Plagiarism and the Collapse of the G3 Ministry

On August 17, the “polemical Christian news and discernment outlet” Protestia published a story indicating that it had received an anonymous dossier accusing Southern Baptist pastor Tom Buck of plagiarism in his sermons.

Buck, who is the lead pastor of the First Baptist Church (FBC) of Lindale in Texas, has been both a divisive figure in his own right and staunch critic of sermon plagiarism. However, the dossier claimed that Buck had engaged in hypocrisy by plagiarizing multiple sermons or parts of his sermons from the Preaching the Word commentary series, which is edited by R. Kent Hughes.

However, any hopes that the allegations would end or harm Buck’s career were quickly dashed. Shortly after the allegations were made, the “anonymous” authors of the dossier were revealed to be the board members of the G3 Ministry, a Reformed Baptist ministry that hosted a prominent conference on theology and worked to harmonize theology between churches.

Buck, a former long-time board member of G3 Ministry, denied the allegations and said they had been made in bad faith. He further added that the FBC had previously been made aware of the allegations and, though finding that there were some instances where he did not give proper credit, had not found a widespread pattern of plagiarism or any infraction that warranted disciplinary action.

With the focus squarely on the actions of the G3 Ministry, the organization issued a public apology to Buck, four of the organization’s elders resigned and they announced the immediate dissolution of the G3 Church Network.

So how did an allegation of plagiarism go so wrong? As with many things, the devil is in the details.

How Not to Make an Allegation of Plagiarism

According to the original (anonymous) letter, the group had sent the dossier to the elders of FBC of Lindale in March 2026. The letter alleged that they church had not taken action against Buck for his alleged “public sin.”

However, according to Buck, the elders and others aware of the situation, the church had addressed the issues. They had convened the elders, Buck recused himself from the case, and they had found that, while there were several instances where Buck could have and should have given better credit, that the majority of the allegations were overblown.

They decided that no disciplinary action was warranted, but encouraged Buck to take steps to improve his attribution and citation in the future.

Apparently, that response was inadequate for the creators of the dossier. Earlier this month, they began sending it to news outlets, including Protestia. However, Protestia didn’t simply publish or investigate the allegations. They not only asked the FBC of Lindale to comment on the story, but traced the “anonymous” authors of the dossier to the G3 Ministry.

That said, the G3 Ministry was likely a suspect from the beginning. That’s because in May 2025, then-G3 President Josh Buice was caught using a series of anonymous accounts to publish criticism and allegations targeting other religious leaders. He was disqualified as an elder from Pray’s Mill Baptist Church and resigned from his position at G3 Ministry.

All this put the focus less on the allegations themselves and more on how they were made. The anonymous attempt to interfere in the proceedings of another church was seen as a bigger issue than the allegations themselves, regardless of their validity.

The blame ended up landing on four elders of the G3 Ministry, Scott Aniol (who was named president after Buice), Matt Sikes, Dylan Joyner and Jon Norton. All four men are also elders at Pray’s Mill Baptist Church.

In their apology letter, they acknowledged they had, “sinfully meddled in the disciplinary process of your autonomous local church” and that they, “sinned by characterizing how your church handled its discipline situation without knowing all the details.”

Shortly after that G3 dissolved its church network and deleted its social media accounts and website.

When it comes to making an allegation of plagiarism, the accusers did pretty much everything wrong. However, it’s impossible to ignore just how terrible the timing was in light of recent events.

A Different Climate

The original Protestia article was published just three days after the tragic death of Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor who was accused of plagiarism in his dissertation and became the subject of a media frenzy.

Though the allegations against Arday had begun in early 2023, they became a matter of public discourse in July 2026 following a publication by Nathan Cofnas, a staunch critic of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and a self-described “race realist” who also has a personal grudge against Cambridge.

Despite the complete bad faith of the allegations, they became the subject of a media storm. Mainstream media outlets, in particular in the UK, began to cover the story and investigate other elements of Arday’s life and career.

As pressure mounted on Arday, he resigned from Cambridge. Shortly after that, on August 14, he was found dead in his home. Though no cause of death has been publicly announced, it is widely believed to be due to suicide.

Since Arday’s death, the focus has been turned back to the media, in particular onto Cofnas himself, who was recently suspended from his position at Ghent University pending an investigation into statements he’s made about race.

While the fallout from the Arday story is still ongoing, to put it bluntly, this was the absolutely worst possible time to make what was essentially another bad-faith allegation of plagiarism. Though I don’t know why the G3 Ministry would want to make such an allegation against Buck, between the anonymous submissions, the escalation to the media and the dubious allegations themselves, it was pretty clear that they were hoping to punish him rather than correct the record.

To make matters worse, they had just been caught using similar tactics against other religious leaders just 15 months ago. The community was already on alert for more “anonymous” allegations from the ministry’s members and they were going to be the prime suspect regardless of whether they had done it or not.

With both cases, the veracity of the allegations has become less important than how and why they were made. Whether it’s race, politics, personal grudges or something else entirely, the reasons for making plagiarism allegations are being closely scrutinized.

This may finally curb the rampant weaponization of plagiarism. Even then, it’s a shame that it took a tragedy for that to happen.

Bottom Line

The allegations against Buck were misguided in almost every way. What veracity there is or may be to the allegations is irrelevant when compared to the bad faith they were made in. Between the anonymous submissions and the way that they were distributed, it’s clear that this was an attack on Buck, not an attempt to right a wrong.

To be clear, I am not going to say whether Buck plagiarized or not. Not only have I not independently reviewed the allegations, but, as I’ve said many times before, attribution and citation norms around religious leaders are a matter for the church to decide. Different religions, different denominations and even churches within the same denomination have different norms in this space. What one considers plagiarism may be standard practice for another.

As a secular plagiarism expert, this is not my place to dictate norms.

What this story illustrates is that, for the first time I’ve seen it, plagiarism accusers are being scrutinized for why they are raising the allegations. While I do worry that this might chill legitimate expressions of concern about plagiarism, there’s been a need to de-weaponize this issue for a long, long time.

No matter how valid the concerns raised by the dossier are, there is a big difference between wielding plagiarism as a weapon to hurt someone and using it as a tool to ensure academic, research, creative or theological integrity.

It’s pretty clear which case this was. To that end, I’m happy to see that the accusers have been rightly called out for the manipulative tactics.