Re: Wrong !
http://exchersonesusaurea.blogspot.sg/2012/07/city-harvest-churchs-senior-pastor-phil.html
Credentials of City Harvest Church's Kong Hee and Phil Pringle
"Dr" Phil Pringle and "Dr" Kong Hee?
We should place absolutely no value on doctorates and other academic degrees from independent (not affiliated with any mainline Christian denomination) theological schools and bible colleges, especially those in the USA, unless evidence to the contrary is provided.
Rev "Dr" Phil Pringle (newly appointed senior pastor of City Harvest Church, PhD, New Covenant International University (NCIU) 1999) and Rev "Dr" Kong Hee (Master of Divinity, New Covenant (NCIU)
1989-91; Doctor of Theology, New Covenant (NCIU) 1993-95 [see below]) both have their master's and doctorates from the grandly named New Covenant International University and Theological Seminary (NCIU) (or New Covenant University, or New Covenant International University, or some such name), in Lake Worth, Florida.
Is New Covenant International Theological Seminary a bona fide seminary or a diploma mill? The issue is discussed in blog posts here, here and here. Unsurprisingly overwhelming doubt about its genuineness remains.
"New Covenant International University and Theological Seminary [NCIU] is a distance-learning university and theological seminary that seeks to meet some of the educational needs of today’s diverse, global body of believers." (source)
NCIU has no campus, no curriculum, no facilities, no office. It uses Trinity Church International (TCI) as its mailing address (7255 South Military Trail, Lake Worth, Florida 33463, USA). However, no connection between TCI and NCIU is acknowledged.
My strong impression is that NCIU is a diploma mill, with doctorates and master's degrees for sale, where any incoherent, plagiarized essay qualifies as a doctoral thesis or dissertation.
NCIU (with a mailing address in Hawaii in 1993) is listed in Steve Levicoff's "Name It and Frame It?", an investigation into "Christian" degree mills, as a suspected degree mill.
If NCIU is indeed a bogus school, then Kong Hee has never taken any courses (not even by mail) normally expected of a pastor in a mainline Christian denomination.
Did Kong Hee's probably bogus master's degree help him in getting ordained in 1991?
What does it say about the honesty and integrity of Kong Hee and Pringle that they would seek to impress their flocks with probably bogus "doctorates" from an outfit such as NCIU?
Kong Hee's NCIU credentials date as far back as 1989, when he was 25 and starting City Harvest Church. This fact casts a very long shadow on his integrity. I had thought that he succumbed to the temptation of wealth and fame much later on in his career. However the seed of corruption seems to have been sown a long way back.
Kong Hee's plagiarism
In March 2010, a blogger identified plagiarism in Kong Hee's 'Daily Devotionals' as they were similar to writings in another publication, "The Leadership Bible", which was published 10 years earlier. The plagiarized text were published in two books, "Renewing Your Spiritual Energy in 90 Days" without accreditation to the original authors. Apart from "The Leadership Bible", the blogger also alleged other works that have been plagiarized, include content by well-known Christian authors Derek Prince, Neil Anderson, Professor Sid Buzzell and Dr Kenneth Boa. Prof Buzzell, a dean of the school of theology at Colorado Christian University, had warned that continued plagiarism may force them to seek legal advice.
Kong Hee posted a note on his website and explained that the devotion was "originally meant only for internal circulation among the members of my church. As such, there was an oversight in not quoting the sources of some portions that borrow from the writings of other Christian authors." There was also an apology for the oversight. (source)
