[Mins] literary & scholarly etiquette

Fri Dec 6 00:43:28 UTC 2013

Hi everyone

This is an important issue indeed. The pastor of one of my family members
had to resign within the last year due to substantiated systematic
plagiarism of sermons. He was found out using the searches already alluded
to which were undertaken by an elder who had heard something familiar. A
subsequent preliminary investigation by the elders forced a confrontation
which was to the effect 'how much has this really been happening?' to which
he lied and was then beyond the point of any return when further
investigation confirmed his guilt in over 70 sermons. It's a trust issue.
Totally unacceptable, but there was of course a pastoral side to the
situation raising issues of pressure, expectations, depression, shame, guilt
and so on. It has been - and still is - devastating to all involved. May God
have mercy on that man, his family, the church and all those who have been
looking on from a distance. Humility will find many lessons to learn in
these sorts of situations. 

But just a note of caution. In these situations it is hard, unless you are
the investigating body (and even then), to know the whole story. I followed
the link to the Driscoll allegations below and the page actually contains
updated information to the effect that all content regarding the allegations
has been removed from the accusers site. This of course doesn't mean there
isn't a case to answer, but beware of circulating these sorts of things as
they can seriously damage ministries that in the end may be found to be
innocent.

Cheers

Graham Sayer

From: mins-bounces at crca.org.au [mailto:mins-bounces at crca.org.au] On Behalf
Of WPGadsby
Sent: Monday, 2 December 2013 9:59 AM
To: jwestendorp at crca.org.au; mins at crca.org.au
Subject: Re: [Mins] literary & scholarly etiquette

Hi John and others,

Reminds me of the story about the little church that couldn't afford a
minister, so every week students from a nearby seminary would take the
service.

One week a young bloke preached and began by acknowledging that he had
'borrowed' the sermon from C.H.Spurgeon (the famous 19th century London
preacher). After the service, one of the elders spoke to him. "It's
interesting that you mentioned that you'd borrowed the sermon from Mr
Spurgeon, because it was the same sermon we had last week. Must have been Mr
Spurgeon his self!"

More seriously, this issue has come up recently with regard to Pastor Mark
Driscoll, who has been caught our quoting extensively from the work of Dr
Peter Jones, without proper acknowledgment. Details here
<http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2013/11/27/mark-driscoll-silent-ami
d-mounting-allegations-of-plagiarism/> .

I reckon that there is a grey area between plagiarism and "research." In the
latter case, you studied and weighed the views of others, and come to your
own convictions about the matter. In the former, you just lazily quote
verbatim, or nearly so, the words of another. According to the above-cited
web page, an IP fellow at Columbia has stated that "Copyright laws protect
expression - the exact ordering of words - not the idea."

Can we narrow the grey area?

Blessings,

Peter G

Canberra

From: mins-bounces at crca.org.au [mailto:mins-bounces at crca.org.au] On Behalf
Of jwestendorp at crca.org.au
Sent: Monday, 2 December 2013 9:40 AM
To: mins at crca.org.au
Subject: [Mins] literary & scholarly etiquette

Good morning men.

I trust you had a wonderful Lord's Day yesterday.  We certainly did and were
blessed by Andrew's third sermon on Song of Songs.  We hope to have it
accessible from our church web page shortly.  I said to someone yesterday,
"I've only ever heard one sermon on Song of Songs and that was as
allegorical as could be.  Andrew's approach was refreshing and it's good to
see that sending Andrew to the last Preaching Conference at the RTC has paid
dividends for us in Toowoomba J

I write this though because I want to raise a matter for discussion on the
MINS email list that has troubled me for some time.  It's the matter of
acknowledging our sources.  That's a difficult matter and I know that there
are a lot of grey areas.  In our preaching we do heaps of research that
includes not only grammars and lexicons but also commentaries and the even
the sermons of others.  At the end of the day we may end up with a sermon
that has "borrowed" from half a dozen sources or more.  Most of us, if we
have a lengthy quote, will acknowledge the source.  It's even happened that
at the start of a new series of sermons I begin by acknowledging my
indebtedness to a certain book/author.  However there is a grey area where
we use ideas that we pick up and then develop further ourselves.  It becomes
a nightmare - and a hindrance to good communication - to repeatedly say, "I
just want to acknowledge that I got that idea from Matthew Henry (or
whoever)".  I sometimes take consolation in the thought that it has all been
said before.

The same is true for the stuff we put in our bulletins.  If we thought it up
ourselves we put our own name under it.  If we've taken it from a book or
off the internet then it is good etiquette to acknowledge the source.  In
fact not to do so could lead us to be charged with plagiarism.  Although I'm
mindful of the quote, "If you borrow the words of one author it's called
plagiarism, if you borrow from twenty authors it's called scholarship!".

I mention all this because I do take the time these days to listen to some
of the sermons being preached in our churches and I also get a fair number
of church bulletins crossing my desk.  There have been times when I have
thought, "That sounds familiar!"  The helpful thing is that these days you
can do a google search on a whole phrase or sentence.  When that same
sentence (or even paragraph) then pops up on a website then it's obvious
that it has been cut and pasted.  And please don't think you can get away by
arguing that the same Spirit who inspired the other author also inspired you
J

We need to remember not only that doing this is not good etiquette... it is
also embarrassing when you are caught out.  In fact many years ago a man was
actually dismissed from the ministry when it was found out that all his
sermons had been plagiarised - in that case simply by being translated from
another language but never acknowledged.

This is not intended to be taken as me having a shot at anyone - I just want
to raise a concern I have and I trust that those who find that the cap fits,
will indeed wear it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Please add your words of wisdom if you have something to offer.

John Westendorp (CRC Toowoomba)

Westy's Weekly Blog

Pearls

In the Holy Bible there are less than a dozen references to pearls. Some of
those references simply refer to what is most valuable and precious. Thus
Jesus tells us not to throw our pearls to pigs (Mat.7:6). I've often used
that verse (and probably misused it too!) to justify not answering an
antagonist who is having a go at me for my Christian beliefs. In other
instances pearls are used to refer to jewellery items and are simply
included along with gold and precious stones.

 <http://www.crca.org.au/events/blogs/entry/blogs/pearls.html> Read more.!

  _____  

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