July 15, 2002
CBF official charged with plagiarism
___By Greg Warner
___Associated Baptist Press
___FORT WORTH (ABP)--Southern Baptist observers attending this year's Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly charged a top CBF official with plagiarism after finding that a sermon she preached at an auxiliary event had been copied almost word-for-word from another source.
___Reba Cobb, coordinator of the CBF Resource Center in Atlanta, preached a message titled "The Bent-Over Woman" at the annual meeting of Baptist Women in Ministry June 27 in Fort Worth. The breakfast-and-worship meeting was held prior to the CBF's annual general assembly, also in Fort Worth.
___Contacted later that day by Russell Moore, a freelance journalist who writes frequently for Baptist Press, about similarities with a published sermon, Cobb said she was unaware her material was not original. A nearly identical sermon, also based on Luke 13:10-17, was preached and published by David Owen, a United Church of Christ minister from Boulder, Colo.
___Cobb told Associated Baptist Press her sermon was prepared by a freelance research assistant hired by Cobb and paid with personal funds. Cobb said she believed the material was original. She said she had since confronted the researcher, who admitted to misrepresentation. Cobb declined to identify the individual.
___"The grave error in judgment resulted in me unwittingly presenting portions of a message that had earlier been presented by another minister," Cobb said in a statement. "I have contacted the minister and expressed my most sincere regrets over this incident. I also wish to extend my most sincere apology to others who may be offended by my unintentional actions."
___According to the Baptist Press analysis, however, Cobb's sermon did not just include "portions" of the published sermon but instead repeated it nearly word for word.
___Two articles about the controversy appeared in Baptist Press June 28, both authored by Moore. Moore said he happened across the sermon in a book purchased by Baptist Press from a vendor in the General Assembly exhibit hall.
___Owen's original sermon, written in 1979, has been published in several outlets.
___Adding to the embarrassment for the CBF, it was later learned that the sermon was included in a book of feminist sermons and articles that was endorsed by Baptist Women in Ministry and sold in the CBF exhibit area.
___"The Wisdom of Daughters: Two Decades of the Voice of Christian Feminism," published in 2001, was being sold by Cokesbury, one of the vendors renting space in the CBF Resource Fair. Copies of the book were sold out by June 28, said an employee of the Methodist-affiliated publisher.
___Cobb is a founding member of Baptist Women in Ministry, which gets funding from CBF.
___Cobb told ABP she was disappointed in her researcher and embarrassed by the controversy.
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