Within Protestant apologetics, Wesley Huff has been the hottest name ever since his appearance on Joe Rogan back in 2025. In a field that is rife with egalitarians and political liberals, Huff was a change of pace, offering a more masculine face that also espoused reformed theology. While his prominence has been an improvement, he has quickly made various content alliances with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Peterson Academy.
At the time, his alignment teaching theology under the more academically minded Peterson Academy left something to be desired. Huff’s content, like his Can I Trust the Bible series, is very approachable for the layman, but Bishop Robert Barron, through Peterson Academy was teaching a more complicated and exclusive series on the Summa Theologica. Barron was a seminary professor while Huff lacked a doctorate.
This critique from July has become all the more relevant as Wes Huff has been accused of academic plagiarism, most notably by Dan McClellan. Now, McClellan is a Mormon democrat who does YouTube slop apologetics and has grown a channel with 281K subs.
The bulk of his video does a side by side analysis of a theology paper Huff wrote back in 2016 while pursuing his masters at Tyndale Seminary. The paper is about Jesus as Theos where Huff cites extensively the author Brian J. Wright. McClellan does an analysis which found that Huff systematically borrowed his arguments, the order of presentation, and used identical bibliographic errors as his sources (like Wright). In layman’s terms, Huff was taking Wright’s word that he had correctly used the source rather than double checking the material which then created errors in his paper.
Others have found issues in his works relating to the use of arguments or citations from David Yoon, Stephen C. Carlson, Alan Kurschner, and Nathan Eubank. This is an example from Carlson where the blue text represents something Huff “plagiarized” with underlined phrases being reworded from the original.
Huff issued a response to the plagiarism scandal by stating that he would “cancel Wes Huff from 2016 or maybe even 2017 and 2018.” He also argued that the website Academia.edu was like a Dropbox and that not all his papers uploaded were submitted and none of them were peer reviewed. Many have disputed whether Academia.edu is a “Dropbox” as he described and also expressed doubts to whether they were drafts rather than the submitted coursework, since the documents had dated cover sheets. He even featured Brian Wright in his video where Wright is content with his work being used for the glory of God, believing the attacks on Huff (and himself) were “making much out of nothing.” Huff acknowledges the poor work but stops short of using the term plagiarism.
Analysis
There are multiple issues at hand. The first is the question of plagiarism. Huff was performing course work for a graduate level class and while his argumentation and citations might be sloppy, the purpose of the essay is to receive a good grade. Outside of STEM fields, Americans go to college to get a piece of paper that allows them to get a well-paying job. Thanks to Griggs v. Duke Power Co., employers cannot administer aptitude tests because minorities would have disparate results, so they outsource the entry level credentials to the university system. Right-clicking for synonyms in Microsoft Word to reword something is that college kids do, and Huff relied upon the accuracy of Wright’s citations to save him time on his assignment. Is it lazy? Sure. But plagiarism is not disqualifying as many are making it out to be. The only reason people care is because it is Wes Huff.
The claim that plagiarism is categorically sinful is also lacking in merit as its definition is entirely rooted in academia verses Scriptural authority. If one were to back-test the rigorous academic standards of plagiarism across time, then many theologians and even the inspired authors of Scripture would be guilty by modern standards. Is an argument really something someone can claim ownership over? The idea of intellectual property is dubious in terms of the 8th Commandment since the existence of IP is entirely dependent on State recognition of such property rights over often intangible ideas. Even such rights are only recognized by the State for a defined period for the purpose of monetization and are not protected in perpetuity as tangible property ownership is continuous. Certain ideas, like recipes or playbooks, have no legal protections while all art eventually reverts to the public domain. This same issue occurs with AI creating content based on the designs of copyrighted content or the likeness of celebrities, which is a grey area, yet to call it theft in the true sense of the 8th Commandment is unconvincing. Intellectual property is a property the government allows to exist for economic purposes, but regarding plagiarism, the standard only exists within a particular environment rather than all spheres of society, rendering a charge of theft one inconsistent application.
Outside of academic circles, few really care about plagiarism. Ironically, Scott Aniol and G3 Ministries fell because they attempted to accuse Tom Buck of plagiarism in sermons. To accuse a pastor of plagiarism in a sermon over misattributed materials is extremely petty, and hardly anyone in the pews wants their pastor citing APA style every Sunday. It is expected that a pastor will take inspiration from another man’s material in preparing the sermon. They might care if the pastor completely outsources the sermon preparation, though often such churches are paying for those services so it is neither fraud nor theft in a technical sense. Moreover, to accuse Buck of plagiarism is to claim ownership over an element of a worship service that is given to God. The worship belongs to God, not man.
The last question is that of Wes Huff. Huff is not an academic. His skillset is that he can package apologetic material and make it relatable for the laymen. His relationship with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary allows him to bring on more academic minds to discuss issues with his audience, but Huff himself is not that guy. This scandal ultimately proves that he takes too many shortcuts in his academic work, which while fine for most college students, due to his public persona will be used against him if he presses his expertise going forward. He does not need a doctorate to be a successful apologist for Christianity. He only needs to have access to the guys who do. In the end, Wes Huff is a media personality, not an academic, just as Bill Nye is the Science Guy, not a scientist.
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