Two academic papers authored by Moses Maka Ndimukika, president of the Uganda Union Mission, show significant evidence of plagiarism. These papers, written during his PhD work at Sahmyook University, a Seventh-day Adventist institution in Seoul, South Korea, are publicly available online at Academia.edu.
Thanks, Jeremy, for this important reporting.
You do the devil’s work…you should expect to get burned.
Plagiarism, and honesty and integrity in general, has long been a major problem on the continent of Africa. Maka’s academic dishonesty is a reflection of his character as a whole.
The GC has done a poor job of discipling Seventh-day Adventists in Africa. It’s easy to baptize them but helping them become consecrated and sanctified Christians has not been a serious undertaking of the GC. No doubt this abysmal neglect is due to power politics within our faith community.
This indiviudual’s plagiarism is just a drop in the ocean, compared to Ellen White’s 70 year long plagiarism and still not found guilty
Thanks to Spectrum for reporting this academic plagiarism by a Union mission president. And the fact that it’s a “mission” president means that his mission has no constituency except the General Conference to whom he is responsible. So this makes the failure of the GC’s communications department to respond is an especially serious breach of responsibility. From your important reporting, I see no indication of regret or sorrow that such blatantly dishonest actions have been committed by a top leader. A key role of the free press is to keep relevant organizations honest. I hope that Spectrum runs a followup on this important revelation.
Not sure that the church should be responsible for consecrating and sanctifying Christians. Think that is outside of anyone on this planet’s paygrade. But I do agree that we need to have a conversation with these people, especially with their involvement in politics. We have no business being a part of that disgusting LGBTQ law that Uganda just implemented. And for Ted to sit on his hands and say nothing about that is even more sickening. But I didn’t expect anything from him. It must be turning God’s stomach.
Poaching members from well-established Christian denominations whose adherents already understood American culture, and essentially agreed with 19th century WASP sensibilities, proved hard enough back in EGW’s day.
Over the years, subsequent efforts to prevent loses due to attrition and aging church roles proved even harder. So Adventism turned to foreign countries where the populous has no such shared background and/or common world view, in order to maintain its tithe-paying base.
There the task of making new converts understand the full ramifications of what they agreed to upon being baptized into SDA-ism has proved nearly impossible-similar to herding cats-and the situation has devolved to the point where the tail is essentially wagging the dog.
If I am not mistaken, I think this is the second reported case of plagiarism involving a very high ranking SDA official, within Africa perhaps in as many years. What I find interesting is that it seems to be a developing trend among Seventh Day Adventists.
The plagiarism of EGW was one of the foremost issues that has plagued and continues to plague the SDA church over the years and
for this to he happening now is not surprising in the least,
I wonder if the church proper has an official policy against this, given the way in which they reacted when the issues were raised by Canright, Rea, Numbers and so many others over the years.
. If the official SDA church cannot honestly speak out honestly and definitively against the plagiarism of EGW, what makes anyone sure that they will do the same today? If the inspired prophetess could do the same, surely others will follow her example!
To learn also that this individual was also associated with a body( IRCU) which was instrumental in its influence in forming harsh and inhumane policies and actions to the LGBTQ community in Uganda is reprehensible! I am becoming less less surprised at what obtains in the Seventh Day Adventist Church!
A question for Jeremy Gray: Please tell me what clued you in to check out this guy’s papers, please?
I fail to understand why that is important.
To answer your post, Len Marcher: you may be aware that I am a sociologist who therefore has a great interest in understanding the dynamics and process of coming to certain suspicions and interpretations. My personal knowledge of Adventism in Uganda has made me especially interested in the dynamics within the Church leadership there over time. You may be aware, from my publicatiions both here and elsewhere that I am completing a huge study of global Adventism at this time. My research took me to Uganda, and when I went to Bugema College I was housed in the home that had recently been the residence of the college president and his family, who were Filipinos. I was amazed to find bullet holes in the walls and windows there, and was told that the previous occupants had fled. Later, in Kampala, I found the family and interviewed them in really difficult circumstances, for they were terrified and sure the walls were bugged. Their fear there was based not only on their experience at the end of their tenure, but on their certainty that Dr Sampson Kisseka, previously the Prime Minister of Uganda and then the VP under the man who is still the president of the country, had been behind the attempt to terrorize them into leaving both Bugema and Uganda. Dr Kisseka was the most prominent Adventist in the country. Such experiences there gave me a sense of a Church in deep trouble. This has been expanded since by the successful attempt by the Uganda Union President in 2009 to have the Parliament there pass legislation criminalizing LGBTQ Ugandans, and the insights I gained from interviewing two gay Ugandan pastors who had fled for their lives at that time. (The legislation was passed successfully and signed by he President, but was eventually declared illegal by the Ugandan Supreme Court.) My sense of malaise in the Adventist Church there was deepened this year when the new Union President again played a major role in the successful effort to repeat the 2009 legislation, which established death penalties and life imprisonment for LGBTQ people. It was against that background that I wondered what had led Jeremy Gray to suspect that that union president might have been dishonest in his academic work. I am interested in what more such information might make me aware of.
Well, as I understand it…Ellen “borrowed”. 
Ron, what you have just revealed here in relation to your personal knowledge of Seventh day Adventism in the context of Ugandan leadership is shocking, to say the very least. I look forward to reading more of your posts here and certainly welcome the opportunity to read your study in global Adventism in the future!. This information is truly astounding!
So now instead of the church focusing on sins within itself, it is lobbying parliament to have sinners in the world killed?
What happened to church state separation? Is it no longer a thing?
Sounds like the dark ages.
The issue of plagiarism is not only amongst adventists, in recent years, even high ranking academics in top tier institutions, have been indicted on the same issues of plagiarism. In some parts of Asia and Africa, its being sustained by multibillion dollar industry (Subscribe to read | Financial Times)
The subjective way of evaluating issues does not help to provide a solution. I also find it interesting when a relation is pecieved between two unrelated issues. This is known in academia as Spurious correlation. I think its high time the church though global start taking issues of culture seriously and how it influences worship and the organization in general.
This will help prevent the imposition of one’s view and may be culture on others. As much as we must hold our leadership to the highest moral and spiritual standards, we need to also be mindful that they are also human.
I end with Matt 7:1-7. Happy Sabbath
Likely true, but that does not mean that the Adventist organization should in any way tolerate plagiarism within the ranks of its leaders. Plagiarism amounts to a open and public lie, to cheating. Liars and cheaters should not remain in the ranks of church leadership.
Are you saying the author of this post was subjective? I think he was quite objective, actually.
And also, why do you make that assertion? Subjective evaluation can be very effective and is commonly used.
So, for example, the Southern misogynistic church should not impose their will on the Northern egalitarian church in order to stop us from ordaining women. I agree with you there!
Yes, the well known “Do not judge lest you also be judged” passage.
The thing is, we make small judgements all the time. For example, a teacher makes a judgement on how well a student is performing. A boss on how an employee is performing. A persons makes judgements on the suitability of a potential spouse. This is not what the text is talking about.
If you look at the original text, the better translation into modern English is more like:
Do not condemn lest you also be condemned. By whatever standard you use to condemn, you will be condemned, and whatever measure you use the same measure will be used against you.
The text is an admonition against hypocrites, who point out the errors in others while they commit the same errors. That is not what the author is doing here in his post.
This is also the same passage where Jesus states - somewhat literally translated:
All things therefore, as many as you might desire that others should to do you, so also you do to them. For this is the law and the prophets.
(Not “sums up” the law, but “is” the law.)
So, based on the biblical text you site, it’s just fine for us to condemn plagiarism by - for example - a church official, as long as we don’t stoop to plagiarizing, to cheating, and as long as we are OK with others calling us on the same. Which I am.
@Moguyaro, if one quotes a famous author in speech or publicaton, OK. If he attributes the quotation to A - but it is from B : It is a statement when I say : “wrong” , especially when he relies on the authority of A on the topic. It is judgemental, when I add : “Well, he has not learned how to quote yet !”
Unfortunately I experience an SDA tradition repeatedly : " - So you are an accuser of the bretheren - !" (Rev. 12 : 10.) - - - -
Unfortunately I recognize some new attempts worldwide : My surgeon for example - the one I repeatedly had coloscopies, a renowned specialist here, then had a row of capital letters behind his name - them obtained by quite questionable internet studies and a short visit at some far away remote “university” - - I repeat : “for example” !
And very much in Southern Asia Division and it’s institutions
This is gossiping, scandalizing a personal issue