Christian apologist and historian Wesley Huff has responded to accusations of plagiarism against him by Dan McClellan, admitting blame while also adding context to his actions.
Huff is the Central Canada Director for Apologetics Canada and has ‘participated in numerous public dialogues, debates, and interfaith events on issues of faith, belief, and religion across North America’ according to his online bio. He also spent five years as a ‘writer, researcher, and speaker for Power to Change – Students (formerly Campus Crusade in Canada) and has made contributions to The Gospel Coalition Canada.
On November 3rd, McClellan posted a video accusing Huff of plagiarism based on papers that were posted to Academia.edu in 2016.
Likewise, Professor Stephen C. Carlson detailed that Huff plagiarized him, explaining, “The strike-through is what of mine he deleted, and the underlined is what he added. You can see how he had gone about rewriting his (unacknowledged) sources as if it was his own work. This is textbook plagiarism.”
Despite presently dealing with a series of medical issues related to his young daughter, Huff released a brief video on YouTube, explaining:
“Let me be totally upfront in this scenario. If you want to cancel Wes Huff from 2016 or maybe even 2017 and 2018, I do too. I was not a good writer. I was not a good academic. I was just trying to find my legs as to where I fit in in the whole world of scholarship.
Let me be totally upfront and take responsibility for that, for what I think is bad. This paper, in fact, all of the papers I put on academia.edu almost a decade ago are bad. Their use of citation and attribution is problematic. They’re not well written. They’re all pretty bad.”
Huff explains that these papers were not formally submitted and that he hasn’t had access to the site in over a decade, but he reiterates people’s concerns:
“Now, that’s not to justify that this is a bad paper, that the other papers that people have raised some concern with are bad papers. The content of them is not well written. The citation use is troublesome. There are indeed people I should have referenced and credited for that that I did not. And it’s just overall not well written. And that’s why these papers were all in some form of submission limbo. For better for worse.”
Huff reveals that he contacted Bryan Wright, one of the men he plagiarized, and personally apologized to him, which Wright accepted, and then concludes:
“I do want to say that I haven’t even published a formal academic journal article as of yet. I’m still even now very much early in my journey in my career. Hyperbolic podcast titles aside, I don’t think I am nor claim to be the number one Christian expert. Those types of titles on platforms I’ve been on are for clicks and I wasn’t the one titling them in 2016. The same can be said for 2017 or 2018.
I was not the same person I am today. I I’ve had four kids in that time frame. I’ve started entirely different degrees. I had a ton of mentorship and stewardship of credible and godly people who have helped me. I also want to make sure to point out that while I am appreciative of Dan’s pursuit of truth and accountability, and while I can’t know Dan’s personal motives, the way his interactions have come across have made me wonder about his agenda. I have no idea why Dan has taken it upon himself to make such a focus on me and I won’t pretend to pronounce upon his motives.Let me say once again that I take ownership for all of this. The Wes from just around a decade ago using that platform didn’t really think anyone was looking at it. I wasn’t anybody in 2016, 2017, 2018. I never expected to be anybody. Seeing Dan’s video has actually been a marker of how the Lord has blessed me and given me an opportunity to grow and develop both personally and as an academic.
I am not perfect. I need God’s sustaining grace in my home, in my marriage, in my academic life. And I’m going to mess up. I’m going to make mistakes. And there’s no getting around that this was a mistake. I hope though that in giving you some of the context of what has gone on here that you’re able to hear my heart in the midst of my apology and response to all of this.”
While many people are satisfied with Huff’s remarks and explanation, others are not, pointing out that true repentance would be straight-up admitting, “I stole from others without asking and tried to pass it off as my own,” rather than a more tepid “The citation use is troublesome” or “the content is not well-written.”
McClellan likewise doesn’t think much of the response.
