RABBI ZELIZER: GUEST COLUMNIST

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usatoday logo Sermon sharing: Timesaver or sin?

Gerald L. Zelizer

Published March 27, 2002

On Thursday, Passover morning, my congregation will hear my sermon contrasting whole vs. broken matzos. I will apply that metaphor to highlight the significance of keeping our religion whole by using the mind and heart to worship God as opposed to fragmented religion, which relies only on the emotions. I must admit, the idea for the metaphor is not mine, but rather was lifted from the sermon of another colleague written in a published book of best sermons. Shame on me, you say? Actually, in borrowing this idea, I am collecting a debt owed to me. During the last High Holidays, I submitted my own original sermon, "How To Be a Loser, Not A Survivor in Life," to an Internet site of sermons for rabbis. A congregant of mine, who visited his daughter's synagogue on the holidays, returned to laud an inspirational homily that her rabbi had delivered."Its subject?" I asked. "How to be a loser, not a survivor in life," he answered. Should clergy members be kneeling in their confessionals begging for forgiveness for their sin of plagiarism? I think not, although some churches feel otherwise: The Rev. Edward Mullins, pastor of the prestigious Christ Church in suburban Detroit, has been suspended for 90 days while the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan decides whether many of his sermons and writings in a church newsletter were copied verbatim from several Web sites.

In October, the minister of an 1,800-member Clayton, Mo., Presbyterian church, the Rev. W. Barnwell "Barney" Heyward Jr., resigned after admitting that his sermons were not his own. But are ministers really stealing the sacred? The ethics of preaching vary, although all clergy members insist that verbatim quotes should be attributed. But Enoch Oglesby, who teaches social ethics at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, sees some exceptions. Oglesby says that while deliberate deception is unethical, there are common stories and concepts that contribute to the greater good and need not be attributed. In the past, the clergy relied on books and seminars as sources of sermon material. But now the growth of religious Internet sites (including one called DesperatePreacher.com) has made sermons more accessible and speedier to find. There are many positive reasons these sites, in addition to books and seminars, help get the word of the Lord out.

PreachingToday.com, an organ of the prestigious Christianity Today, was launched a little over two years ago. By January 2001, according to its editor, Brian Larson, 12,512 clergy subscribed. That number has burgeoned to more than 20,000 today. TorahFax, too, zaps sermons to rabbinical subscribers. Those whose contributions are accepted for dispersal are rewarded with a free subscription during a specified number of Sabbaths. Many of the clergy members I spoke with mine these sources for ideas, which they usually adapt and develop in their own style. So, in many cases they are not plagiarizing by lifting passages verbatim and not attributing them to the authors.

For example, Rabbi James Michaels, of Flint, Mich., says he will "not lift a passage wholesale, but allow a sermon to trigger his own originality." Similarly, Pastor Dennis McKinley of Landmark Baptist Church in Carlsbad, N.M., told the Religion News Service, "You can go to a site like Sermons.org and see what other men have done with the same subject or text. I have even at times taken another preacher's major outline and then written it to fit what the Lord is leading me to do." Clergy members contribute to these sites intending for their materials to be used by colleagues. They do this to assist fellow ministers whose workweek routinely runs between 60 and 70 hours, leaving little time to sit passively next to a computer and patiently wait for inspiration. In addition, meager church budgets do not allow the clergy the luxury of research assistants and librarians. "With the multiple duties that a rabbi has, it is difficult to be inspired and original 52 weeks of the year, and sometimes two to three times each week," explains Rabbi Bernhard Presler, the owner of TorahFax, who sees his product as a more timely version of the volumes of compiled sermons sold in bookstores. "If our material sparks a rabbi to speak a better spiritual message than if he did not have that material, then I believe it legitimate for subscribers to be motivated by colleagues' insights."

Preaching is the inspiration of God channeled through the human mind and mouth. While some pastors may be able to verbalize that divine message clearer than others, the ultimate plagiarism is from God Herself.