded (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):
The first example in that quote is that as long as we do not take credit for his words, we are not plagiarizing. Since we mention our source, he has no argument. he just likes to whine and cause trouble.
The second example is that we mention, not demanding that you credit our website if you use our information. We do not dictate to anyone how that credit is to be given. We have never gone after anyone or complained about how they have referenced us.
We do not care as long as someone does not take credit for our words. However, assumptions leaps to conclusions, and distortions without verifying is the Modus Operandi of MM. he continues to assume something not in evidence and then falsely accuses of of actions we did not do.
He is building a mountain out of a mole hill. If he does not like how we give him credit that is his problem. We have linked enough to his website for our readers to know who were are talking about or quoting. Targeting is a strong word as we do not target people but use examples from their words to make points, a fact that continually is ignored.
We are not afraid of his website or our sources, another false accusation. But he is good at making them We have our reasons for why we have adjusted our crediting sources but he won’t accept them and continue to lie about our reasons.
We are not being dishonest so how can he say we are not upholding the principles we claim to uphold? We have not changed his words or said that they are ours so he really has no argument. As we have said, he is the only one to whine and complain about our use of other people’s content.
….
We have not sniped from the shadows but since he does not accept our reason for quoting his website we won’t repeat it here. The Bible says he who speaks of his own testimony that testimony is not true.
….
We highly doubt that he is transparent. He is just another unbeliever doing what unbelievers do best. If he were honest, he would state that we do not address all of his content, just the posts that we feel are important enough to mention.
….
He cannot seem to tell the truth. But then unbelievers do not obey the objective standards for morality, etc., and use their own standards even though they are not better than anyone else’s.
Thiessen thinks the rules don’t apply to him; that he plays by his own rules, and if MM (Ben Berwick) and BG (Bruce Gerencser) don’t like it, tough shit. I have no doubt that Thiessen thinks his peculiar version of the Evangelical God approves of his behavior. He probably even prayed on the matter There’s not much that Ben or I can do about Thiessen’s actions other than to object and ask him to behave in a manner consistent with proper etiquette and his Christian faith. Alas, such pleas have fallen on deaf ears. If I thought filing terms of service (TOS) complaints with WordPress and his ISP would do any good, I would certainly do it, but I suspect doing so is a waste of time.
Anything in the AP news report that could reasonably be disputed should be attributed. We should give the full name of a source and as much information as needed to identify the source and explain why the person is credible. Where appropriate, include a source’s age; title; name of company, organization, or government department; and hometown. If we quote someone from a written document – a report, email, or news release — we should say so. Information taken from the internet must be vetted according to our standards of accuracy and attributed to the original source. File, library, or archive photos, audio, or videos must be identified as such. For lengthy stories, attribution can be contained in an extended editor’s note detailing interviews, research, and methodology.
Although you should use sources creatively and flexibly to help you generate ideas and sharpen your argument, there are some hard-and-fast rules about the way sources should be acknowledged in your project. Click on the links for more explanation of the various rules.
ALWAYS CITE, in the following cases:
When you quote two or more words verbatim, or even one word if it is used in a way that is unique to the source.
….
Most writers realize that they must acknowledge a source when quoting a memorable phrase or sentence. They’d be sure to credit Mark Twain when quoting: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” And you probably also understand that you do not need to cite words that are very common to your topic. When writing about Hamlet, you do not need to put the words “Hamlet” or “Shakespeare” in quotation marks, or cite a source for them, even though you may have read sources that use these words. But when a single word or two are used in a distinctive way, so that the author is creating a new concept or applying it to a new topic, you must give acknowledge the source. When John Baker redefines the significance of the mirror test by saying that chimpanzees’ awareness of their reflection is not full consciousness, but a limited “kinesthetic self-concept,” it’s clear that those two words, as specialized terms of art, should appear in quotation marks in your paper. Even though neither “kinesthetic” nor “self-concept” is unusual on its own, as a phrase they belong to the author. But even a single, non-specialist term—such as “consilience”—may become tied to an author (in this case, E.O. Wilson) through an influential publication, in which case you should put the single word in quotation marks, at least in your first mention of it in your text.
Maybe Thiessen is ignorant of these things. If he is, let this post educate him about giving proper attribution. If he continues to refuse to give attribution, he should not bristle when called a thief.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Dr. David Tee is the tall white man in the back row
Another day, more drama emanating from a dark, musty basement somewhere in the Philippines. Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is upset that yours truly and Ben Berwick called him out on his unethical behavior. It is troubling that Thiessen refuses to use our legal names when writing about us. There’s no reason for him not to do so.
But one thing that has bothered us is that both MM and BG make everything we write personal to them. They continue to use our wrong name as if to get a rise out of us. But their disrespect undermines their points of view.
If they had stopped to think about it, our use of initials was not personal. MM stands for Meerkat Musings which indicates that we are not addressing the person writing the content. Instead, we are addressing the content only and have left all personal aspects out of our own content.
The same for BG. His website is titled ‘The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser’ So our use of initials again only refer to the website content, not the man behind it. But they do not think about these details in their haste to try and do everything they accuse us of doing to them.
But expecting rational and polite behavior from unbelievers is an unrealistic hope. As we read their content and responses, they are the ones making it personal, not us. But we will try to ignore their badly written responses and focus on the content we can use here.
Unbelievers have nothing to offer the believer except destruction. The believer needs to be warned about them and their views.
Does any of that ring true to you? Of course not. Instead of admitting his childish behavior and amending his ways, Thiessen concocts a ludicrous justification for his refusal to use proper form by typing out our names.
Of greater concern is Thiessen’s refusal to link to our articles when he mentions them, even when he is excerpting large amounts of text. Thiessen’s behavior not only goes against proper blogging conventions, but it is also unethical. Both Ben and I have called him out on his unethical behavior.
Leave it to the unbelievers to make false accusations and ignore the reality of what took place. We are not techno experts and sometimes when we use technology, things mess up. But leave it to MM to make false accusations because he can:
“has written a couple of posts that relate to my material, but has decided against providing direct links, and even giving credit where it’s due. So, he’s gone from not even being capable of using my name, to not even linking to my site when he quotes me, to not even acknowledging that he’s quoting me!”
It turns out after checking, that we can’t link to his website using the technological aid we have been using. It is a simple mistake but leave it to MM to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Instead of telling us, there was a problem with the links, he leaps to a faulty conclusion and points a finger where a finger should not be pointed. We read his post and we checked so that is how we found out. Having people make such false accusations makes us go slowly to repair the links.
Maybe MM should learn how to give the benefit of the doubt until he hears the truth.
According to Thiessen, Ben and I are acting uncharitably towards him; that the missing links are just a technological snafu. Why, then, if that is the case, has Thiessen not fixed the posts that are missing attribution? How hard can it be, right? Thiessen uses the WordPress platform. He has been blogging since 2012. Does anyone believe that he suddenly doesn’t know how to make an HTML link or that there is some sort of bug in WordPress keeping him from hyperlinking? Not a chance. Thiessen has a minimalist blog and uses the latest WordPress install. I use WordPress, as does Ben. We have been using the software for years. I started using WordPress back in the wild, wild blogging days of 2007. I have never had a problem making a hyperlink, and I doubt Ben has either.
Two years ago, I called out Thiessen on his refusal to give proper attribution and provide proper HTML links. For a time, he was trying to obscure the links by making them the same color as the body text. Cute, right? On both occasions, he said problems with WordPress were to blame. I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t believe him now.
MM replied to our comment above and like a true unbeliever, he condemns without knowing any or all of the facts. The owner of MM should know better than to do that as he demands that Christians do better when he makes mistakes.
At best both MM and BG website owners are hypcorites [sic].
Sorry, Derrick, all the “facts” are in. You are behaving unethically. We can’t — well, we could file takedown requests if we had the time — stop you from continuing to do what you do. All we can do is continue to point out your unethical behavior. Thoughtful readers will see your behavior for what it is.
Recently, Derrick Thiessen (aka David Thiessen, aka David Tee) has written a couple of posts that relate to my material, but has decided against providing direct links, and even giving credit where it’s due. So, he’s gone from not even being capable of using my name, to not even linking to my site when he quotes me, to not even acknowledging that he’s quoting me! Derrick, that’s pretty poor form.
Can I be bothered with his lengthy diatribe? No. Suffice to say, he is misconstruing Biblical references and occasional references from external sources, with the idea that the Bible is to be taken 100% literally, which isn’t logical and isn’t an observation-based form of reasoning. I will however reference one particular line from his latest post, which is hilarious!
[Thiessen wrote] The words in the title are found on a website we have visited from time to time.
From time to time? Derrick has routinely tracked my site, posted comments (often unpleasant and unreasonable ones), and made numerous posts out of what I’ve had to say, even when I haven’t referenced him in any way. I have no doubt he will spin something out of this too, and I have no doubt he will continue to make posts about me, and Bruce too, as he won’t be able to help himself.
All quotations were properly linked. See, Derrick? You can do it (think the movie The Waterboy)! If you truly need help figuring your “technical” problems out, please email me and I will be glad to help you “fix” your WordPress software. I’ve been building my own sites for years. Using the scientific method, I am sure I can help you figure out why you can’t properly hyperlink. Maybe I can even show you that evolution is true. Or, you can admit your “malfunctioning” software excuse is Grade-A bovine excrement. May the Holy Spirit lead you to do what is right.
Update
Thiessen used more content from this site today without attribution.
1. BG’s website- we are not linking to the BG or MM websites anymore. We will just acknowledge their words as they have shown they can do nothing but insult., attack, and cause harm to those they disagree with.
We have nothing more to say to them but we will keep looking at their websites to find material we can use here
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
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