Peter SmytheDecidedly Unprofessional

A few weeks ago, a reader asked us to speak to the issue of plagiarism in the pulpit. Since our ministry materials have grown and we’ve noticed that they’ve been used by others, we thought it was a good idea. But instead of doing a full-blown academic work on the subject (which we could do and it would bore everyone to tears), we thought we’d just do a series of informal posts (it’ll probably go 3 or 4 posts). Basically, we do not believe that the charge of plagiarism has any place in the ministry of the Gospel and we’ll informally flesh out why.

First, if one does a few Google searches on plagiarism, he’ll see that there are many variations on just what plagiarism is. After rooting around some, we decided that Georgetown’s Honor Council’s working definition probably works best for us. Georgetown defines plagiarism as:

the act of passing off as one’s own the [sic] ideas or writings of another - Georgetown University Honor Council

Under this working definition, Georgetown has implemented three working conventions for when an academic student must cite his sources:

1. If you use someone else’s ideas, you should cite the source.
2. If the way in which you are using the source is unclear, make it clear.
3. If you received specific help from someone in writing the paper, acknowledge it.

Georgetown University Honor Council

Notice that Georgetown’s conventions not only include the attribution of someone’s quotations, but also “someone else’s ideas.” When it comes to academic papers, that’s just and right; but when it comes to Gospel preaching in any form, it is nothing less than inane (our opinion). Our essay Trouble in Paradise presents a great of example why.

In Trouble in Paradise, we examined the veracity of the preaching that says that Jesus and the thief went immediately to heaven when they died on their crosses based on Jesus’s statement, “I say unto you today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23.43). Our piece demonstrated that the thief could not go to heaven upon death because that would violate the black-letter scripture of 1 Corinthians 15.13-17 (we’re still in our sins if Jesus was not resurrected). To our knowledge, we were the first preachers to marry those verses together and bring that truth out.

As that teaching filters throughout the Body of Christ, are we to demand that every preacher who sees that light and preaches on it pay us attribution (and that wouldn’t be just for those preachers who quote the essay in written form, but it would include any and all preachers who preach that line of thought from the pulpit or elsewhere - maybe they should flash it on a big screen to avoid interrupting the sermon)? That would be mad and run counter to “he must increase and I must decrease.”

Our job as preachers is not to corner God’s ideas for man’s glory; it is but to disappear as our hearers see Jesus and his glorious work of redemption.