{"id":5339,"date":"2009-07-23T00:09:46","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T00:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/plagiarizing-sermons.html"},"modified":"2009-07-23T00:09:46","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T00:09:46","slug":"plagiarizing-sermons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/plagiarizing-sermons.html","title":{"rendered":"Plagiarizing Sermons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Preaching.jpg\"<\/span>A repost on a topic that is always relevant<\/em>:
\nThe NY Times<\/em> ran an article about pastors swiping sermons from sermon sources, and then Out of Ur<\/a> ran a piece which got some comments. I’m wondering what you think. Here are my thoughts:<\/p>\n

I once was in a situation when a pastor admitted to using sermons from sermon sources, and he also said he hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with it. What most confused me about the situation was that he was using illustrations from other preachers in the first person — and you really did think these experiences were his. So far as I know, he stopped.<\/p>\n

What are the issues? Here’s what I see: <\/p>\n


\n
First, it is not honest. Part of the pastoral task is to preach (if
\nthat is part of your “job description”), and that means preparing their
\nown sermons. I don’t know any search committees that prefer their
\npastoral candidates and preachers to use sermon sources in order to
\nborrow or swipe sermons preached by others on a routine basis or
\nwithout acknowledgement.<\/p>\n

Second, the temptation is evidently strong, and I’d like to know what
\nyou think drives pastors to plagiarize sermons, but here’s what I see.
\nSometimes they don’t have the time to get a sermon ready. Sometimes
\nthey have too many sermons or talks to get ready for the week and
\nresort to using somebody else’s for one of the talks. Sometimes the
\npressure to be a good preacher is so strong the preacher is tempted to
\nuse someone else’s already-shown-to-be-good sermon. Sometimes there are
\nso many good preachers in the area swiping sermons is the only way a
\npreacher can “compete.” Sometimes a pastor’s job is on the line for how
\nhe or she preaches and they are able to postpone the inevitable with a
\nfew good sermons swiped from a source.<\/p>\n

Third, pastors should not subscribe to such services if they are at all
\ntempted to swipe sermons. I suppose these services are designed to help
\npastors see what good preaching looks like — but that’s another
\nseries. If the temptation is there, it is far wiser to make it
\nunavailable.<\/p>\n

Fourth, sermon services are partly culpable here: I’ve never been part
\nof this so I’d like to hear how they work. Do they warn of plagiarism?
\nDo they educate on the proper use? Someone will know more than I about
\nthese services.<\/p>\n

Fifth, what is a sermon? Well, it’s a whole life brought to bear on a
\ntext each week for a single 30 minute or so sermon before a specific
\ncongregation. It shames the preacher not to be who he or she is in the
\npulpit, and to pretend to be someone else. It de-localizes the sermon
\nfrom the local context. It distorts who the preacher is before the
\ncongregation. So, the sermon is highly biblical, highly personal,
\nhighly local, and highly temporal: it is the individual preacher
\nengaging God and Bible and congregation, in that specific location, for
\nthat time.<\/p>\n

Sixth, which brings up the philosophical issue: Is there not nothing
\nnew under the sun? Well said. To be sure, nearly every sermon emerges
\nfrom books and sermons and ideas and all sorts of things that were
\nused. But it is bricolage, it is quilting, it is convergence — it is
\nprecisely those things and not simple usage of others. It brings
\ntogether other people’s ideas and says so if it is substantial; but it
\nis a uniquely personal, local, and temporal bringing of those things
\ntogether. Taking someone’s sermon destroys the bricolage and turns it
\ninto a canned, deceitful act of creating a false image in front of
\nGod’s people. Now let’s be honest: sermons don’t have footnotes and
\nneed not. You need not end each separable idea with a “I got this point
\nfrom Ortberg and this one from Niebuhr and that one from Bonhoeffer.”
\nWe all use things from others in sermons, and when we use a lot from
\nsomeone about some point, we say so. By and large the congregation
\ndoesn’t care about that. But, I think they expect the preacher to be
\npreaching his or her own sermon and not someone else’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A repost on a topic that is always relevant: The NY Times ran an article about pastors swiping sermons from sermon sources, and then Out of Ur ran a piece which got some comments. I’m wondering what you think. Here are my thoughts:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastoring-and-preaching"],"yoast_head":"\nPlagiarizing Sermons - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/07\/plagiarizing-sermons.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Plagiarizing Sermons - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A repost on a topic that is always relevant: The NY Times ran an article about pastors swiping sermons from sermon sources, and then Out of Ur ran a piece which got some comments. 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