Plagiarizing in the Pulpit
19 comments | PermalinkA couple of years ago my friend Matt Perman and I wrote an article called What Is Plagiarism? for the Desiring God website. As you can imagine, it is not uncommon at our ministry for us to receive letters from pastors confessing that they have plagiarized from John Piper, or for us to inadvertently discover the plagiarism online.
It all sounds so familiar.
Glenn Wagner, senior pastor at one of the largest churches in
Early last year I was informed by a member of a church in another state that his pastor was re-preaching my sermons without attribution. Listening to tapes of this unknown man was eerie—particularly when he told one of my personal stories, saying he was quoting “a missionary”—but then, after saying “end quote,” he continued to speak my very words. I felt violated—just as if someone had broken into my house and rifled through my possessions.
Why would a pastor do such a thing? Glenn says he felt “tired and discouraged,” “devoid of any creative ability.” The other pastor said he was burned out. Both had tried to resign prior to the plagiarism, and both had been convinced to stay by others in the church.
But tiredness and a lack of creative energy are not fundamental to this problem. When feeling burned out, both pastors could have sought permission to re-preach others’ sermons, and then given attribution. But both men chose not to do so. Why?
There is only one answer, and it is an ugly one: Pride. For a pastor to admit to his congregation that he cannot compose a sermon is a statement of weakness, of inadequacy. And most church members do not want inadequate pastors.
Can you imagine a pastor confessing, “I am burned out. I need your prayers.
My time in the Word is dry. So I’m going to preach for you a fine sermon another man wrote. May God bless you through it.” Would you respond, “How unprofessional! If I acted that way in my job, I would be fired!”
Guess what? Every pastor is inadequate for the task. Every pastor is incompetent for the ministry. As Paul says, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 3:5). So how much of a pastor’s impact on his congregation comes from him?
Nothing—nothing that is of any ultimate importance. We are not adequate to consider anything as coming from ourselves! But Paul continues, “But our adequacy is from God.” Pastors must be called and empowered by God to accomplish God’s work in God’s church. Then—and only then—will they be adequate, competent, sufficient for God’s task.
Charles Spurgeon admitted, “I scarcely ever come into this pulpit without bemoaning myself that ever I should be called to a task for which I seem more unfit than any other man that ever was born.” If we preachers speak before our congregations with any other attitude, we too will be subject to the bane of pride.
So what can you do? What attitude should you have toward your pastor?
First, expect weakness from him. Expect brokenness from him. Know that he struggles with pride and many other sins, and that he needs to be held accountable before others.
Second, speak to him about the temptation of plagiarism. Tell him that if he ever feels burned out and dry, you will support him. Remind him that he is personally inadequate for his task—but that God will make him adequate, in part through the prayers of His people. And commit yourself to praying for him.
Finally, examine your heart. Is your pride wrapped up in the status of your pastor? Do you brag to others about his skills and leadership? That’s part of the problem. So many of us put our pastors on a pedestal, and then we pastors feel we must live there, pretending we are perfect, pretending that all is going well, plastering a smile on our faces, effectively lying to our congregations, thinking that if we admit our problems we will damage our peoples’ faith in God.
God has entrusted pastors with a magnificent ministry—but He wraps this ministry in the inadequate, weak, easily-broken jars of clay that we are.
And “we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). May the glory of God shine through the weakness of pastors, so that all might know that whatever our churches may accomplish, all results from God’s power, and not from our professionalism.
posted by JT at Monday, April 25, 2005
19 Comments:
Hi Josh.
Thanks for this post. I agree about the importance of acknowledging sources where possible. And you have reminded me of one devotional where I failed to do this! Stink! Now to go fix it up...
Alistair
Fortunately for us in the academic realm there is a wonderful on-line program (http://turnitin.com) that we can use that identifies whether our students' papers show any plagiarism, how much is plagiarized, the on-line source of plagiarism, etc. The tool does have a cost, but academic institutions would be wise to spend the money for the service. It provides indisputable and incontrovertible evidence.
Regrettably, I had to take action against a student within this month for massive amounts of plagiarism in six different assignments. The student claimed innocence by accidental plagiarism. The evidence was obviously contrary to the claims.
ABCaneday
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Professor Caneday,
Knowing plagiarism is stealing. As Christians, how are we supposed to help our brothers and sisters in the Lord who are tempted to sin in this area before it turns into sin? Can a student go to his professor now-a-days and say he doesn't get it?
I know a certain responsibility lies with student studying, but writing a research paper isn't an easy task.
Paul,
I think a few examples of plagiarism usually suffice for most students. With turnitin.com it is very easy to demonstrate plagiarism because the program highlights plagiarized text with color coding. It discriminates copied text from occasional quotations, short allusions, etc.
Plagiarism is akin to forgery. I think we also have to address the difference between plagiarism and the kind of thing we find in the Synoptic Gospels.
ABCaneday
Professor Caneday,
As ministers of the Gospel, are we not our brother's keeper, helping our brothers and sisters in the Lord to help avoid the temptation to steal (forgery, plagiarism) before it turns into sin? In a christian classroom setting, does not the professor have to wear two hats, one of a pastor, the other of the professor?
Paul
Paul,
You asked, In a christian classroom setting, does not the professor have to wear two hats, one of a pastor, the other of the professor?
Yes, we do, if we do our work well and rightly. When I had to deal with the recent case of plagiarism, I spent nearly 50 hours in one week on the case. Yet, the student showed no remorse, other than having been caught. I pray that my pastoral handling of the matter will have deep impact eventually, when the student regains some sense of shame and sinfulness about the matter in place of bitterness, resentment, and anger which presently dominate.
ABCaneday
Professor Caneday,
My motive behind asking you those questions is that someday soon, God would bring me back to bible college or seminary, to help stengthen the call of God on my life which is Pastor-Teacher. My first time at bible college was in 1997. Thankfully, all the professors at that collage were required to be Pastors first. These professors were approachable if we had problems and temptations. I am looking forward in going back to a college like the one I went to before.
There's obviously a problem with dishonesty, but I don't think lack of originality in the pulpit is a bad thing at all. As Al Plantinga said recently, most of the true things have already been said, so if we're saying something entirely new, it's probably false. This is especially true in theology. Are congregations too demanding of originality?
I once heard that T.S. Elliot said, "Immature poets imitate. Mature poets steal."
All kidding aside, plagiarizing sermons is a real problem today. I think that part of the problem is today's focus of the pastor's role as being that of an administrator. Most pastors are spending so much time trying to be better "church ceo's" rather than in the Word doing sermon prep. That's messed up.
We need to reconsider a pastor's job description. If you're spending 30 to 40 hours doing administration chores or visiting people, then, of course, this severely limits your time to prepare.
Too many pastor-teachers are trying to do the work of the ministry instead of equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry.
We all would do well to give Baxter's 'Reformed Pastor' another read.
With all due respect to the other commentors, I really like how Coty Pinckney humbly suggests that pastors could openly borrow from other pastors and read others sermons for their own congregations. This, to me, is akin to a group of friends sitting around a living room and listening to a John Piper mp3 and having some ministry time with each other.
And, besides that, I think a lot of pastors would be doing *much better* to read other sermons that were not their own. Others may argue that then these men should not be preaching pastors. But I'm also speaking from the conviction that these pastors are the majority and to have them stop borrowing or stop preaching is simply inconceivable.
anon, started reading that book a few days ago. What's with the part in the intro by Packer that says Baxter formulated his own doctrine of justification that was midway between 'reformed', arminian, and catholic?
Seeing the seriousness of the sin of plagiarism, one needs to look at awlful situation at the World blog concerning Douglas Wilson.
April 23 - "Wilson-Wilkins booklet: plagiarized and revised"
has 266 comments so far, eeeeh!
http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/
This topic is very interesting because I did not realize that we had pastor's of the church plagiarizing in the poolpit.
From reading others comments, I can definately agree with some of the view points. But what I do not understand is why anyone in the church would plagiarize someone elses message.
I guess I had always believed that if one was chosen to hold a certain position that would allow he or she to teach and preach Gods word, I thought that the message would be in his or her spirit, and not using someone elses words.
However, if we as students, authors, writers, columists and etc..are held accountable for such act, then I believe they should be held acountable as well. This is definately unacceptable behavior, and it should not be tolerated; especailly in the church....
I am the Associate Pastor of a relatively small church of about 250. About a year ago I kept getting this impression that our Senior Pastor sounded very different in person than when he delivered his messages; his terminology and phrasing didn't seem to be his own. For the ten years I've known him he has been a "manuscript" preacher which I always encouraged him to get away from because it distanced him from the listeners. I never suspected until about a year ago that he was delivering someone elses messages.
On a whim after one Sunday morning, I looked for his message on a well known sermon website and found not only the message but also the entire series he was doing. I researched other messages and checked out about 30-40 messages since that time and they're all from this one website. At times he is completely word-for-word reading the messages and at times he inserts some new material or makes other changes. He has never given credit for any message to any other person. In some instances he's used personal illustrations from the original author with little change such that it's hard to believe he could have had such a parallel experience.
I've not confronted him because I've not been certain of the Scriptural context for this sort of thing because the messages he's copying aren't copywrited. What I've read here makes me more and more certain that I do need to confront him. However, I'm convinced that he will be crushed that I've found him out and also be overwhelmed at the prospect of creating his own messages. In the end I think he will likely leave the ministry. I would appreciate any insights and prayers anyone can provide! Thanks.
great article.
sadly, three groups are robbed.
the pastor that preached it originally.
the church that hears the duplicate.
the pastor who preaches someone else's message rather than experiencing the benefits of working through the Word personally.
and to think it is advised...
I can relate to one of the posts above. Our pastor has also been using sermons from online, which I discovered quite by accident. Sometimes it is word-for-word and sometimes he adds a few things here and there.
He makes a big deal at church about the many hours of research he puts into his messages. He also inserts himself or family members into anecdotes from other people's sermons. He makes it sound as if all of these things happened to them, and now it is obvious to me they have not. maybe I find this the most deceptive part of the whole thing.
I have been very torn about what to do. Our small church has had some other problems in the last year or so, and I don't want to do anything to cause further damage.
I think this post offers a very understanding and compassionate way of approaching the pastor on this. I feel it would be better for me to do this than leave the church. Leaving would not help anyone.
Like the other poster, I send this anonymously to protect anyone involved.
I think we have to be careful on this subject not to be judgemental. In Ecclesiates it states that "there is nothing new under the sun". In music, there is no "new" chords or notes, not one that hasn't been played or arranged by someone at sometime. Pride would have us think that we can come up with some new revelation or way of putting God's Word in a sermon when in reality we are about "reproduction" of the good news of Christ. Take the basics of a good sermon that someone has preached, add or arrange in a way that you are gifted and release it to edify those that we preach to. I've written many songs as a musician and never worried too much about copywrite protection as I feel that every inspiration I get is from God & if someone wants to take it then God will give me something better! There is nothing that has not been preached, no subject that has not been taught & yet we can easily be caught up and outraged at someone taking someone else's material and "reproducing it". I'm not sure if that ultimately is distracting and taking ownership of inspiration that comes from God anyway. Just thought on the subject.
A number of years ago I heard Francis Rossow, homiletics professor at Concordia Seminary, begin a chapel sermon by citing the source of his outline and adding, "but the development of that outline is my own." Since then, I have done the same when working from published outlines. I find the discipline causes me to limit the amount of borrowing that I do. I also try to give the sources of stories or quotations in an informal way. The only comment anyone has ever made about this practice, was from the grandson of a man whose outline I had borrowed. He was pleased to hear his grandfather's name mentioned and his ideas respectfully used. One final word of encouragement: since finding and becoming comfortable with my own voice, I found it faster and easier to develop my own sermon than to learn someone elses.
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