The ethics of plagiarized sermons

Jeff Strickler writes about the tricky ethics of pastors using sermons they downloaded from the internet:

The arrival of downloadable sermons throws religious leaders into the debate that has bedeviled college campuses since the first term paper went online. But where taking a term paper is clearly cheating, the sharing of sermons apparently isn’t. Some preachers see it as a compliment. Even seminaries have a love-hate relationship with it.

“We used to trade information face to face, now we do it online,” said the Rev. Dave Ridder, dean of Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. “But that raises the question of when does borrowing cross the line, and that can be a very thin line to walk. We encourage students to acknowledge the source of an idea, even if they make it their own. They owe that to the congregation.”

Read the full article here.