On Pulpit Plagiarism

Introduction

Substantial ink has been spilled over the past two decades on the problem of evangelical pastors plagiarizing sermons. The consensus in the evangelical church is that plagiarizing sermons is a sin that ought to be categorically rejected. In their popular article addressing plagiarism in Christian ministry, Matt Perman and Justin Taylor explain

The central problem with plagiarism is twofold: (1) it is stealing; and (2) it bears false witness. Obviously, both of these are unacceptable for Bible-believing Christians (see Exodus 20:15; Mark 10:19; Matthew 15:19, etc). Stealing and bearing false witness fail to love your neighbor as yourself (Romans 13:9). The words and ideas of another person are precisely that–their words or ideas. To fail to acknowledge their source is to give the false impression that they have originated with you. Hence, plagiarism steals from another and gives a false impression to your audience. Both of these factors should be of utmost concern to the Christian, and especially pastors and teachers who should have the utmost respect for the sanctity of truth.¹

Perman and Taylor reveal what is really at stake: reputation. At a time when the church is being assailed for its apparent failure to properly address gender ideology, racial injustice, and COVID-19 restrictions, pulpit plagiarism may be the next proving ground for the church. I believe this may be especially true as the church wrestles with AI use in ministry. However, contrary to the consensus among evangelicals, I contend that the church should reject modern expectations with respect to pulpit plagiarism—a worldly system centered on getting credit for originality. Instead, the church must build its reputation on pastors diligently and faithfully proclaiming the Word of God. I will demonstrate that:

What kind of thing is plagiarism?

While many Christians have attempted to define plagiarism or to describe what it looks like, none have adequately examined a basic question: what kind of thing is plagiarism? As the editor-in-chief of The Gospel Coalition, even Collin Hansen misses the mark. In an article series from 2010 on plagiarism, Hansen recounts an experience he had as a victim of plagiarism:

Studying journalism and history in college, I learned again and again about the evils of plagiarism. If I were caught plagiarizing, I risked expulsion from school or at least a failing grade for the course. If a boss found me plagiarizing my research, professors warned me, I would be fired on the spot. Indeed, many professionals have ruined their careers by stealing someone’s political speech or academic thesis and calling it their own.

I learned, though, that evangelicals tend to hold a different view about plagiarism. I was told that pastors live by a different set of rules from the media and the academy. Whether preaching a sermon or even writing a book, I was told, pastors shouldn’t be expected to cite all their references or feel the need to rework someone else’s material in their own words. Apparently this sort of thing happens all the time among pastors. In this case, it wasn’t worth even writing the pastor a note to caution him against such actions in the future.

Years later, this situation still doesn’t sit well with me. I know there are different rules for plagiarism in spoken contexts, compared with material that’s sold for profit (as in this case). I know pastors are busy and face many temptations to take others’ research and writing. And I know we Christians are not looking for new ideas about the gospel, so in one sense we’re all repeating the same old, old messages from God’s Word.

Still, I can’t help but think of pulpit plagiarism as an integrity issue…²

Hansen identifies plagiarism as evil. Some allowance could be made for hyperbole, but Hansen later doubles down: “I can’t help but think of pulpit plagiarism as an integrity issue.” In other words, Hansen sees the issue of plagiarism as a moral one. Notwithstanding the fact that his convictions were born from his time in academia and publishing, Hansen expresses dismay that “evangelicals tend to hold a different view about plagiarism”. The point here is that Hansen assumes that plagiarism is a moral issue and never questions whether it actually is.

But Hansen also concedes that plagiarism is a violation of rules for certain professionals. In his estimation, pastors are professionals like professors, speechwriters, researchers, and writers. (Yet interestingly, Hansen acknowledges that the church is a distinct institution from the media and the academy.) According to Hansen, sermons are also in the same category as papers, speeches, theses, and books: material that should be manipulated until it feels original. (Although it is curious here too that he recognizes that Christians should not be looking for novelty in preaching.) The possibility that pastors are in a class of their own is a ridiculous one for Hansen.

Like Perman and Taylor, Hansen reveals that the concern over pulpit plagiarism is ultimately about reputation.³ In academic and journalistic communities, this reputation is built on producing original work and getting credit for it. Repeatedly, Hansen points to the importance of originality in these communities: “someone’s political speech”, “someone else’s material”, “others’ research and writing”. And as he vividly describes, this reputation is protected through socialized fear and communal policing. Through his cautionary tale, Hansen makes a clear point: pastors need to fight the temptation to plagiarize sermons because their reputation and that of the church is on the line.

Each of Hansen’s assumptions with respect to plagiarism warrants further scrutiny:

• Is plagiarism a moral issue?
• Should rules for academics and journalists apply to pastors?
• Should pastors be concerned about reputation?

Is plagiarism a moral issue?

The problem with intellectual property

Crusaders against plagiarism often invoke the concept of intellectual property to argue that plagiarism is theft. But legally, plagiarism is distinct from copyright infringement. Copyright infringement has to do with using legally protected material without the owner’s permission in a way that violates fair use.⁴ This is legally equivalent to theft and is punishable under the law. Accordingly, notwithstanding philosophical problems with the concept of intellectual property⁵, copyright infringement is a moral issue. In contrast, plagiarism has to do with failing to give credit where it is due according to modern academic and journalistic expectations.⁶ Plagiarism does not necessarily constitute copyright infringement. Moreover, it is not legally recognized as theft and it is not punishable under the law. In other words, plagiarism is not a moral issue because no actual property rights are violated in the act. If the main concern with respect to plagiarism is the sanctity of property, advocates of plagiarism standards should really care more about copyright infringement than plagiarism.

Some may object to distinguishing plagiarism from copyright infringement because both ultimately have to do with improper use of intellectual property. Thus, the difference between citing sources correctly and getting permission is superficial. But even if we grant this objection, the concept of intellectual property is problematic insofar as sermons are concerned because of its raison d’être. In defining intellectual property, the World Intellectual Property Organization indicates that IP protections “enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create.”⁷ In other words, IP protections typically matter to a creator because they enable him to profit financially from his intellectual property. But the Bible condemns pastors who are motivated by financial profit to write and preach sermons⁸ and Christians ought to as well. To the extent it enables preachers to profit from the sermons they write and preach, Christians ought to reject treating sermons as intellectual property.⁹ 

The Augustinian priority of pastoral piety

Many have sought to view sermons not as intellectual property in a formal legal sense with its underlying financial motive, but as property in an informal general sense for the sake of recognizing a preacher’s original words and ideas as his own. However, this too ought to be seen as problematic for Christians as it puts an arbitrary focus on the pastor’s property rights rather than on the pastor’s piety. Augustine provides a helpful argument in favor of this view in On Christian Doctrine which warrants consideration.

In chapter 29 of Book 4, Augustine commends an example of a novice preacher who learns how to become a skilled teacher by preaching sermons that other teachers have written.¹⁰ While explaining this point, Augustine uses the language of property rights to convey how a regenerate preacher is so intimately united with God through faith in Christ that the regenerate preacher rightly “owns” God’s words. Therefore, a regenerate preacher can preach a sermon that an unregenerate preacher wrote and, insofar as that sermon truly contains God’s words, the words of the sermon “belong” to the regenerate preacher. On the other hand, an unregenerate preacher is so removed from God that even if he truly writes God’s words in a sermon, it is regarded as “stealing” from the true owner of those words, a regenerate preacher. 

Augustine is saying that the preacher’s saving faith (as evinced through his manner of life) is more important than the preacher’s use of his own words because it is God who speaks through preachers. So the regenerate preacher must take great care that the beauty of this harmony—consistency between one’s words and one’s manner of life—is on display in preaching. (Augustine makes a related point earlier that the teacher who lacks wisdom and eloquence in preaching should still seek to “let his manner of life be an eloquent sermon in itself”.¹¹) Augustine argues that the question of whether pulpit plagiarism is morally justified is not as important as it might seem. Christians ought to be more concerned about the moral and spiritual qualifications of preachers.

The difference between deception and plagiarism

Even if pulpit plagiarism does not involve theft, many Christians may decry that it still involves deception. That is, a preacher is lying to his congregation when he uses another preacher’s ideas and words for he is giving the false impression to his congregation that all the ideas and words originated with him. (Thus, there is also an implicit expectation that congregants have that the preacher’s sermon is original to him.) So, to the extent that a preacher does this, this is a violation of the ninth commandment. Thus, plagiarism is still fundamentally a moral issue and therefore wrong.

Yet, I contend that this objection is still problematic because the act of lying can be distinguished from plagiarism. For example, a preacher can make misleading claims in the pulpit, including telling personal stories of experiences that never happened to him. Even if the preacher took those stories from another preacher, it is clear here that the moral issue at hand is really that the preacher lied about the experiences. Knowing where the stories originated is not really relevant to evaluating whether the act was right or wrong. Or, to adduce another example, a preacher could use a sermon illustration that did not originate with him, yet in many instances, it would be impractical to require attribution and it would be irrelevant whether the preacher deceived his congregation in these instances.

When we deny that plagiarism involves theft and demonstrate that plagiarism and lying are distinct things, we really see that plagiarism in and of itself is not really an immoral act, but immoral acts can be committed in the act of plagiarism. It comes down to how a preacher plagiarizes another preacher’s sermon (e.g. whether it is done dishonestly or out of laziness). It is for this reason that Augustine’s focus on the moral and spiritual qualifications of a preacher is appropriate and helpful. A preacher can plagiarize in a way that is moral, God-honoring, and even commendable. He can also do so in a way that is immoral and dishonoring to God. Thus, plagiarism in and of itself is not fundamentally a moral issue.

The modern preoccupation with plagiarism

For most of history, the practice of copying works ranging from paintings to stories without attribution was ubiquitous. History is replete with well-known examples. Artists like Michelangelo and Peter Paul Rubens and writers like Chaucer and Shakespeare openly copied or borrowed ideas from masterpieces created by other creative minds and were celebrated for such accomplishments. Clearly, the ability to copy important original works was valued over the ability to produce original works. The characteristic spirit of this age especially among artists and writers was one of fidelity to the ideas and practices of the past. Originality was not as important as in our current age.

Upon succeeding his father to the English throne in 1547, Edward VI sought to establish the Reformed faith in the new Church of England, which was still substantially consistent with the Church of Rome. But much of the clergy was not equipped to faithfully teach and preach according to the doctrines of the Reformed faith. It was in this context that Thomas Cranmer drafted the Book of Homilies: an official set of sermons for public worship that that was to be regularly preached by priests in order to consistently teach Reformed doctrine among the people. The state-mandated use of the Book of Homilies to promote the legitimacy of the national church apart from the Church of Rome and assert the political authority of the English throne was historically distinct. However, the use of something like a collection of homilies to ensure orthodoxy was not unprecedented in history (e.g. the use of borrowed sermons was common in the medieval period). The important point here for the purposes of this discussion is that the church’s main concern with respect to preaching continued to be orthodoxy, not originality. The potential for heresy was a bigger concern for the church than the potential for plagiarism.

The Enlightenment marked a clear turning point both inside and outside the church. Intellectuals of the movement championed the democratization of information based upon reason and actively undermined the ancient knowledge and wisdom embedded in things like authority, tradition, communities and institutions. The Statute of Anne (otherwise known as the Copyright Act of 1709 or 1710) was the first copyright law in Great Britain and captured the spirit of the age as it shifted ownership over created works from printing guilds to the individual authors. Although the Statute of Anne dealt with legal copyright per se, it also created the social expectations for modern plagiarism standards. By the 19th century, we can see that there was a confluence of Enlightenment ideals (i.e. individual thought and creativity), a growth in mass printing fueled by the Industrial Revolution (promoting widespread production and distribution of sermons and treatises), and a significant increase in literacy rates globally. While we can praise his defense of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture and for stressing the indispensable work of the Holy Spirit in a preacher’s ministry, I believe it is really in this cultural milieu that we ought to situate Spurgeon’s views on pulpit plagiarism.

The pre-eminent Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) made several helpful remarks on the problem of pulpit plagiarism across his published works (which indicates that pulpit plagiarism by this point was present and identified as such during his time). Spurgeon rejected the practice of “borrowing sermons”, calling its practitioners “dumb dogs”.¹² However, Spurgeon’s specific concerns regarding pulpit plagiarism are worth examining in more detail because they evince what he viewed as problematic:

• Plagiarizing sermons is lazy. Geoff Chang explains that “Spurgeon would spend much of the night studying the Scriptures, trying out different “skeletons” (sermon outlines), and praying for the Spirit to guide him in preparing the sermon. During his study, Spurgeon consulted commentaries and other writers, but never as a substitute for the Spirit’s leading. In the end, he looked for spiritual guidance.”¹³

• Plagiarizing sermons neglects the personal nature of preaching. Spurgeon wrote “In order that you may impress the Word upon those to whom you preach, remember that it must be impressed upon yourself first. You must feel it yourself, and speak as a man who feels it, not as if you feel it, but because you feel it, otherwise you will not make it felt by others.”¹⁴

In opposing pulpit plagiarism, Spurgeon was greatly concerned about the preacher’s piety like Augustine (i.e. a preacher ought to labor diligently and rely on the Spirit to prepare sermons) and the personal nature of preaching (i.e. the preacher must have the Word impressed upon himself first). Given that he commended the proper use of printed sermons (e.g. for a novice pastor learning how to preach or on occasions when a preacher is unavailable), Spurgeon seems to suggest that pulpit plagiarism is not principally a moral issue, but one related to wisdom. Circumstances may dictate whether it’s appropriate to use another person’s sermons in part or in whole, with or without attribution. What this looks like could vary among different pastors or in different communities or in different times. In other words, plagiarism is not a moral issue. It is a matter of prudence.

The cultivated fear of plagiarism

Even if the case that plagiarism is not a moral issue can be persuasively argued at an intellectual level, I think that the average believer could still feel instinctually that pulpit plagiarism is morally problematic. Thus, encountering pulpit plagiarism could still be a jarring experience that undermines trust between the pastor and a member of his congregation. (For what it is worth, I am sympathetic to this experience because I have witnessed this myself.) However, I believe there are two reasons why the average believer could feel this way. I think it may be helpful to address a reader’s potentially offended conscience by laying these reasons out clearly on the table.

First, for better or for worse, plagiarism standards are inculcated consistently in school from an early age, especially in public education settings. For example, from middle school through high school in the United States, MLA style (first published in 1951) and APA style (first published in 1952) are typically introduced and rigorously enforced during language arts classes. Teachers will regularly police students to ensure they cite sources and meticulously craft bibliographies. For students, submitting papers through Turnitin.com quickly becomes as routine as taking daily vitamins. And of course, the fear of getting caught plagiarizing and the subsequent possibility of receiving a failing grade is always effective in driving compliance. Just as biblical doctrine may be catechized among young impressionable believers in the church, plagiarism standards are quickly instilled in the same in schools. Thus, it is not surprising that even an unfounded accusation of pulpit plagiarism would offend the average believer’s conscience.

Second, the media consistently frames plagiarism as a moral evil which undoubtedly shapes the average believer’s conscience. However, I believe that seemingly “evangelical” Christian investigative journalism outlets and watchdog organizations are particularly culpable here for their eagerness to pedantically sound the alarm at every scandalous incident in the church that might drive traffic to their clickbait work. In an era where pastors are too frequently caught committing heinous sexual sins, it is convenient for a journalist to portray pulpit plagiarism as yet another sin to undermine the dignity of the pastoral office. Unsurprisingly, these organizations are often founded and run by contentious female writers, zealous to dismantle anything that resembles a boys’ club in the evangelical church.¹⁵ (These especially include Janet Mefferd and Julie Roys, but also male allies that advance their cause including Jonathan Merritt of the leftist Religion News Service news outlet and Warren Throckmorton, a liberal former professor of psychology at Grove City College.) It is easy to see how incessant reporting on pastoral sins that include pulpit plagiarism could also deeply shape the average believer’s conscience.

In light of how the average believer’s conscience may be falsely shaped by public schools and Christian media, I believe that the church would do well to clear the air on the issue of pulpit plagiarism. As I will go on to demonstrate, the church ought to make clear two things. First, the calling for pastors is distinct from those of academics and journalists. Therefore, we cannot hold them to the same standards of so-called integrity as academics and journalists. Second, accusations of plagiarism are often used by the media, even Christian ones, as a veiled attack on pastors. Therefore, we ought to view these kinds of tactics skeptically.

Should rules for professionals apply to pastors?

So far, I have made a case that plagiarism is not a moral issue. I also want to demonstrate that plagiarism standards are part of a unique conception of integrity that specific communities uphold. As such, they suit these specific communities, not every community. Although the growing scope of activities that they are involved with blurs the lines, I believe that pastors qua pastors do not constitute a community like academics and journalists. Thus, plagiarism standards are not suited for pastors and should be rejected.

The meaning of integrity

In modern academic and journalistic communities, its members commit to producing work in accordance with “academic integrity” or the values of “ethical journalism”. What constitutes this kind of integrity is typically set forth in honor codes and codes of conduct. For example, the Harvard College Honor Code reads

Members of the Harvard College community commit themselves to producing academic work of integrity – that is, work that adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and transparent acknowledgement of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions. […]¹⁶

As the honor code shows, academic integrity is really a set of administrative principles, not moral ones. In a word, it is idiosyncratic. It has to do with producing work in a way that is approved by the community. It is important within the community because it promotes trust among its members. By producing work of integrity and holding others to that standard, members can expect that they will be credited the recognition and honor they deserve from within its community. The prospect of honor (and the specter of shame) gives members an incentive to participate in the community and to comply with its expectations. For example, the measurable benefit of honor within an academic community has been documented as an example of the so-called “Matthew effect”¹⁷ in a number of research papers. It literally pays to be honored in a community.¹⁸

In the church, the definition of pastoral integrity may be seen in the kinds of ordination vows a candidate pastor has to make. For example, when we examine the ordination vows in the Presbyterian Church in America¹⁹ (a set of eight questions that a presbytery asks a candidate), we see that pastoral integrity has many dimensions. A minister must teach sound doctrine (Questions 1 and 2), submit to church government and discipline (Questions 3 and 4), promote the Gospel out of godly motivations (Question 5), promote the good of the church (Question 6), and maintain a godly reputation within the church and outside the church (Question 7). Each of these dimensions of pastoral integrity is fundamentally moral and spiritual in nature. For example, a pastor’s responsibility to teach sound doctrine is a moral obligation (Tit 2:1) and failure to uphold this responsibility is severe (Jas 3:1). In the final analysis, pastoral integrity is really obedience to God.

When we compare a typical honor code that a student agrees to at a university to the ordination vows that a pastor typically makes in the church, we see that academic integrity is really a different kind of thing from pastoral integrity. Academic integrity is about the glory one receives for originality and this is protected and promoted by things like plagiarism standards. Pastoral integrity is about the glory that God receives from His church and her ministers. This is protected and promoted by the church’s ministers acting in accordance with Scripture in all their endeavors. These are clearly different kinds of communities with different aims that have correspondingly different sets of rules that its members need to adhere to. As members of a different kind of community from those of academics and journalists, pastors ought to reject rules that are man-made, man-centered, and ultimately foreign to their community.

Lessons from nouthetic counseling

With respect to clashing standards, the debate over whether plagiarism applies to sermons really mirrors the debates in the 1970s over the legitimacy of nouthetic counseling. While the essential practice of it certainly predates his popularization of it, Jay E. Adams introduced the concept and the term “nouthetic counseling” in his book Competent to Counsel in 1970. In it, Adams contended that the Bible is fully sufficient to address people’s supposed psychological problems. Adams sought to consistently apply the teaching of the Westminster Confession of Faith:

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.²⁰

Thus, secular psychology and psychiatry ought to be rejected by Christians. Moreover, Adams defended biblical categories such as sin, repentance, obedience, sanctification over and against secular models of psychology that stressed victimhood. In other words, Adams defended pastors and the church’s prerogative to counsel people and their problems.

Critics of Adams argued that nouthetic counseling rejected science and empirical research, oversimplified problems by seeing most of them as issues of sin, and was too confrontational and subsequently caused harm. For critics, the essential problem with nouthetic counseling was basically that it did not conform to secular professional standards. The church’s subsequent response can be traced over time. Initially, biblical counseling institutions were established such as the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) and the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) that defended Adams and the biblical approach he taught. Over time, however, the church ceded ground to the world as “integrationist” models became popular—an attempt to accommodate both biblical counseling and modern psychology in a best-of-both-worlds approach. Eventually, even the biblical counseling movement conceded to the critics as organizations like CCEF under the leadership of David Powlison stressed a more nuanced, sophisticated approach, softening the confrontational nature of nouthetic counseling and allowing a place for some medical and psychiatric expertise in an approach to biblical counseling. Today, modern biblical counseling is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from modern secular psychology.

The incompatibility of academic and pastoral integrity

In a similar fashion to how the church accommodated the demands of the professional world in counseling, it might be tempting to chart a path between strict adherence to plagiarism standards and a more permissive view that David Schrock calls an “All truth is God’s truth” approach.²¹ (In defense of this balanced approach, Schrock writes “That is to say, because all Christians should be happy that gospel truth goes out does not mean we should be indifferent about how it goes out. Gospel advance is not a sufficient argument for passing around well-made sermons.”²²) In fact, towards that end, many pastors have offered up seemingly sensible guidelines over the years to help pastors avoid plagiarism. (See examples below for common guidance given among pastors.) But I believe the vague and often contradictory guidelines offered by different pastors—one that is supposed to basically balance the demands of academic integrity and pastoral integrity—actually further demonstrate that these two things are incompatible. The use of another preacher’s outline is simply either permissible or plagiarism.

At the end of the day, academic integrity and pastoral integrity are incompatible because the aims of an academic and the aims of a pastor are fundamentally at odds with each other. To the extent that a pastor seeks to meet the demands of academic integrity, I believe he undermines his pastoral integrity. That is, in an effort to give other people credit for their originality, pastors may detract from the simple fact that all truth and reflection upon truth comes from God. When it comes to preparing sermons, I believe pastors need to pick a lane: honoring God by preaching His word faithfully or honoring the academic and journalistic communities by fulfilling their administrative demands. They cannot do both. Ultimately, as pastors accommodate the demands of the professional world to maintain plagiarism standards in preaching, sermons will inevitably become indistinguishable from worldly media. We would do well to learn from the mistakes the church made in responding to criticisms of nouthetic counseling.

On whether borrowing sermon outlines is appropriate	“To base the structure of your sermon on someone else’s sermon, but to use your own words, is plagiarism. The author on whose work you are basing the structure of your sermon would need to be cited.” Justin Taylor (2006)	“if, on any given week, my pastor’s homiletical outline bears a passing resemblance to something in a James M. Boice expositional commentary, or a Logos Bible software outline, or a sermoncentral.com outline, I don’t think I would be terribly upset […]” Jonathan Leeman (2016)
On whether general acknowledgements are adequate	“General acknowledgements do not suffice. It is not enough, for example, for a pastor simply to say to his congregation, “Once in a while I use the ideas or words of other theologians. I don’t tell you every time I do it because I have reminded you from time to time not to think that everything I say originated with me.”” Justin Taylor (2006)	“Place a written note in every Sunday bulletin, giving proper attribution where necessary, along with this note: “The speaker has learned from many other writers and preachers and is thankful to God for them. If any important acknowledgments have been missed, please let him know, and he will gladly correct the oversight.”” Andrew Selle (2024)
On whether paraphrasing is acceptable	When you come across a particularly profound thought in a respected theologian or preacher, turn it around in your mind, meditate on it, build on it, reword it and pass it onto others without feeling the need to cite the original source. This is not plagiarism–it is creative thinking and distillation. Nick Batzig (2016)	If you know who originated a phrase or portion of your sermon you want to re-create, give credit. Always. […] Nothing is lost except perhaps a bit of the pride you shouldn’t be coddling anyway. There’s certainly nothing good gained by knowingly passing off another’s words as your own. Jared Wilson (2024)

Should pastors be concerned about reputation?

I have shown that plagiarism is not a moral issue but rather a matter of convention among professionals like academics and journalists. Plagiarism standards stem from a unique conception of integrity that is upheld in these specific communities. Pastors do not necessarily share a commitment to academic or journalistic integrity; they are committed to pastoral integrity. Therefore, pastors do not constitute the same kinds of communities as academics and journalists. As a result, plagiarism standards do not apply to pastors and sermons. But more than merely rejecting these rules, Christians should also be wary of plagiarism accusations in general. As I will demonstrate, such accusations are yet another tactic used opportunistically by critics to discredit or undermine pastors deemed unrespectable by worldly standards. In responding to accusations of plagiarism, pastors need to wisely discern whether the church’s reputation or their respectability is at stake.

The weaponization of plagiarism accusations

In an effort to understand what lies beneath plagiarism accusations, it is worth looking at major incidents of alleged plagiarism in the evangelical and reformed church over the past decade that involve not only sermons, but books as well. (See Table A below for a summary of these incidents.)

Table A Summary of major plagiarism allegations in the evangelical and reformed church
Year	Pastor	Whistleblower	Outcome
2014	Mark Driscoll	Janet Mefferd (Journalist)	One publisher denied claims, one apologized
2015	Doug Wilson	Rachel Green Miller (Blogger)	Wilson accepted claims and apologized
2021	Voddie Baucham	Joel McDurmon (Ex-theonomist)	Publisher denied claims
2021	Ed Litton	Anonymous source (YouTube)	Litton apologized but also defended actions
2022	John MacArthur	Dennis Swanson (Former TMS)	Phil Johnson defended actions
2022	Josh Howerton	Sheila Gregoire (Author)	Howerton defended actions

When we examine these incidents, there are four key takeaways:

1. None of the accusations originated from individuals or organizations with anti-Christian hostility per se. Virtually all the whistleblowers are professing believers of various stripes. Notably, it includes post-complementarian Rachel Green Miller, ex-theonomist Joel McDurmon, and Janet Mefferd. In other words, these are disgruntled Christians with an axe to grind.

2. As outspoken, masculine pastors (the exception here being Ed Litton²³), all of these pastors generated significant controversy with their detractors, even prior to being accused of plagiarism. For example, Driscoll, Wilson, Baucham, and MacArthur are all well-known for promoting the importance of male pastors and the recovery of biblical masculinity in their preaching and published works.

3. With the exception of Doug Wilson, all of these pastors are Baptists. I believe this points to the fact that being a modern Presbyterian pastor is left-coded (and commands more public respectability) insofar as a pastor fashions his preaching, rhetoric and concerns after Tim Keller, the Presbyterian par excellence in the general public understanding. For example, Russell Moore is basically the Baptist analog of Tim Keller.

4. Many of those accusing these pastors are contentious, pedantic, female writers for watchdog blogs focused on evangelical churches. While not a writer himself, Swanson is a former employee of The Master’s Seminary who alleged that the late MacArthur plagiarized his work and aired his grievances through a report by Julie Roys (a well-known critic of conservative Christianity).²⁴ 

It is hard to dismiss the fact that virtually all of the whistleblowers had pre-existing disagreements with the accused party and what they stand for, even before they raised concerns about plagiarism. In other words, plagiarism is never really the issue. Regardless of the merits of the accusations, it is really the fact that these men stand for something unpopular and at odds with the prevailing culture. In a word, these men lack respectability by worldly standards.

The allure of worldly respectability

The responses to plagiarism from prominent figures of the evangelical and reformed world help us to further understand what is really at stake in the debate over pulpit plagiarism. Unlike the alleged cases of plagiarism surrounding more famous pastors (i.e. Table A above), substantial responses to pulpit plagiarism extend back to at least 2006, even if there weren’t always specific flashpoints that led to these responses. (See Table B below for a summary of these responses.)

Table B Summary of responses to pulpit plagiarism from prominent figures in the evangelical and reformed church
Year	Person	Response to	Key concerns
2006	Matt Perman (Baptist) Justin Taylor (Baptist)	N/A	Stealing, lying, failure to love neighbor
2006	Tim Challies (Baptist)	WSJ Article	Laziness, neglect of responsibilities
2006	Al Mohler (Baptist)	WSJ Article	Stealing, lying, neglect of responsibilities, laziness
2010	Collin Hansen (Baptist)	N/A	Stealing, lying
2010	D.A. Carson (Baptist)	N/A	Stealing, lying, laziness
2010	Tim Keller (PCA)	N/A	Wrong, but issue is nuanced
2014	L. Roy Taylor (PCA)	N/A	Wrong, but issue is nuanced
2015	Jonathan Leeman (Baptist)	N/A	Stealing, lying
2016	Nick Batzig (PCA)	N/A	Wrong, but issue is nuanced
2020	Jared Wilson (Baptist)	N/A	Stealing, lying, neglect of responsibilities, laziness
2021	David Schrock (Baptist)	Ed Litton	Stealing, lying, neglect of responsibilities, laziness
2021	Tony Reinke (Baptist)	Ed Litton	Neglect of responsibilities
2023	Mark Jones (PCA)	N/A	Wrong, but issue is nuanced

When we examine these responses, there are two key takeaways:

1. Over a seventeen year period, ten of the thirteen responses were prior to the Ed Litton scandal in 2021. That is, most of them were not necessarily in response to a major plagiarism scandal in the church. And of the ten responses, seven responses were written by Baptists. These points taken together seem to suggest that Baptists tended to have more of a predisposition to address pulpit plagiarism than Presbyterians.

2. Notwithstanding Keller’s remarks on it in 2010, Presbyterian engagement on the topic of pulpit plagiarism really only started from 2014 onwards. Moreover, the themes in the Presbyterian responses to pulpit plagiarism are remarkably consistent. While Baptists tended to focus on the moral concerns surrounding pulpit plagiarism, Presbyterians tended to focus more on the prudential considerations surrounding pulpit plagiarism.

The patterns in the responses seen above likely reflect fundamental differences between Baptists and Presbyterians, even beyond doctrine per se. For example, Baptists are more likely to have a “low church” approach to worship compared to Presbyterians. As a result, Presbyterians may be more open compared to Baptists to more structured elements in liturgy that may include using sermons in a way that violates modern plagiarism standards. With respect to instincts, Baptists generally also have “separatistic” tendencies given their historical origins. As such, there is probably more baseline caution and skepticism regarding the church and its practices among its ministers and members compared to those of the Presbyterian tradition. In other words, it is not surprising that you would find more Baptists than Presbyterians urging for greater scrutiny and accountability in terms of preaching.

However, I believe that the data really points to a general Baptist tendency towards gaining respectability (whereas modern Kelleresque Presbyterians probably already command it). The great tragedy is that while there are bold Baptist preachers that are opposed to towing the party line (as seen in Table A), there are still establishment Baptist gatekeepers that want to ensure that the Baptist name isn’t associated with disreputability (as seen in Table B). For these folks, if the academic and journalistic communities define what it means to be respectable in the world, then complying with their standards is how one becomes more respectable in the world. Thus, the concern here may be less about the church’s reputation (which should be associated with the proclamation of the truth, regardless of the cost) and more about a pastor’s respectability (which is about following the rules that are set by the world and subsequently gaining respect).

The limits of guardrails

The consensus in the evangelical and reformed church on the issue of plagiarism points to the vulnerability of the church at large to worldly values, even as many of her defenders sincerely attempt to stand valiantly against the encroachment of the world and its system of values. It goes without saying that the evangelical and reformed churches and its ministers ought to consistently uphold the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture and to faithfully subscribe to a historic confession of faith to effectively safeguard the church and her officers against heresy. However, these biblical and confessional guardrails are precisely that: guardrails. Without a historically grounded understanding of the church’s actual practice and of what the saints of the past have taught regarding preaching, we risk brashly promulgating novel inventions that lack continuity with the church’s history, even while seemingly remaining within biblical and confessional boundaries.

Even the Bible contains many examples that would clearly be considered plagiarism by modern standards.²⁵ Significant chunks of 1st and 2nd Chronicles are identical to Samuel and Kings. (Admittedly, we do find some form of general “citation” here. For example, 1 Chronicles 29:29 states: “Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the chronicles of Samuel the seer, in the chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the chronicles of Gad the seer.” Clearly, however, this would not meet modern plagiarism standards.) We also see Paul delivering a well-known speech in Acts 17 at the Areopagus, quoting contemporary Greek poets (e.g. Epimenides and Aratus) without citing his sources. Yet, even while acknowledging these examples in Scripture, many Christians are so committed to academic integrity that they will obfuscate what is otherwise clearly demonstrated in Scripture. For example, in explaining the significance of Acts 17 with respect to what it means for preachers today, Schrock claims that Scripture provides preachers with helpful biblical examples on how to cite sources or allude to sources without plagiarizing.²⁶ It is a curious fact that, for Schrock, some form of plagiarism standards is actually taught in Scripture.

When we examine the aforementioned accusations from whistleblowers and recent condemnations of plagiarism from the church’s prominent leaders, we see that the Bible’s teachings can be co-opted to further worldly ends. (This is neither new nor unique to the issue of plagiarism.) No Bible-believing Christian would deny that the Bible condemns stealing and lying. And the church would do well to evaluate the veracity of such accusations of wrongdoing among its shepherds. But, we ought to also be wary of being so shell-shocked by accusations and responding in a reactive way that reflects sheer ignorance regarding the issues at stake. As recent history shows, this effectively allows anyone from the winsome respectability police to true enemies of the church to effortlessly discredit its faithful ministers, cause untold numbers of church committees to spin their wheels, and sow deep seeds of doubt and unrest in its members. The misguided issue of pulpit plagiarism leads the church astray from its God-ordained calling and a rich history of its preachers boldly proclaiming the Word of God in a way that rejects the respectability enshrined in the academy and in journalism.

Is pulpit plagiarism really the problem?

The Ed Litton scandal revisited

Ed Litton’s scandal in 2021 deserves some re-evaluation. Litton was criticized by conservative Christian critics for pulpit plagiarism. But at the end of the day, Ed Litton was really unfit as president of the Southern Baptist Convention because he was too accommodating to progressive impulses in the church at a time when conservative strength was desperately needed. He was the complete opposite of a Driscoll or a MacArthur. For example, Litton was known for his work promoting racial reconciliation, his conciliatory tone on the issue of critical race theory, and his seeming Complementarian In Name Only (CINO) instincts (e.g. he co-preached with his wife). In other words, he was not the right person for the job. It is unusual, given Litton’s kowtowing to the worldly rules of respectability, that conservative Christian critics should invoke those same rules to criticize him.

With respect to the accusations, I believe the problem with Litton was not so much that he plagiarized, but that he fundamentally exhibited a clear pattern of laziness and a shameful desire for respectability. For example, evidence of Litton’s pulpit plagiarism likely wasn’t limited to a one-off sermon if his church pulled 140 sermons from the website shortly after the initial revelation.²⁷ We can safely say that Litton was not diligently doing the work the apostle Paul calls pastors to do in pastoral ministry. Moreover, Litton was later revealed to have also plagiarized Tim Keller’s work for another sermon, one that he co-preached with his wife on marriage back in 2012.²⁸ It is clear that Litton was seeking after the CINO respectability that Tim Keller commanded, especially after his book The Meaning of Marriage was enthusiastically received by Christians and non-Christians alike in 2011. In other words, the problem was not pulpit plagiarism: it was Litton’s character.

Litton (as well as Greear, the pastor who Litton borrowed from) also evinced a lack of understanding regarding the personal nature of preaching. In response to how Litton had apparently reached out to him for permission to use his sermon on Romans, J.D. Greear quipped, “I told him that whatever bullets of mine worked in his gun, to use them!”²⁹ To the extent that passages in Scripture often only support a limited set of valid sermon outlines, all preachers will probably make similar points in the pulpit. But I believe the use of fake personal stories to support a point undermines the pastor’s sincerity in truly shepherding his specific flock, as I noted earlier. (Greear conceded that Litton ultimately used a story of Greear’s that never happened to him.³⁰) Geoff Chang helpfully summarizes Spurgeon’s point to this effect:

“A borrowed sermon may have someone else’s experience.  But it doesn’t have the preacher’s experience. Those truths have not been impressed on the preacher. He can only preach “as if” he feels it, not “because” he feels it. As a result, the congregation suffers, and “God will not own such teaching as this.””

Recovering the pulpit wisdom of Augustine

Rather than deciding what constitutes pulpit plagiarism, I believe we need to go back to a simple question: what is the actual problem? Litton epitomizes the problem at the heart of purported pulpit plagiarism: he was lazy and hungry for respectability. He was neither truly diligent in studying Scripture nor concerned about proclaiming God’s Word faithfully to his congregation. In response to growing concern about pulpit plagiarism, I believe the church ought to return to the wisdom of Augustine:

• Pastors must be humble before God and diligent in the task of preparing and preaching sermons. In chapter 5, Augustine writes “Now it is especially necessary for the man who is bound to speak wisely, even though he cannot speak eloquently, to retain in memory the words of Scripture. For the more he discerns the poverty of his own speech, the more he ought to draw on the riches of Scripture, so that what he says in his own words he may prove by the words of Scripture; and he himself, though small and weak in his own words, may gain strength and power from the confirming testimony of great men.” In other words, even if a preacher lacks eloquence, by virtue of Scripture being God’s Word, that sermon can still be used by God in a powerful way. This still requires diligence on the part of the preacher to exposit faithfully and “draw on the riches of Scripture”.³¹

• Pastors must remember that God is using them as instruments for His purposes and give Him thanks. In the penultimate chapter of Book 4 of On Christian Doctrine, Augustine makes this exhortation to his readers, “But whether a man is going to address the people or to dictate what others will deliver or read to the people, he ought to pray God to put into his mouth a suitable discourse. […] Those, again, who are to deliver what others compose for them ought, before they receive their discourse, to pray for those who are preparing it; and when they have received it, they ought to pray both that they themselves may deliver it well, and that those to whom they address it may give ear; and when the discourse has a happy issue, they ought to render thanks to Him from whom they know such blessings come, so that all the praise may be His “in whose hand are both we and our words.”³²

Conclusion

It may not be prudent to copy another person’s sermon wholesale, regardless of permission. I believe it is hard to justify this kind of practice with the pastoral integrity I explained earlier. However, I am eager to defend a pastor’s liberty as a minister of the Word to use all God-honoring means necessary to preach the Word faithfully. Towards that end, I believe that a pastor should actively examine and appropriate those elements in the sermons of other preachers that are true, helpful, and appropriately suited to the pastor’s experience and his congregation’s needs. In other words, there’s a place to use the sermons of other preachers, past or present, in part or in whole, with or without permission. To the extent that we restrict this freedom through modern plagiarism standards, I believe we may undermine a pastor’s effectiveness in ministry.

As the Ed Litton scandal showed, the biggest crisis in the pastoral office is not the growing practice of pulpit plagiarism. It is the alarming absence of godly and mature character among pastors. The presence of purported pulpit plagiarism is really an indication of two things: (1) we have shamefully lowered the bar for what it means to be a pastor and (2) pastors have not taken seriously the high calling of being a minister of the Word. The solution is neither a Turnitin.com-style audit of sermons nor a central policing taskforce within our Protestant denominations. It is a return to the biblical calling for true men of God—ones with demonstrable fruit of the Spirit and an exceptional ability to lead their own households well—to lead the church, especially in the preaching of the Word.

Footnotes

1. Taylor, Justin, and Matt Perman. “What Is Plagiarism?” desiringgod.org, January 23, 2006. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-plagiarism.
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2. Collin Hansen, “TGC Asks: When Has a Preacher Crossed the Line Into Plagiarism in His Sermon?,” The Gospel Coalition (blog), December 10, 2010, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tgc-asks-when-has-a-preacher-crossed-the-line-into-plagiarism-in-his-sermon. ↩︎
3. It’s a curious fact that all of them are seminary educated, work in Christian publishing (Perman worked at DesiringGod.com, Taylor is the executive vice president of book publishing and book publisher at Crossway, and Hansen is editor-in-chief of The Gospel Coalition), and none are currently pastors. ↩︎
4. The US Copyright Office explains that “Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.” ↩︎
5. Conley Owens has a helpful summary of these philosophical problems in “Appendix C: Copyright and Natural Law” in his book “The Dorean Principle” ↩︎
6. An article on Plagiarism.org explains that “Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.” ↩︎
7. “What Is Intellectual Property (IP)?,” About-ip, n.d., https://www.wipo.int/en/web/about-ip. ↩︎
8. For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. (2 Cor 2:17) ↩︎
9. In practice, the question of whether sermons actually legally constitute intellectual property is a complex one because there is no clear legal consensus. According to the Copyright Act of 1976, sermons may be intellectual property. Interestingly, under the doctrine of “work for hire”, sermons are the intellectual property of the preacher’s church, not the preacher. ↩︎
10. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 201, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/a/augustine/doctrine/cache/doctrine.pdf. ↩︎
11. Ibid. ↩︎
12. Geoff Chang, “‘Dumb Dogs’ in the Pulpit: Spurgeon on Borrowed Sermons,” The Spurgeon Center, July 5, 2021, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/articles/dumb-dogs-in-the-pulpit-spurgeon-on-borrowed-sermons. ↩︎
13. Ibid. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. I’ll address this in the section “The weaponization of plagiarism accusations“. ↩︎
16. “Honor Code – Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct,” Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct – Harvard College, https://oaisc.fas.harvard.edu/honor-code/. ↩︎
17. This is a phenomenon where the reputation of an academic is not based on the merits of his research alone, but may also be a compounding function of the level of honor he commands in his community. ↩︎
18. “How The ‘Matthew Effect’ Helps Some Scientific Papers Gain Popularity,” MIT News, January 27, 2014, https://news.mit.edu/2014/how-the-matthew-effect-helps-some-scientific-papers-gain-popularity-0127. ↩︎
19. https://www.pcahistory.org/bco/fog/21/05.html ↩︎
20. https://www.pcaac.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/WCFScripureProofs2022.pdf ↩︎
21. Schrock, Brothers, We Are Not Plagiarists: A Pastoral Plea to Forsake the Peddling of God’s Word, 103-104. ↩︎
22. Ibid. ↩︎
23. I’ll address this later in the next section. ↩︎
24. Roys, Julie. “Former Master’s Seminary VP Accuses John MacArthur of Plagiarism.” The Roys Report, February 16, 2022. https://julieroys.com/john-macarthur-accused-plagiarism-former-vp-masters-seminary/. ↩︎
25. I am grateful to Conley Owens for suggesting this insight. ↩︎
26. Schrock, Brothers, We Are Not Plagiarists: A Pastoral Plea to Forsake the Peddling of God’s Word, 85-87. ↩︎
27. Anglesey, Anders. “Pastor Ed Litton Removes Over 140 Video Sermons After Being Accused of Plagiarism.” Newsweek, June 28, 2021. https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-ed-litton-removes-over-140-video-sermons-after-being-accused-plagiarism-1604707. ↩︎
28. Capstone Report. “Ed Litton Plagiarized Tim Keller Sermon on Marriage,” July 12, 2021. https://capstonereport.com/2021/07/12/ed-litton-plagiarized-tim-keller-sermon-on-marriage/. ↩︎
29. Greear, J.D. “A Statement About My Sermon on Romans 1 – JD Greear Ministries,” September 17, 2022. https://jdgreear.com/a-statement-about-my-sermon-on-romans-1/. ↩︎
30. Ibid. ↩︎
31. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 160. ↩︎
32. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 202. ↩︎