Tag Archives: apologetics academy

I Forgive Jonathan McLatchie

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Recently I demonstrated that Jonathan McLatchie plagiarized in his recent debate with our esteemed Br. Yusuf Ismail.

The two videos published on the issue have gathered more views than the debate itself ever will, I haven’t even factored in the views it got on Facebook when several other Muslims uploaded it either. The point being, that I just wanted to provide some context for what I’ll say in this article. A person could respond in a lot of ways to allegations of plagiarism, it’s part of fair criticism when one is in the interfaith-apologetics field. People analyse your statements, double check your references, these are expected things to happen when you debate because this isn’t a game. You’re calling people to change their entire worldview, base their salvation on what you are saying, so you expect debaters to put their best, most accurate and honest foot forward.

Jonathan responded in three ways to my pointing out his plagiarism. Firstly, he accused me of plagiarising from Rabbi Tovia Singer in a now deleted comment on Facebook. He later on removed that comment after I asked him for proof, evidently he misheard a comment from Dr. James White on Muslims in the UK (which by itself is also unproven). I’m neither from, nor have I been to the UK. To be clear, he didn’t apologize for the lie, he just deleted it as he did with his comments about Br. Mansur recently. Secondly, he then posted a status referring to me as deceptive and then allowed copious amounts of insults to be posted about me from some Paltalk friends he has who are aligned with Sam Shamoun. That’s neither unexpected or interesting, at this point it’s sort of expected behaviour from those people.

Thirdly, he lashed out and posted an unverified photo of a Facebook comment where I apparently insulted David Wood. I’m not really sure what he was expecting? I read the comment thread where his verification process basically entailed asking (and I’m paraphrasing here), “is that Ijaz’s Facebook profile from last year in the photo? By golly, that must mean he actually said it!” He’s apparently unaware that anyone could create false photos from Facebook using someone’s profile picture, it’s something fairly common. It also turns out, when questioned for evidence that I actually posted it…that the only person who claimed to have seen when I did post it…was a person who had blocked me roughly two years ago on Facebook (effectively predating the date on the alleged photo altogether), in fact…that same witness boasted in another post of Jonathan’s that he had blocked me and that his Facebook experience was peaceful for that very reason. Lying, is not their forte to say the least. That person is Robert Wells. He also happens to be the person who threatened my life when I used to interact with him on Paltalk:

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So, do I fault Jonathan for not doing proper checks before “exposing” me? Yes, I do. Do I fault him for trusting the testimony of someone who blocked me on Facebook and threatened to kill me? Yes, I do. Will I respond in like? No. See, I happen to forgive Jonathan because I understand how much my two videos about his plagiarism may have affected him. I definitely understand how embarrassing it must’ve been, and so I can understand why he lashed out. On the other hand, this isn’t a tit for tat game. I criticize him fairly when it comes to his apologetics and Islamo-political claims, I criticize him fairly when he slanders my colleagues like Br. Mansur and Br. Hamza. His reaction however, was not something related to any of those areas of interest, his lashing out was personal and I do not respond to personal attacks.

So, while I am disappointed in his behaviour, I’m sorry Jonathan, but I’m not interested. Perhaps when you can learn to meaningfully interact with my publications and videos, I’ll gladly respond, but when you go low, I’ll go high. I forgive you.

“Show forgiveness, enjoin what is good, and turn away from the ignorant.” – Qur’an 7:199.

and God knows best.

Ad Lucem Complicit in Plagiarism?

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The debate between Jonathan McLatchie and Br. Yusuf Ismail that recently occured has brought to light severe and shocking plagiarism by Jonathan McLatchie. A video illustrating the plagiarism was created by Calling Christians but published by EFDawah:

Another popular Muslim YouTube channel, MuslimByChoice also took notice of Jonathan’s dishonesty and also published the video. However, this was the second video to be produced, the first video to be published (also by both EFDwah and MuslimByChoice) was purposefully published to demonstrate one instance of plagiarism in the debate. This was to assess the response that Jonathan would give, before releasing more incidents of plagiarism. As expected, Jonathan claimed that his plagiarising of Sam Shamoun in the debate was an “isolated case”. When the second video (embedded above) was published, it was then clearly demonstrated that he had lied. The videos demonstrating his plagiairism have gathered more views than the debate itself, with several prominent Muslim and non-Muslim academics, and debaters, taking notice of Jonathan’s dishonesty.

It was then at this point I reached out to Rudolph Boshoff who not only chaired the debate under fire at the moment, but whose organization Ad Lucem was party to the debate itself, as representative of the Christian side. It should then be noted that Jonathan McLatchie was representing Ad Lucem, that is Rudolph Boshoff’s ministry in that debate. Evidentially, here is the debate poster itself:

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As can clearly be seen, Ad Lucem was party to debate. Due to his involvement, we reached out to Rudolph for comment, given that he is a party to the debate, chaired the debate itself, is a student at a seminary, a teacher himself, it became necessary to solicit his comments on this matter:

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Initially, I did not want to involve Rudolph, but as Jonathan’s deception grew and questions began to be raised, it became necessary given his role and his ministry’s role in the affair. To date, three days have passed and Rudolph’s only “statement” thus far was to be complicit in the plagiarism by removing the tag of the query posted by myself.

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Plagiarism is highly impfactful when it comes to the moral standards of interfaith debates. When we have interfaith debates we put trust that the speakers will be honest and up front, that they would use sources and cite them responsibly. Such an issue discredits the hard work that debaters put into the events, as study and research is paramount to interfaith discussion.

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The questions have been asked, the plagiarism has attempted to be covered up and the silence of the responsible parties are perhaps the most damning words of all.

Jonathan McLatchie Caught Plagiarizing During Debate with Yusuf Ismail

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Several days ago I published a quick review demonstrating that most of McLatchie’s time was spent reading from the Bible (20 of 30 minutes) during his debate with Br. Yusuf Ismail. Yet of those remaining 10 minutes it has been discovered that he was not reading from his own words, indeed he has copied from an online article by Sam Shamoun entitled, “Jesus Christ – The God of Gods and the Prince of princes” on Answering Islam. This was an unashamed, word for word reading from an online article during what was presumably supposed to be a demonstration of McLatchie’s “apologetics”, apparently plagiarism is now part of his apologetics:

Direct YouTube Link: Click Here.
Watch on Facebook: Click Here.

Do honesty, integrity and professionalism no longer matter in the world of Christian apologetics?

and God knows best.

Missionary Mishap: Jonathan McLatchie at Speaker’s Corner

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This should not surprise anyone, but in making his transition from debater of atheists to “critic” of Islam, to “critic” of evolution and now to “apologetics/ motivational speaker” we find Jonathan once again making erratic and frankly, silly comments about those he necessarily hates.

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For a quick recap, Jonathan came to Speaker’s Corner where Christians and Muslims and Jews and Atheists and Black Hebrew Israelites and folks of all ideologies have been having dialogue for decades. He didn’t have a good time at Speaker’s Corner, because after coming to the corner, he had to retract statements he had made, issue clarifications, in two cases he had to make 3 hour long videos with a 15 year old to clarify and respond to Muslims from Speaker’s Corner, instead of returning to dialogue with them face to face.

It’s therefore not odd to find him disparaging Muslims at Speaker’s Corner, mostly because in the past he has begged for, and pushed for debates with Muslims from Speaker’s Corner who want nothing to do with him because of his statements and behaviour. There is the case where he attacked the Muslim debater Darren Hamza Myatt after trying to get a debate away from Speaker’s Corner with him. There was the case where he did the same to Br. Mansur. I’ve collected some of those ridiculous comments and events by Jonathan here.

The fact remains, for a guy who hates Muslims, he sure finds it profitable to speak about them often.

and God knows best.

Is to Question, to Err?

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One of the ways we learn is by asking questions. I don’t believe that someone should be condemned or shunned for asking a question, especially when it is a request for someone to clarify and expound upon what they are saying. This post will highlight the need for meaningful interactions between Muslim and Christian apologists. Forgoing my disagreements with my friend and colleague Jonathan McLatchie, he recently posted in a group of mines regarding a seminar he recently held.

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Given my history with Jonathan, one may think I would comment on his post in an antagonistic manner, but as will be seen, this is not and will not be the case. Though I may disagree with Jonathan’s arguments, I prefer to have meaningful interaction with him, rather than argue without reason. Thus, when he posted his link, I left the following respectful comment:

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The aim of my respectful comment was to ask my friend Jonathan to explain his reasoning. To break down his argument(s) and to give me an example to qualify his claim. This is the usual way we approach arguments, by firstly asking for the person to explain their argument, and secondly by giving our response as to why we either agree or disagree with what they have presented. As follows, this was my friend Jonathan’s response:

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I would like to thank Jonathan for his respectful reply, though I may disagree with the conclusions he had reached. In writing this article, I hope to express to Jonathan that Muslims are willing to engage with him, despite past disagreements. With respect to his comment, I am quite uncertain as to how I failed to interact with his presentation, when I asked for him to give us an example from his presentation, an argument which demonstrated his claim of “undesigned coincidences”. I can’t interact with a video seminar, but I can certainly interact by asking the person presenting the argument to illustrate and explicate their claim. Secondly, I am also uncertain as to how simply asking a question would lead one to believe that I had failed to understand the subject. I had yet to respond to an argument he had presented, therefore I’m not sure how I could fail to interact with or to misunderstand something that was not given to me.

The question for us is, is to question, to err?

I don’t believe so. In respectful and meaningful dialogue, we hope that our questions can lead to elucidation as opposed to remonstration. Should Jonathan be willing to engage with Muslims on the subject of his video, I wish him to know that Blogging Theology, Calling Christians, along with my numerous Facebook groups and pages, of which he is a member of a number of them, that they are all available for him to engage in meaningful dialogue about his arguments.

Should there be any Christian willing to take up his cause and argue on his behalf, we would most certainly be welcomed to such a proposition. I firmly do not believe in “undesigned coincidences”, primarily because of the intertextuality of the Gospels, especially in regard to their archetypes, harmonizations and literary borrowing by their authors and scribes. I have discussed this topic previously in other posts, but I am looking for new, well taught out arguments on this topic to challenge the conclusions I already hold. Thus far, I have yet to see such an argument, but then again, this is why I’m posting about it publicly. Perhaps by some undesigned coincidence, I may perhaps find someone willing to provide such an argument.

and God knows best.

Missionary Mishap: McLatchie’s Mystery Math™

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When promoting yourself as leading an “academy”, it might be in your best interest to know how to count. Unfortunately, McLatchie’s Mystery Math™ strikes again. In a previous incident, McLatchie argued that God was 1/3 of God, leading to much ire from the Christian community and much backpedaling to no avail. Today, McLatchie’s Mystery Math™ strikes again:

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If it’s any consolidation, the inability to count does indeed indicate the quality of argument that the video offers. That being, little to none. It does serve as a warning to the video about the leaps in logic, reasoning, bias that the ~14 minute video presents.

Looks like we weren’t the only ones to heed the warning about the quality of content from Jonathan.

and God knows best.

Missionary Mishap: Jonathan McLatchie

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It seems odd that the Muslims at Hyde Park, the Muslims in Newcastle and Christian colleagues of Jonathan can all hold the same view of him. Either there is some crazy international conspiracy ongoing, or Jonathan has given the same negative impression of himself consistently to large groups of people. For starters we have a Christian colleague stating exactly the same thing that almost all other critics of him have said:

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Let’s do a quick checklist:

  1. Does Jonathan respond only to simple criticisms of Christianity? Yes.
  2. Has he only ever presented rehearsed arguments? Yes.
  3. Does he know Hebrew or Greek? No.
  4. Does anyone take his “apologetics” “academy” seriously? No.cc-2017-jm-donation
  5. Is Jonathan egoistic? Yes.
  6. Does Jonathan like to plaster images of himself everywhere? Yes.

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Okay, maybe we can forgive him for calling Muslims a cancer. Maybe we can forgive him for lying about the size of crowds attending his debates. Maybe we can forgive him for setting a bad example for his colleagues who insult and abuse those he disagrees with, claiming to humiliate people for the glory of Christ. Those things are to some extent character flaws that can be overlooked.

Yet, look at the first image presented. How does Jonathan proceed to disagree with a fellow Christian? By attacking his spelling. Of all things, Jonathan McLatchie who is pursuing a PhD, who is significantly older than I am in age, reduces himself to a spelling “apologist”. Not only does he like the comments being critical of the guy’s spelling, he proceeds to mock the guy about his spelling as well. Of all the things Jonathan is, he consistently demonstrates to Muslims and Christians alike that when disagreed with he immediately does three things:

  1. Threaten to block anyone who criticizes him.
  2. Mocks the person criticizing him.
  3. Likes comments of others engaging in the mocking.

This is a guy who wants people to take him seriously, but it is impossible that so many people from so many diverse backgrounds can walk away disagreeing with his behaviour without the problem being him. If it’s not myself, it’s Yahya Snow, if it’s not Yahya Snow it’s Paul Williams, if it’s not Paul Williams it’s Mansur, if it’s not Mansur it’s Darren Myatt, if it’s not Darren Myatt it’s Mustafa Ahmed, if it’s not Mustafa Ahmed it’s his University’s Chess team. I can literally write a paragraph or more of this immature and negative pattern of behaviour.

We sincerely pray that he can rectify his character.

Missionary Mishap: Missing McLatchie

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For what’s the 3rd time in as many months, Christians on Jonathan McLatchie’s “Apologetics” “Academy” have posted a lengthy discussion on popular and effective Christian apologists. It’s been over 12 hours and as expected, still no mention of Jonathan on his own academy group. You would think that maybe none of his friends were there or, colleagues who work with him on the “academy” were absent, but the case is, they were present and none of them decided to mention him in any capacity.

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The last time this occurred, he chided the group for participating in a “popularity” contest. Perhaps he thought third time would be the charm, but that did not turn out to be the case. Maybe the 4th time?

and God knows best.

Missionary Mishap: McLatchie Strikes Out

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The $579.88 (USD) per year Zoom platform that Jonathan McLatchie uses has struck out again. After spending so much money and time advertising it to his over 4,996 friends on Facebook and 3,977 members on his “Academy” group, he struck out once more:

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An amazing 0 likes and 0 comments on his own Facebook group dedicated to his “online Academy”, and that’s after an hour. When it comes to the actual Zoom room, he hit a very high number of viewers:

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5 viewers! He’s got quite the value there. That’s almost more than $100 dollars per person that he’s invested in. Well done Jonathan. Also 0 likes and 0 comments (at the time of posting we did like the post to give him some support).

Quite the success!

and God knows best.

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