See the case study in the previous post, or click here.  Again, image credit to coscurro.

Sarah, I’m grateful you called and appreciate that you’re willing to talk over such ethical quandaries with me.  Much of what I am about to say is informed by an excellent article by Tom Long in last year’s Christian Century.  “Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize” addresses just the type of question you’re asking so I’ve pulled it out of my file to help us both out [Thomas G. Long, “Stolen goods: Tempted to plagiarize,” The Christian Century Magazine, Ap 17, 2007.]

I’ve asked myself similar questions many a time in my preaching preparation.  Sometimes it’s just darn difficult to know how to introduce a story or illustration, and since preaching is oratory and more murky in its rules, citations, and expectations than formal writing, it’s only natural we preachers ask ourselves–and our friends–these questions.  After all, Matthew borrowed from Mark.  America’s orator, Martin Luther King Jr. appropriated the line, “I have a dream” from a young woman he heard speaking one day on his travels.  Imitation, we hear, is the highest form of flattery.  So we must begin the discussion noting these discussions are murky.  Or as Long puts it: “the issues surrounding pulpit plagiarism are more complex than they may appear at first glance.”

Overall, I think the fact that you’ve called me at this late hour indicates you’re uncomfortable using the story as your own.  Your inner preacher conscience is pipping up.  Perhaps what this points to is the implicit agreement in effect during the preaching event–when you stand up there on Sunday morning you do not say, “I wrote this sermon I am about to preach.”  Implied, instead, is that it is your work for that particular congregation that particular day (all given, we pray, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit).  Implicit also, however, is the fact that you have widely read and prepared for the sermon with numerous sources.  Those resources will–should and must–influence your words.  Those, at the least, are the implied ground rules.

I think you’d do well to introduce the story with a throwaway comment that does not disrupt the sermon’s flow, but keeps your intellectual integrity intact.  A simple, “As a friend said…” before the story won’t hurt one bit, and will be certain not to mislead the congregation.  In these situations of intellectual property–but more importantly, perhaps, congregational trust–it’s better to be safe than sorry (to use an old phrase.)  You say the story only works in the first person, so tell it thusly, but with a few word introduction that alerts the careful hearers to what’s going on.

Since the story did not occur to you, and because it is situational and first person necessary, I don’t think it’s justifiable to act as if it occurred to you.  In some performance situations, surely, people tell stories in the first person for effect, for show, that the audience understands not to necessarily have happened to the speaker–stand up comics, for instance, are given much slack–but the preaching event is not such a situation.

An interesting experiment–perhaps for a different hour of the day–would be to google your friend’s story to be certain it is originally his and he had not purloined it from another preacher (as Long’s research suggests happens all too often).  Still, if it did not happen to you, I don’t think its commonness makes it any more just for you to use it without attribution, but that knowledge may suggest a change in your introduction to something like, “As the common story goes…”

I do not think preachers should be held to a different standard of truthfulness than other public speakers, but they should be held to high standards befitting the office just as should many.  As Long points out, there is an implied agreement that the words of the preacher are unique because if the preacher, before the sermon announced, “This is not my work, I simply took it from a book” the congregation would be aghast; they would feel a sense of betrayal.  Professional comedians, storytellers, other genres of speakers fall under a different expectation than preachers who are to share the good news, testify to the truth that will set us free.  The preacher’s task is to read widely then present the word to a particular congregation at a particular time–a word, necessarily, unique and if not original, properly forthright.

I realize that some people will argue that sometimes extenuating circumstances make such decisions seem excusable, but morality does not change as deadlines near.  I know I take a stronger stance on this than some of our colleagues, but I rather a congregation hear you at less than your best than hear you mislead them, even if the sermon is gorgeous and the story perfect.  As Pamela Cooper White reminded me in seminary: Sunday morning comes around no matter what sort of week you’ve had and what people want is an honest you.  Of course, I’d add, people are looking not simply for your word, but a holy word proclaimed.  With God’s help that will surely happen, but let’s not let even an ounce of our misleading get in the way.