more on plagiarism

[fox]

see, it's everywhere. this preacher is accused of giving other ministers' sermons without attribution.

"I take full responsibility for what I've done," Jackson said. "It was poor judgment on my part." He said that admitting fault "apparently is not enough" for some members ...

"We don't say we're presenting our word but the word of God," Jackson said of preachers. "It's better to give attribution, but we all borrow."

i find that as eyebrow-raising as the idea that fan writers deserve to have their stuff plagiarized by other fan writers on the grounds that they're playing in others' sandboxes in the first place. allusion is one thing; theft is another, and it's crap.

Comments

[datlowen.livejournal.com]

Plagiarising a sermon? Okay, it's not the most ethical thing in the world, but I have a hard time getting at all worked up about it. One of the primary reasons that plagiarism is so reviled in academia is because we make our reputations--and our living--on our ideas and interpretations of the facts. A preacher makes his living talking about the word of God. And to be quite honest, after 2000 years, there are very few original ideas left about the scripture. To put it another way: academics write for their own personal glory, preachers preach for the greater glory of God. To get into a snit because someone else is preaching your sermon seems to me to be missing the point.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

the message is god's, but the text is the preacher's. if i'm a preacher and someone borrows a concept of mine, whatever. but if he gives my whole sermon, word for word, yeah, i'm torqued. possibly especially if we're both preachers, since we shall not steal, after all.