Hillary Clinton's pastor plagiarized parts of his new book
Rev. Bill Shillady (above) has been Hillary Clinton's pastor for years
A Methodist pastor who has been Hillary Clinton’s minister for years plagiarized the writings of another minister in a new book, it was reported on Monday.
Rev. Bill Shillady is the author of a new book, Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The book is based on emails that Shillady wrote to Clinton during the presidential campaign.
Clinton even appears on the cover of the book and she even wrote a foreword praising the minister.
While the book includes 11 pages of end notes crediting source material, Shillady fails to credit another source, a blog post by Rev. Matthew Deuel, even though he borrowed heavily from it in his book, CNN reported.
The passage in question is a devotion that appears strikingly similar to the column written by Deuel, a pastor at Mission Point Community Church in Warsaw, Indiana.
Shillady said on Monday that he was ‘stunned’ by the similarities between the email he wrote to Clinton and the blog post.
Deuel told CNN that he and Shillady talked and that he had accepted his apology.
Shillady is the author of a new book, Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The book is based on emails that Shillady wrote to Clinton during the presidential campaign. Shillady and Clinton are seen in the above undated file photo
The devotion is titled ‘Sunday Is Coming.’ It was sent by Shillady to Clinton on November 9, the day after she lost the presidential election to Donald Trump.
When CNN published the email last week, it was widely shared on social media.
Deuel came across the post and noticed something unusual – some of the passages bore similarities to a blog post he wrote in March 2016.
"For the disciples and Christ followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart,’ Deuel wrote in his blog post.
‘All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man, claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.’
Clinton even appears on the cover of the book (above) and she even wrote a foreword praising the minister
Compare the wording of that passage to the email that Shillady sent to Clinton and which appears in his upcoming book: ‘For the disciples and Christ's followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart.
‘All was lost. The momentum and hope of a man claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been executed.’
Deuel’s post reads: ‘Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. Redemption is coming. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.’
Shillady’s email to Clinton, which appears in the book, reads: ‘Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.’
Shillady told CNN that segments of the passages he sent to Clinton were taken from material he found on the Internet.
'I do not remember cutting and pasting from a particular column so much as bits and pieces from a variety of places on the Internet,' Shillady said.
The minister later released a statement saying: ‘In preparing the devotional on the morning of November 9, I was determined to provide comfort with the familiar adage that “It's Friday But Sunday is Coming”.
‘I searched for passages that offered perspective of this theme.
‘I am now stunned to realize the similarity between Matt Deuel's blog sermon and my own.
Shillady fails to credit a source, a blog post by Rev. Matthew Deuel (above), even though he borrowed heavily from it in his book
‘Clearly, portions of my devotional that day incorporate his exact words. I apologize to Matt for not giving him the credit he deserves.’
Shillady’s book was published by Abingdon Press, the book publishing arm of the United Methodist Publishing House.
Abingdon’s editor-in-chief, Mary Catherine Dean, told CNN: ‘Strong For A Moment Like This is a heavily annotated work, in which Rev. Shillady has credited more than 200 sources.
‘We worked with Rev. Shillady to faithfully cite all of the many contributors to the devotionals.
‘His failure to attribute portions of the November 9 devotional does not change the fact that the 365 passages in the book were sent to Hillary Clinton, are part of the historical record of her campaign, and gave her the inspiration to stay strong.’
Deuel said that while he was ‘shocked’ at seeing passages from his blog lifted without attribution, he is ‘not interested in publicly pursuing anything.’
‘The last thing the world needs right now is two pastors having a public dispute over a blog. The reality is, there's nothing new under the sun.
‘If my blog then, in turn, inspired Rev. Shillady and it was used to encourage Hillary Clinton, then praise God for that! Could it have been done differently? Probably,’ Deuel said.
‘But for me to fire back publicly would be inappropriate and out of line on my part.’