Leadership Journal

Last spring Edward Mullins, rector of Christ Church Cranbrook, served a 90-day suspension issued by the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. He was being investigated for an increasingly common but confusing charge—plagiarism. Mullins's messages were found conspicuously similar to the words of Jim Cymbala, Texas pastor Phil Ware, and sources from the Online Pulpit.

Mullins's story has served as a catalyst for the debate about preaching and plagiarism. Some have declared Mullins's actions unethical and Mullins himself unfit for pastoral ministry. Indeed, just a few months prior to Mullins's suspension, the pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Clayton, Missouri, resigned after admitting to homiletic plagiarism.

Others have rushed to Mullins's defense, such as a church member quoted in The New York Times: "People come to church for his sermons, whether they're his, they're incorporated, or however he does it. He puts the message forth that needs to be put forth."

Others have claimed that what he did was perfectly legal—after all, he paid for the online sermon material. In fact, the Internet has made "borrowing" sermon material from others far easier. And, perhaps, more common.

Richard Stern, a Lutheran minister and professor of homiletics at St. Meinrad School of Theology told Louisville's Courier-Journal, "People tend to drift into it. They get pressured (telling themselves), 'I've had three funerals and two weddings; I don't have a sermon ready, so I'll just look in this book or go on the Web.'"

But the question isn't simply whether it's easy or common or understandable, but is it right? How can preachers effectively and ethically incorporate into their sermons the great insights from others?

As the newspapers reported on Mullins's suspension, they found several people who defended his practice of preaching others' material. The New York Times reported fellow Episcopal rector, Harry Cook, suggested that every pastor borrows at least some preaching material: "If plagiarism of the sort that Ed Mullins is accused of is punishable, there would be no one preaching on Sunday."

Reba Cobb, an executive with the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, discovered painfully just how pervasive plagiarism has become. After delivering a message at a national gathering of Baptist Women in Ministry in Fort Worth, Texas, Cobb was accused of preaching someone else's sermon.

Cobb, in turn, confronted the research assistant she hired to help write the sermon. She discovered the researcher had plagiarized the entire message. When Cobb went to the researcher's source for the sermon, she discovered that he, too, admitted to lifting the sermon from yet another. Cobb finally tracked her twice-plagiarized sermon back to a 1979 message delivered by a Methodist pastor from Indianapolis.

To be sure, the problem is not a new one. Back in 1735, the Rev. Samuel Hemphill was critiqued by one of his parishioners, Benjamin Franklin, who remarked, "I rather approved ...