Once again, in preacher circles at least, the question of sermon plagiarism has come back up. This time, there’s an accusation leveled against one of the people who aggressively attacked a friend of mine for supposed plagiarism a few years ago. Because I have not fully examined the evidence, much less asked the preacher in question for his explanation, I’m not going to name him here. Unfortunately, this comes up enough times that you’ll probably end up wondering “which one?” rather than “who?”
First and foremost, let’s establish what “plagiarism” is: it’s the use of someone else’s words and intellectual property without acknowledging you got it from them. That’s my summary, if you want a full definition, here’s a good link. It’s essentially theft: someone else did the work, invested the resources to study and develop, and then the plagiarist stole it and used it as his own.
This is not the same as research, where one works from sources and then creates a new product. Research uses resources that were created to aid the preacher in developing a sermon: the author of that commentary expected you to read the commentary, learn more about the passage, and work what you learned into your sermon.
One difference in sermon plagiarism and academic plagiarism is that most academic work is written-first, even if the paper is delivered out loud in a seminar or lecture. The written document is part of your presentation and typically available for review. Therefore, the footnotes on the paper show what your sources were, your bibliography section shows additional places you found general info. (If you have endnotes, you have succumbed to the evil. TURABIAN FOREVER!)
Sermons are not sermons until they are preached. It’s a delivered medium, even though written sermons also carry the truth, a sermon is intended to be preached. Now, in an ASL (or other Sign Language church), it’s preached with the hands but there is still a live component. I would assert that this is necessary to make it a sermon. Otherwise, it’s a letter, a note, an essay…it’s a bit hard to check the footnotes of a sermon in the midst of the delivery. It would also be quite disruptive to either pause and cite or wrap-up the message with 3-5 minutes of source disclosure. You’d sound like a medication ad with the fast-talking fine print.
Typically, when we talk about sermon plagiarism, we’re talking about lifting direct quotes from other authors without giving any attribution. For example, lifting a paragraph directly from a commentary without making note that you are using those words exactly. Or quoting another preacher but presenting the words as your own.
An example here would be if I were to preach on prayer and say that “Prayer isn’t preparation for the work, prayer is the work.” That’s pretty close to the way Oswald Chambers puts it in My Utmost for His Highest. I should attribute that to him, because I didn’t think of it and the only places I’ve seen it are either Chambers or people quoting Chambers.
It gets a little sticky when preachers use material from other preachers, even if you have permission from the other preachers. You should still be forthcoming that someone else put it the way you are putting it.
Truth be told, no Biblical sermon is original. Someone else has been part of your formation and development. You’ve read Study Bibles, devotionals, commentaries, dictionaries, histories, and essays. You’ve heard sermons, lessons, hymns, and lectures. All of this forms the preacher.
What, then, do we do?
First: make sure your church knows that you are using resources to grow. If your church, like mine, has more than just Sunday morning times, use one of those to introduce attendees to your resources. I try, every time I start a new series (usually I’m preaching through a section of the Bible,) to use either a Sunday night or a Wednesday night to walk through “this is where I’ve been studying for this sermon series.” It’s a bit nerdy and you have to do it without being boring, but the main thing here is to show that you are learning.
It’s also helpful for your congregation to hear you attribute your learning to others. Mention pastors, preachers, professors that have influenced you.
And if you use something very direct, make it plain that it is direct: ‘Folks, I was at the State Preacher Extravaganza and heard a sermon on this. I thought I would try to share some of the same thoughts here.’ Or, ‘I just finished reading this book, and I thought the outline of this chapter made for a great sermon. So I wrote the sermon, here it is.’ I don’t think you should preach a sermon someone else wrote. I don’t even think you should preach a sermon someone else did more than 25% of the work on, but that’s another post.
Now, a few caveats:
I think there is a place to preach historically significant sermons if your congregation will listen and you believe God is directing you to do so. (You should never preach something God is not directing you to preach.) But set it up properly: “This is D. Elton Trueblood’s sermon, Conversion in the Church. I want you all to listen to it, though I won’t quite sound like him. After I’ve been through it, I’ll tell you why I think his way of looking at this text is so good that it should come from him.” That’s a rarity, but sometimes it works.
There’s also a place for an unattributed quote that isn’t the key to the passage. Especially if some folks will recognize it. I have a tendency to occasionally drop science fiction quotes and allusions into sermons. Folks who get it, recognize it. Folks who don’t get it, usually don’t remember it anyway.
Finally, I think if you are dealing with something that you have attributed many times before, there comes a point where you can say “As we’ve heard so many times” and just leave it at that.
TL;DR: Your sermon works in people’s lives through the Holy Spirit and your credibility buys it a hearing. Do everything in your power to ensure there is nothing in your sermon preparation and delivery that compromises your credibility.