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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I hope you're having a good day wherever you are listening from. We're gonna talk about plagiarism today. That's a word if you're in a working class profession you probably haven't heard for a while.
Maybe you have to reach back to high school and remember when that was something you were warned about when you were going through your high school education. If you're in college or if you've had any graduate work, you certainly know what it is and you would definitely know what plagiarism is if you're in a writing or speaking profession.
But basically what it is, is intellectual theft. You're taking the ideas, concepts, the very words of someone else and you're using them for your own purposes without giving them attribution. So you're passing them off as if they're your own, as if you had these thoughts, as if you came up with the paragraph that you cite as if it's your original piece of work when it's not.
And so this has been something that over years of tradition has been kind of fine-tuned into categorizations of what is and what isn't plagiarism. And if you are in academia, if you're used to grading papers, you'll know that when students upload a paper to Moodle or Blackboard or any of these services that are now used in college and now high school for checking, for arranging classes, but there's software usually for checking plagiarism in those services, it'll give you a percentage.
This paper is 5 similar to another paper. And then you can go and you can look at them and you can determine whether or not did the student take information from this other paper and pass it off as their own or is it just there's a similarity there?
If you get to the point, a certain percentage, I'm trying to remember what it was when I was doing this, but if you get to the point of, I remember at least 50%, you wanna go and take a look. Okay, what's going on here?
And then you'll find usually there's a block quote and they've taken it from somewhere else and if they didn't give a citation, if there's no attribution, then this person has violated one of the laws of academia today.
And believe me, this is a law because even colleges and universities that have lost their moral bearings on just about everything still enforce anti-plagiarism measures very harshly sometimes. They'll give you an F or sometimes they'll just boot you out of the program for plagiarism.
I mean, it's very serious because they're still valuing intellectual property and they think theft is wrong and it is wrong. And so this is something that the application wasn't certainly as, didn't happen as often in the ancient world.
There weren't massive problems with people stealing someone else's ideas, passing them off as their own in written form at least. I mean, I'm sure it happened, but as far as we know, this wasn't a common occurrence.
But the principle of stealing, of course, this has always been common. And stealing is wrong. People know stealing is wrong. You have a conscience. The Bible talks about stealing and why it's wrong and how it's wrong.
And so this is something that for Christians has been indisputable. I mean, this is just baked into a Christian moral framework. We believe stealing is wrong and that would include stealing someone else's ideas, writings, et cetera, and then not giving them the credit, the honor that is due them.
And as Christians, we're supposed to give honor to whoever is due that honor. And so if you don't give someone attribution, then in effect you're stealing from them. And so here's, you may be wondering, why did I talk about all of that?
Some of you aren't. Some of you know where I'm going with this. There's been an issue in the Southern Baptist Convention and this is, to me, this is actually a pretty big issue. And I think it's bigger than some people realize because if you're not in an academic setting, generally you're not hearing all these anti-plagiarist measures being talked about.
But if you are, you'll know that plagiarism is very serious. And especially in something as serious as being a president, let's say the largest denomination, Protestant domination in the country, to have someone, Ed Litton, who has been involved in plagiarism is actually kind of a serious thing.
And so I wanna bring you through what I'm talking about. Many of you know, I think the video has gotten over 14 ,000 views now of J .D. Greer and Ed Litton side-by-side preaching basically the same sermon.
And then I'm gonna show you their responses to that because they have made statements. I wanna show you the reactions to those responses and to this turn of events. And we're gonna talk, I'll give you some Bible verses too about the ones that I think apply to this situation of plagiarism and just the current situation in the Southern Baptist Convention.
And I'm gonna bring some more thoughts to you as well, some things that I thought of as we go through this. So if you've seen the video already and you know, hey, there was some plagiarism going on here, and I still have some things to share with you that you probably haven't thought of.
And I tell people, I should say this upfront regarding plagiarism, I tell people who have asked me, and I do appreciate when people do ask, John, can I use one of your videos for something? Can I use your material for something?
I'm just about, I don't think there's ever a time I've said no, you know, of course you can, if you're using it to educate people, that's the purpose of me doing these videos. I want to get information out there so that you can then go and you can use that information and it'll help you kind of frame categories in your own mind for dealing with issues at your own church or your own association, whatever that may be, para-church organization.
So that's my purpose. And I just want to let everyone know who's listening, you can take my information. Now, look, if you're gonna take a slideshow from me or direct quotes from me, I would appreciate it if you at least gave me attribution, if you at least said, this is from John Harris.
This is, if you're using the understandings that you've reached in listening to some of the things I've said, that's not considered plagiarism. You're framing it in your own words, but if you're taking exact ideas, if you're taking exact phrasings and so forth, that would be considered plagiarism.
So I wanted to just let you know that I don't copyright, at least I think my book's copyrighted, but I don't copyright the slideshows that patrons have access to, they can download those. I don't copyright these videos, I guess YouTube knows or wherever I upload them that I was the original source of them, but my goal is to give this information to you all.
So I just wanted to say that upfront if anyone's questioning that, people have asked me about this before, so I figured I'd use this opportunity since we're talking about plagiarism anyways to let you know about that.
So let's go through some of this. I wanted to let you know, one of the first thoughts that I had, which is going to maybe surprise some of you, because maybe some of you had the same thought, but I don't know, let me see if I can pull it up here.
Let's see here. This is an article from the American Renaissance, and you might think, why am I talking about Martin Luther King Jr.? This is an article called Martin Luther King Jr. Plagiarist, which was originally posted or published in the American Renaissance, April 1994.
And I'm not gonna read through the whole thing, I'll let you know why I'm doing it in a minute, but some of the things about this are pretty surprising. King's plagiarisms are easy to detect because their style rises above the level of his pedestrian student prose.
In general, if the sentences are eloquent, witty, insightful, or pithy, or contain allusions, analogies, metaphors, or similes, it is safe to assume that the section has been purloined. It's been plagiarized, it's been taken.
So throughout his academic career, King plagiarized a whole lot. In fact, even the I Have a Dream speech contains plagiarism. His letters from a Birmingham jail contain plagiarism, allegedly. The 1952 address, I Have a Dream speech, this is what most of us, when we think of Martin Luther King Jr., this is what we associate with him, is actually an address, it's taken from an address by a black preacher named Archibald Carey.
His, let's see, noble lecture in his books, Strength to Love and Stride Toward Freedom, are also extensively plagiarized. And here's an interesting part here. It is clear that King did not take from others because he thought ideas and words were common property.
Because you think of, okay, maybe someone doesn't understand that that's actually stealing. But it's not so with King because he actually copyrighted the I Have a Dream speech. Pilferings and all, things he took from other people, and vigorously defended it against unauthorized use.
King's estate continues to enforce the copyright. Only last year, actually I'm not gonna get into all this. So to take one example here from his dissertation, there was a study done of it, and King had stolen, here's, this is interesting.
Boston University formed a committee to look into the matter of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dissertation, and concluded that since King had stolen only 45 of his first part, and 21 of his second part of his dissertation, it was an intelligent contribution to scholarship.
And that no thought should be given to revocation of Dr. King's doctoral degree. So here's the thing. This is something, you can go look this up. This is common. It's out there. There's a lot of articles on this.
And there's interesting articles of people that are really pro Martin Luther King Jr. trying to do all kinds of stretches, and do gymnastics to try to get around the fact that Martin Luther King plagiarized very heavily.
So do I bring this up to just bash Martin Luther King Jr.? No, absolutely not. Actually, I think there's things worthy of honoring in Martin Luther King Jr., or what he accomplished at the very least, which had nothing to do with his plagiarism, or his, we'll just say moral indiscretions.
Those things though do exist. And if you remember, the Southern Baptist Convention had the MLK 50, Gospel Coalition sponsored that. Southern Baptist Schools, because I was at one at the time, were offering credit for students to go out and participate.
So future pastors were getting credit for attending. A lot of talks and statements made by seminary presidents and others at Southern Baptist Schools, very positive about Martin Luther King Jr., and this does not get brought up.
And I'm just telling you, I've heard a lot of these things. It doesn't get brought up. Now, the thing that makes this relevant to what we're about to discuss is that I see the same thing happening now that happened then.
The way that Boston University treated Martin Luther King Jr.'s dissertation, the way that elites think about Martin Luther King Jr.'s plagiarism. They don't wanna talk about it. If it is brought up, it doesn't matter, is the same way that people are treating this sermon plagiarism by the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Ed Litton.
And he shall not be touched is kind of the attitude. And this is also an aspect I wanna bring out and I wanna talk about, because this is, I think, the serious problem here. It's not, plagiarism's an issue, but the bigger issue is when it's brought to light, the reactions you see.
That's the issue in all of this. It's not Ed Litton did something stupid or Ed Litton did something evil or Ed Litton. It's not that. It's how are the elites in the SBC reacting to what just took place?
And would they react that way if it was Mike Stone or Randy Adams or a conservative in that position? How do you think? Just do the thought experiment in your head. So one of the things I talked about two episodes ago was ideology.
And this kind of way of looking at the world, which is very narrow in scope, and you evaluate everything by just a very small catalog of abstract principles, or maybe it's one, maybe it's equality. And so anyone who forwards equality shall not be vilified.
Doesn't matter what bad things they do, but if they tried to forward social equality in any way, they are going to have an almost saint-like status. However, if they're a public figure and they were not in favor of social equality, of forwarding the revolution, that progression, I should say, if they, in fact, went the opposite way in the minds of elites, there's nothing good that they can do to redeem themselves.
So I'll compare two people. If you look at Martin Luther King Jr., and if you, we'll just say the other Martin Luther, if you look at the other Martin Luther, in the minds of elites today, academic elites, I'm just telling you, there's really nothing good that Martin Luther can do to redeem himself.
His quote-unquote anti-Semitic writings, et cetera, I did a video on this if anyone wants to check it out, but those views demonize him. And his views, supposedly now people interpret them as leading to the Holocaust.
There's even a section in the Holocaust Museum on this. If you look at Martin Luther King Jr., it doesn't matter his moral indiscretions, it doesn't matter his plagiarism, he cannot be vilified. And it's all because of that narrow way of judging everything by this abstraction of equality.
So that's what's happening, that's the world we're living in. Ed Litton, if you think about this, apply this logic to the current situation, Ed Litton is the way that even MSNBC, who's had him on twice, and CNN's had him on, and I don't even know where he's all gone on these interviews, they're portraying him as the reasonable, moderate voice against these radical right-wing conservatives that were led by people like Mike Stone and Conservative Baptist Network.
And the narrative is that he's really on this progression. He's helping get these hasty, backwoods, hateful Southern Baptists who are really ardently pro-life and they're anti-LGBT, et cetera, et cetera.
He's getting all these people to really kind of nuance their views, and he's progressing them into the 21st century, not bringing them back like a Mike Stone would have done. That's basically the narrative that's out there.
And so Ed Litton is going to be, if we apply what I just said about MLK and Martin Luther, he's gonna be above the fray as far as criticism is concerned in the minds of many elites, because he's doing something so much bigger and so much greater, and he represents so much more that nothing can really touch him.
That's the thing. Now, I think there's certain things that probably still can, but it's very difficult. It's an uphill battle, whereas for Mike Stone, they'll make up something if they have to. So this is my framing of all this.
This is how I think about all this. And I think it's gonna come out as we go through some of the material. First thing we need to do is look at the actual video of the plagiarism. And so we're gonna do that.
Let's see if I can pull it up here. Let's see here.
And we'll watch it. We will watch it together. And let's see, I don't know if we'll get through the whole thing. Let's see. We'll give you a warning here that this might be the toughest week that we will have in the Book of Romans.
Romans 1, the end of it, is tied in difficulty only with Romans 5, Romans 9, and Romans 11.
This may be one of the toughest passages we face in the Book of Romans. This is the steep climb I talked about.
So in fact, let's just sort of loosen things up right now. Everybody turn right now to your neighbor. Look them in the eyes. If you know them, put your hand on their shoulder and say, this is gonna be a really tough week for you, okay?
And tell them, say, I'm praying for you to have the faith and humility to receive this word.
I want you to turn to your neighbor right now. And I want you to say, I know this sermon's gonna be really tough for you, but I'm here praying that you will listen and obey whatever God says. Go ahead, do that right now.
But y 'all, we believe that God's word is good, do we not?
You see, we believe that God's word is good.
In some of my travels overseas, I'll go into these temples that are erected to a foreign god. I remember being in one of them a while ago over in somewhere in Asia.
Paul David Tripp is a favorite pastor of mine to read. He's a pastor in Philadelphia. He was on a mission trip to Nepal, and he was taken by a missionary into a temple.
And there was, I go in this temple, it's this gigantic, I mean, beautiful temple. And right in the middle of it is about a 25-foot statue of a goddess who has multiple breasts and multiple arms.
And he said, and I will not go into details, but he does explain it, that there was an idol in the center of this temple. He said it was one of the most grotesque things he's ever seen.
Watch these worshipers come in, and they would prostrate themselves before this statue. And many of them were very emotional. Many had traveled a lot of miles to get to this. Very poor, some of them, and taking the little money they had and pouring it out and offering before this statue of this god.
But what really turned his stomach.
Wasn't the shape of the idol. It was how people were bowing down to it, kissing it, putting money on it. He met a family that had walked for four months to get to this idol.
Later, finding myself just going back over that incident in my mind and feeling sorry for the people there and thanking God kind of in my heart that I wasn't like them.
But he walked out of that temple saying, thank God I'm not like them.
Then in the middle of that thought, it just occurred to me. I had a whole list of things in my heart that have taken God's place just like that statue had. When the spirit of God said, Paul, you are exactly like them.
I compared it to if the earth were to say to the sun, I am sick and tired of you being in the middle.
Of the solar system. If the earth were to ask the sun in our solar system, I'm sick and tired of floating out here in nothingness, surrounding you constantly. I wanna be the center of this solar system.
The sun might just say to the earth,.
All right, have it your way. The earth is 30 ,000 times smaller than the sun and would not have the ability to keep all the planets in orbit. And so the solar system would begin to unravel simply because the sun gave to the earth what it asked for.
Folks, our entire solar system would fall apart. Why? Because the earth doesn't have the power of light and it doesn't have the power of gravitational force to hold this solar system in existence.
Oh, sexual disorder. That was the first thing, verses 26 and 27. Now we've got economic disorder. There's economic disorder. Look at verse 29. Social disorder. He says there's social disorder. Social disorder.
Just think Facebook. That's just on Facebook. Then you got spiritual disorder. There's spiritual disorder there. You could think of that as family disorder. And there's family disorder. They disobey their parents.
You see, there are three ways I see us really going wrong with this in the church at large.
I'm gonna tell you three ways. I think we've gone wrong.
Number one, and one, we believe that God doesn't really care about this.
First one is that we don't think God cares about this issue.
We make the gospel message is not let the gay become straight. The gospel message is let the dead become alive.
And the gospel message is not let the gay get straight. The gospel message is let the dead come to life.
Which leads me to the second way that I see us going wrong here. Number two, we think it's the worst sin.
Here's the second thing I think we do, we go wrong on. That is thinking homosexuality is the worst of all sins.
Jen Wilkin, who's one of our favorite Bible teachers here and who's actually leading our women's conference. She said, we ought to whisper about what the Bible whispers about. And we ought to shout about what it shouts about.
And the Bible appears more to whisper when it comes to sexual sin compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.
In the Bible, sexual sin is whispered compared to the shout God makes about greed and judgmentalism.
Throughout Jesus's ministry in his life, we see him demonstrating great, just incredible sympathy for those caught in sexual sin and great animosity toward the religiously proud.
Jesus forgave prostitutes, but he was harsh with religious materialist.
In fact, Jesus one time, not one time ever said that it was difficult for the same sex attracted to go to heaven. He did say it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it was for a religiously proud or materialistically successful person to enter into the kingdom of God.
Matter of fact, he said it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Than for one of these. Only when we grasp, only when we grasp this truth, will we become ministers of the gospel. When we understand like Paul did that we are the worst sinner that we know. Only then when you, only when you understand that will you understand that if Jesus came to die for you, that there is nobody he didn't die for.
We can't grasp this gospel till we confess with Paul these words. In 1 Timothy 1 .15, he says, this is a trustworthy saying, deserving full acceptance, that Christ has come into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.
Here's the third way that we go wrong. Number three, assuming it's hard for LGBTQ people to get to heaven.
Early, we go wrong thinking LGBT people can't go to heaven.
Homosexuality does not send you to hell. You know how I know that? Because heterosexuality does not send you to heaven.
Homosexuality does not send people to hell. How do I know that? Because heterosexuality doesn't send people to heaven.
Rosaria Butterfield, whose story I've shared with you before here, she was a practicing lesbian, very outspoken professor of literature and women's studies at Syracuse University.
She was a practicing lesbian in a committed lesbian relationship.
A culture warrior. On the far left, she said it was Romans 1 that brought her to faith in Christ. And then she said, and I quote,.
Homosexuality is not the core of our rebellion against God. A desire to be God is.
A desire to be the one who gets to declare good and evil, to play judge rather than be judged.
A desire to use God's creation for our own gratification.
Rather than with pleasure for his glory.
Wow. So we did watch the whole thing. I didn't know if we would make it through it, but I just, I had to keep it going. It's just jaw dropping. This is the same sermon basically that they're preaching and passing it off as their own.
That this is, at least Ed Litton is saying, this is mine. Now here's the thing people have asked, you know, where did the original sermon come from? Was this J .D. Rear's sermon? Was this from a common source?
And the answer is, I don't know fully. From what J .D. Greer has said, and we'll go over that in a minute, it sounds like it was from his team or from him, or he's the source that arranged it. But I recognize actually the quote that they both quoted from Tim Keller.
The reason they know that homosexuality doesn't get you into heaven or prevent you from getting into heaven because heterosexuality doesn't get you into heaven. I think, I'm pretty sure that's a Tim Keller quote because I've heard that before.
But anyway, this is something that, look, if there's attribution going on, then there's, you can say, okay, you know, and I'm just brushing the content aside for a moment. Some of that content that you just heard is dangerous in my opinion.
And in fact, you can go back, and I did a review of it. It was one of my first videos on this channel. It's from J .D. Greer's sermon, Why the Fall Affects Us All. And I did a whole review of that sermon that you just saw clips from.
I didn't realize Ed Litton, the current president, so you have the past president preaching this of the Southern Baptist Convention, the current president has preached this. I didn't realize he had preached it too.
And so it sounds like what happened was I had heard some rumblings last week about some murmurings about online that Ed Litton had said that the Bible whispers about sexual sin. And that's something that J .D. Greer has also said, which is really terrible way to phrase that, that it just, that's to minimize it, makes it sound like you're minimizing it as if it's not really that important, which if, you know, watch the video.
And I think that's exactly what he does. He does minimize homosexuality as, and God speaks about it in very harsh terms in certain sections of scripture. That doesn't mean you can't be forgiven. It doesn't mean that there's not grace, but it is a very serious thing.
And he seems to wanna compare it to these other things and say, well, because Jesus said this about a rich man going through the eye of a needle, therefore it's not as bad as being a rich person in the sense that Jesus was talking about that.
Or so he's trying to play text against each other and saying, you know, there's a hierarchy of sin. And the prioritization is that actually same-sex attractiveness or homosexuality or whatever, it's down, way down here.
And anyway, without getting into all that, because I've talked about that before, Ed Litton shared the same view, and this was concerning to some people, but then I think someone realized, and I don't know who put this out there, but thank you to whoever did this.
They realized, wait a minute, this is basically the same sermon. And so this brings up a greater, well, another ethical problem here is like you're taking information that's not yours and passing it off as if it is.
And you're the president of the largest Protestant denomination in North America. And this is, what I'm about to show you is very similar to the way Boston University reacted to MLK stuff. Yeah, it's not really all that important.
In fact, well, I'll show you, I'll just show you. Let's go through it. So here's, well, I'll maximize this so you can see what I'm looking at in my slideshow. By the way, if you're a patron, you can download these for free and check them out or reuse them.
And that's why I put them there is to give people permission. If they wanna use these for anything, they can use them. If they're gonna use exactly what I have here, they should, again, give me some attribution, let people know where you got them from, but you're free to this information.
So here's what the Bible says on plagiarism. Jeremiah 23, 28 through 32. This is a passage that when I was looking into this episode, I hadn't thought of this at first, but I found it. The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word in truth.
What does straw have in common with grain, declares the Lord. It is not my word, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer, which shatters a rock. Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the word, who steal my words from each other.
Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare the Lord declares. Behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord and related them.
So there's more than just plagiarism, obviously, going on in this passage. It's much more serious, ascribing things to the Lord that you said that he didn't. But the line here about, I thought it was interesting, was the prophets who steal my words from each other.
So people who haven't heard the voice of the Lord, but someone else says that they heard the voice, they're taking it from that person and trying to gain legitimacy somehow through this. So that's maybe a specific, maybe one of the closer parallels you can find for today's plagiarism.
But the principle, without that verse, the principle of stealing is all throughout scripture. I'll give you one. Ephesians 4 .28 says, "'He who steals must steal no longer, "'but rather he must labor, "'performing with his own hands what is good, "'so that he will have something to share "'with one who has need.'".
And the contrast here is why I picked this one, because I could have picked a lot of verses on stealing. But it's the contrast. Instead of stealing, you should labor with your own hands. You should do your own work, is what this is saying.
So pastors who download their sermons, and I don't know how many of these, I don't know how much Ed Litton is doing this, but pastors need to perform their own labor with their own hands. And stealing is not right.
And that's what went on in this occasion. And perhaps a whole lot more than just this one occasion. We're gonna look at that in a second. We'll get to this at the end. Let's see. Okay, Ed Litton's statement.
Ed Litton made a statement about this. This is what he said. "'Yesterday, some questions arose "'about a sermon I delivered in January 2020 on Romans 1, "'addressing the sin of homosexuality. "'Specifically, there were concerns about similarities "'with a sermon delivered by J .D. Greer a year earlier.
"'Like thousands of other Southern Baptist pastors, "'I labor every week, preparing to stand "'in front of the congregation of God, "'has called me to serve. "'In preparing for our series on Romans, "'I use several resources to help me think through "'how to structure the series "'and how to best communicate the profound truths "'we encounter in these passages.
"'We employ a preaching team approach at Redemption Church. "'That is comprised of eight men from our staff, "'congregation, who meet weekly to discuss, "'study insights, outlines, approaches to the text.
"'The sermon prep process includes working "'in the languages, anyway, "'their consulting commentaries, et cetera. "'I learned about J .D. Greer's message on Romans, "'discovered he had recently preached, it resonated.
"'We often consult manuscripts along with resources "'as we prepare.'". So what he's saying is, first of all, he's spreading it out. It's not just him, it's this whole, this is the opposite of what a leader does.
I'm just telling you, in general, think of the characteristics of a leader. They accept even the failure of the people under them, and they try to do better. They accept, but what you see with Ed Lytton is he's now, it's not, well, there's a whole preaching team, and they're consulting all these things, and he's minimizing the plagiarism to say that, well, we're just taking useful categories of thought from different sources.
Almost, you almost get the sense of like, well, there's just so many things we're drawing on, so many things that it's hard to even keep track of probably all of them, but if you look at the sermon, he's drawing from really like one main thing, and it's J .D. Greer's sermon, right?
He said, I found that Greer's message on Romans 1 was insightful, particularly his three points of application. With his permission, I borrowed some of his insights in those three closing points. The story of Paul David Tripp was a devotional New Morning Mercy.
Okay, so he took this, he did attribute, to his credit, he did say this is Paul David Tripp's, this is Paul Tripp's story, right? He was able to do it with Paul Tripp, but not with J .D. Greer's sermon.
Now, and this has raised the question, J .D. Greer tells a story that's his own experience. Paul Tripp tells a story that's his experience, and somehow they sound the same in both sermons, and J .D. Greer has an explanation for that.
We'll get to that in a second, but it's not a good look. Our team also, with his permission, used Summit Church's chapter and verse breakdown of Romans as we mapped out our entire series out of a commitment to full transparency.
So this is where it gets frustrated, and concerning. So he says, out of a commitment to full transparency, I've gone back through all 46 sermons in the series, I've located in some places similar illustrations, quotes, or points of application.
One shares the same title, and one has a similar outline. So full transparency, he's gone back through 46 sermons. Okay, let's see if there's actually full transparency, though. I hold to the same study process on each sermon.
As any pastor who preaches regularly knows, we often rely on scholars and fellow pastors to help us think and communicate more clearly with the goal of faithfully preaching the truth of scripture, but I am sorry for not mentioning J .D.'s generosity and ownership of these points.
I should have given him credit as I shared these insights. Well, yeah, there's points here, but there's more than just points. I mean, there's a lot that was taken from J .D. Greer's sermon here. Felt it was important to address this in order to provide truth.
So he says he's committed to transparency, to truth, and to take responsibility for places where I could have been more careful. I am committed to being a man of integrity and humility. I will not waver from that, and I lead redemption.
Here's the thing. I'm leading the Southern Baptist Convention. I'm a man of integrity, but where's the apology here? Where's the real apology? I am so sorry. I took, I stole, I took his ideas. I did not give him attribution.
That was wrong of me. Please forgive me to those who are under my care at my church who heard this, and to those who might be listening online who heard this. Forgive me, and you don't have to apologize to the world or the media or even, or certainly not me, but apologize to the people who were duped, who thought this was your idea, and that it wasn't.
These weren't your words. That's the problem with all this. He does not apologize for that. He could have been more careful. He could have, you know, he's minimizing the whole thing, and it's to the point where I almost expect him to say in this, well, you know, the Bible really just whispers about plagiarism.
It doesn't really say much about it other than just whispering. It's not, you know, it's not really stealing. It's just, we're just consulting all these commentaries. This is very complicated. We're very smart people because we look at languages.
Well, if you're so smart, if you guys are such a long vetting process, and you have a team, which, you have a team? Okay, a team that's writing your sermons, helping write your sermons, whatever. How come so much of it is taken from just one source and not a good source?
If you look at, I did a review of that sermon. It's terrible. It's an awful way of trying to categorize Romans 1 and figure out what Romans 1 is talking about. It flips Romans 1 on its head. But these smart people allegedly are all in a committee looking at languages and commentaries, and they, oh, you know, J .D. Greer's got the best take on this.
I'm not totally, you know, you can't be that ignorant. That's, I just, I'm like, that's not possible. But hey, look, we'll take him at his word that this is actually happening, and that they're just people that I guess are pretty ignorant on that committee.
But whatever the circumstance, just apologize. That's, I'm so sorry. This was wrong. I vow not to do this. And if you've done it in other sermons, and if you wanna take them offline, take them offline and say, this is why I'm doing it.
It was wrong of me to do what I did. I don't want sermons that have plagiarism in it to remain online, or edit them. Put, you know, a little thing at the beginning or the end and say, hey, this sermon, this sermons were, insights were taken from this sermon or whatever.
But he doesn't do that. So we're gonna come back to Ed Litton in a minute. J .D. Greer also put out a statement. He says, he says, when, well, in the immortal worlds of Al Pacino, just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in.
Yeah, so this is like, this is, J .D. Greer is already blaming others for, you know, I'm not the president of the Southern Baptist Convention anymore, but they're pulling me back in. No one's pulling you back in.
It's, this is, I mean, it's, anyway, there could be, there could be so many better ways to start this. You know, dear Southern Baptist family, dear Southern Baptist denomination, dear Southern Baptists, I, this is a serious situation, or this is a concerning situation, or I understand why you're concerned about this situation, but instead, it's all about him.
It's so self-focused. They pull me back in, not concerned about the issue that this is for the Southern Baptist Convention, concerned about him. In January of 2019, he says, I preached a message called How the Fall Affects Us All on Romans 1, on Paul's explanation of the effects of the fall.
Let's see, I'm gonna skip ahead here. Several months later, Ed Litton reached out and told me that he had already, he appreciated it. I told him that he could use bullet points, and he was honored that Ed Litton liked it.
In this particular message, I shared a story of our congregation about a moment of realization I had visiting pagan temples in Asia, and the heartbreaking idolatry. And then he goes in, he says, I did convey to Ed where I got the inspiration for the story, and Ed, having never lived in Asia, chose to tell the story in Paul Tripp's words, and attribute it to Paul.
So Ed took Paul Tripp's encounter, and J .D. Greer saying, well, I, you know, I'm using my own situation. I read this in Paul Tripp, but I'm using my own situation, which actually, that's okay. There's really nothing wrong with that, innately.
So I don't think there's a big problem there. When you put the clip side by side, it sounds pretty bad, though. It sounds like one's experience is Paul Tripp's, and J .D. Greer's having the same experience, talking about it like it's his.
Like, he's doing plagiarizing, too. And we'll just accept the benefit of the doubt here that this is something that he got the idea from Paul Tripp, but he wanted to put it in his own words because he had the same kind of experience.
Okay, he goes on, he says, as much has also been made of my statement that we should whisper about the Bible, whispers about, let's see, the whole, like, the Bible whispers about sexual sin thing. So he justifies that.
He says, we should look more fearfully at our own prideful, greedy hearts than we do haughtily at the sexual dysfunction of others. Look how he even says it, dysfunction, sexual dysfunction. No, not the Bible category, not sin, not evil, not even disorder.
He has to say a dysfunction. It's just, you have something that's not working right. It's just, it's amazing. I mean, even disorder wouldn't have been a good term, but he even softens that, it's dysfunction.
The key word in, I mean, you think of all the medical things with dysfunction in them. Are those sinful? No. So anyway, he repeats the same error again. He minimizes it. And this is the key part, though, here.
He says, when Tom Askew and a few of the same pastors, seemingly looking to trap me in my own words, so self-focused, first highlighted these things nearly two years ago, they never reached out to me for clarification.
A clarification I would have been happy to supply. This is going back to the 11th commandment stuff. Whenever there's a public error, you always must go and privately figure out that error with the person, even if it's public.
Now, if you're confused about something, it is good to go for clarification. There are times to do this, but the knee-jerk reaction in the Southern Baptist Convention is, like, look, even his statement of clarification here, it's just repeating the same error.
It's, I have the same problem with his, when the fall affects us all sermon. There's no difference. There's nothing he could have said to clarify it that would have changed the interpretation of it. There's not, and this was something that was publicly put out there.
So public error, it's fine to respond publicly. You don't see Jesus going to the Pharisees to figure out, hey, what did you guys actually mean by this or that? No, is it public error, public rebuke? And there's nothing innately wrong with that.
Now, if someone says you're not understanding and they wanna publicly have a back and forth or reach out to you privately and you figure it out and then you apologize, oh, I misunderstood. There's nothing wrong with any of that, but I'm just saying there's not a requirement with public error that's on this level to then you have to go and you have to clarify it.
You have to have a little powwow with the person. And no, this is clearly still the same problem. It's clearly wrong. He repeats the same error. There's no clarification here that changes the meaning.
And he's, I don't know what he thinks the clarification, quote unquote, would do. The redacted clip, he says, was used to imply that I was saying something that I was clearly not saying, whether or not this was intentional misrepresentation, I cannot judge, but it was at best a negligent one.
Really? You can't judge even though you just said that Tom Askell by name and some seeming pastors looking to trap me in my own words. You've already questioned their motivations. Here's the great hypocrisy.
You ready for it? Of J .D. Greer, the great hypocrisy here. He cites a name. He goes, Tom Askell is seeking to misrepresent me in my own words. That's Tom's motive. That's what he's trying to do. J .D. Greer, did you go to Tom Askell first?
Did you privately try to clarify with Tom Askell? No, you didn't because the next part of that same paragraph, I can't question the motives, I don't know. So you didn't figure out the motive of Tom Askell, but you're sure that his motive is that he's trying to use your words against you.
It's interesting. It's a complete, it's complete hypocrisy within like two sentences of each other. And it's like, he doesn't even see it. Others don't even see it. This is embarrassing. It should be.
And not only that, he's breaking his own rule, which is you can't go, you gotta clarify with the person for something publicly said. Well, if Tom Askell publicly said, I disagree with your sermon on Romans 1, and you didn't go to him to figure out what he meant by, then what are you doing, then calling him out here?
This is the craziness of the Southern Baptist Convention. And it's why I've said, and I'm still saying, and I think that in the upper echelons of the leadership, there's a problem. You have two things.
You have either people who are just, well, three things. People that are so ignorant, they shouldn't be in their positions. Or you have people that are evil and self-centered, using the denomination for their own gain or their own agenda, and they shouldn't be there.
And then you have a third group of people that are, I guess, really good brothers, I've been told, but they don't have the backbone to actually stand up to this stuff. They can't call it out. They can't do anything about it, and they won't actually lead.
That is a recipe for disaster. Their ranks are very thin. You think to your head, in your head right now, how many people can you name in the upper echelons of the Southern Baptist life who will actually call out people like J .D. Greer by name and exactly get right what they got wrong, tell it like it is, and be leaders?
How many can you think of? If there's so many good brothers up in those upper echelons, in those positions, which is what I know some people advocate, and I respect some of those people, stay in the denomination, there's good people there.
Well, where are they right now? Where are they? Are you hearing from, and a lot of people say, well, it's Al Mohler. He's still there. He's conservative. What is he saying about this? This is where you gotta start thinking in these terms.
So that's gonna determine whether or not the denomination is even, if you're able to save it or not. If the leadership doesn't exist to oppose this ridiculous kind of stuff, then I don't know how you get the denomination back to orthodoxy.
Anyway, he says, a culture of suspicion happens automatically. A culture of trust makes intentionality. Our convention desperately needs to build a culture of trust. Really? Is that how you build a culture of trust by calling out Tom Askell and any pastor that's concerned?
That's how you build a culture of trust, apparently. And that starts with assuming the best about each other and giving the benefit of the doubt wherever we can. I am praying for Ed Litton as he speaks, leads us to focus on the Great Commission.
So it's like, the people that are against Ed Litton right now and his plagiarism, they're taking away from the focus of the Great Commission. That's the implication here. This should be offensive and this should be viewed as evil by every Southern Baptist, this kind of a statement.
It's an embarrassment that a guy like this ever got into a position of leadership in the denomination. Not only is this logically absurd and hypocritical, but it's also, it's using a lot of projection kind of tactics.
The very thing he's doing, that he's accusing others of doing, he's doing. And it's to neutralize opposition. This is political monkeying that's going on here. This isn't someone that has the character to lead a denomination.
I say this after observing so many things from this guy and the way that he approaches quote unquote leadership. This isn't what makes a leader a leader. This is someone who's self-focused on themselves and what they want in their agenda.
And I don't have a problem saying it. Now, let's see here. Let's get back to, I think we're gonna, what's the next slide I put here? Oh, I was gonna mention this, I forgot. I was hoping that J .D. Greer could meet someone named, oh yeah, J .D. Greer, because he wrote an article, the same guy that I just read from, in April 13th, 2012, what counts as plagiarism in a sermon?
And here's what he says, and I quote, if I ever preach the gist of another person's sermon, meaning that I use the lion's share of their messages, organization points or applications, I give credit, I don't ever, I never think it's a good idea to preach someone else's sermon.
But in those rare times, when you feel like you just can't help it, you have to give credit. A sermon is a major thought unit. If it's not yours, you have to acknowledge where it came from. J .D. Greer on plagiarism, April, 2012.
What are the reactions to this? Well, let me give you some from people within the Southern Baptist Convention. We'll look at Danny Akin, Adam Greenway, Malcolm Yarnell, James Merritt, and Keith Whitfield.
Danny Akin, thank you, my friend, to Ed Litton. I appreciate your humility, transparency, and integrity, grateful for you, Malcolm Yarnell. My wife said something very important about theology here in response to Ed Litton, something that has been increasingly lost in Baptist life, something that must be regained.
She said, this is theology in community, talking about Ed Litton's sermon. When did our church culture decide we have to be Lone Rangers? Thank you for your commitment to preach God's word and show his love.
That's just theology in community, that's all that is. Plagiarism's fine, it's just theology in community. It's just gaining from other people's insights. That's what we're all supposed to be doing, right?
Theology in community. And of course, there's some truth to the fact that we should be gaining from others as iron sharpens iron. There should be discipleship from, it doesn't mean everyone, it just means people, though, that are mature and godly, and someone more mature and godly than you, you should gain from that person.
And someone who has maybe a thought that you hadn't thought of. That's just smart. But to say, to pass that off as plagiarism, I mean, would we apply that to physical property? Well, maybe some of these people would, yeah.
He didn't steal that thing. I mean, that vehicle that he stole, I mean, that's just driving in community. I mean, we're all just trying to help each other. I mean, it's absurd, but this is Malcolm Yarnell's, he thinks that that's perfectly fine.
This is a man teaching theology at a Southern Baptist Convention Seminary. And then Adam Greenway, the president of Southwestern, of course, retweets this. James Merritt, former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, also the one recently who said that, you know, the world is watching, you might remember that.
He said, Ed Litton is a man of humility, honesty, and absolute integrity. He is exactly God's man for the hour to lead Southern Baptists. And thank God he is the one that was elected to lead us. Ignore the ants at the picnic.
Wow, so this guy, it's funny to me, because I remember someone years ago, you know, James Merritt's not woke. James, he doesn't even know what this stuff is. He's, you know, he's a good guy. He's not, I mean, you hear this about all kinds of people, that you're like, no, no, no, I don't think so.
And James Merritt's true colors are showing. He calls people who are concerned about plagiarism, ants at the picnic. That's, they're ants. I mean, really, is that acceptable language? Is that what builds for unity?
And thank God he was elected, as opposed to who, Mike Stone. I guess if Mike Stone was elected, that would've been so horrible. This is James Merritt showing his true colors here. Keith Whitfield, Provost, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I'm thankful for this response from Ed Litton. He's a humble man with integrity and values, transparency and truth. It's unfortunate that there are those in the SBC who spend their time spitting half-truths to attack and tear down.
Okay, what's the half-truth? And what's the, is it attacking and tearing down to point out or to call for someone to resign who lacks the integrity to lead the denomination? This is how denominations die.
This is how they, this is like Roman Empire at the end of Roman Empire type stuff. You just dumb down all the standards. I mean, these are people that are connected to seminaries. Adam Greenway, Danny Akin, Keith Whitfield, Malcolm Yarnell, at least.
Are they going to now say that their students can just plagiarize? That's fine. And they can still be just really men of integrity with values and transparency apparently too. They have transparency, even that they can just go ahead and do plagiarism.
I mean, this is absolutely absurd, but this is where we're going. And I do know, because when I was there at Southeastern for just a brief period of time, the standards were sinking, academic standards, and I'm sure they've sunken more.
These aren't places that you wanna be suspicious of the people coming out and graduating. I'm not saying they're all bad, but I'm just saying you gotta be careful. Some of these people, they're not as bright as you probably would hope they would be from a seminary education.
And it's unfortunate that I have to say that, but where does, if stealing isn't really bad, if plagiarism really isn't bad, where's the line then? I mean, the thing that's tragic about all this is it's so easy.
It's so simple. You just apologize. I made a mistake and I sinned. Or if you don't wanna say I sinned, even if you really just think this was just an easy mistake to make, you just forgot to mention that it was from someone else, it was their sermon, then at least say, I am so sorry.
And I acknowledge how this looks and what it makes me look like. And I just say, look, I'm committed to, I really am committed to transparency, which is why I apologize to you now in humility, true humility.
And I understand if there's people whose trust I need to regain because of this, that would be, and even then, I'm kind of thinking like, see, do you really want someone the president of your denomination who's taking other people's sermons and using them?
But even then, despite that, put that on the shelf, that would be the way to approach this. I'm grateful for those who brought this up because I don't wanna wrong my brother, J .D. Greer. You know, that's, you don't see any of that.
You just see the circling of the wagons here and then the demonization of anyone who would point out that this is a problem. That's why there's no immune system left in the Southern Baptist Convention to really root out heresy when it comes in, because they can't even root out something or call attention to something as basic as plagiarism.
Big problem, guys. All right, here's what I wanted to show you regarding transparency. So he wants to be transparent, but they took down at least 143 videos from Ed Linton's church, from their YouTube.
They hid or took down, or you can't see, 143 videos that are all private now. I wanna read for you some verses. Isaiah 520, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
We have people that are championing, that are just so excited about a man who's in leadership, who did this, and we don't know how many times. I mean, look at the 143 unavailable videos. They're so excited.
This is the guy who's leading us. Didn't apologize, but substitute, they substitute darkness for light and light for darkness. Good is evil, evil is good. The evil people are the ones that are pointing out the sin.
Ephesians 511, do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them for it is disgraceful to speak of the things that are done by them in secret. I see these men in the Southern Baptist Convention circling the wagons.
They're participating now. They're downplaying this. And this is an actual, stealing is an actual problem. It would be nice if someone just acknowledged that. It's a sin. Proverbs 28 and 13, he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.
That's what I wanna recommend. This is what the Bible recommends. Just confess, forsake, confess and forsake. It's easy. Well, it's not always easy from a human standpoint, but it's a lot better than eating, it's better to eat some humble pie than it is to go around strutting around like a rooster when you really have nothing to be proud of.
And you're losing the respect of the people that you need in order to lead them. You have to have respect in order to lead people. First Corinthians 15, 33, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.
And this is my final pitch for Southern Baptist Convention people. Is this the convention you really wanna remain in if you're in the SBC? Bad company corrupts good morals. Is there a way that your church, you can be involved in this convention and not have the convention influence things you're doing?
And this is gonna look different for everyone, but if you're going to conferences with these people, if you're sending students to seminaries where these people are teaching them, how are you gonna expect that that bad company is not gonna corrupt the good morals of whoever you just sent to seminary or whatever conferences your church is going to, et cetera?
That's the concern, one of them, at least. Final thoughts for you. I wanted to, on a slightly unrelated note, bring this up. Just found this out. The Supreme Court announced the decision to deny a review to NAMM this morning in a case with Will McCraney.
You might remember that I did a podcast with him. This is a huge win for justice and the Southern Baptist Convention, according to Will McCraney. This is a article from Capstone Report I have screenshotted here.
So this is their words, not mine. This is what Will McCraney said. Today is a win for all Southern Baptists that believe that their local church and Baptist body is Baptist headquarters, not NAMM. Will McCraney said, thank you, SCOTUS, for recognizing and upholding the clear separation and autonomy of churches and Baptist bodies when NAMM trustees refused to.
Baptist polity and autonomy is preserved. NAMM, along with the ERLC, the Capstone Reports, lied multiple times to federal courts in an attempt to avoid justice. And it says from Will McCraney, we look forward to the discovery process and the building of a public record with the evidence that will then be heard by a jury.
Okay, here's the thing. This is why I wanted to mention this. So I think the situation is the Court of Appeals upheld. The situation is NAMM disparaged Will McCraney, hurt him professionally, and he didn't ever actually work for them.
And so the argument that NAMM and the ERLC are putting forward is that, well, he's actually, he worked for an entity, though, of ours. He worked for, I think it was the Maryland, Delaware-Maryland Baptist Convention.
Therefore, and that's unrelated to the NAMM, but the NAMM's trying to claim that they're kind of have oversight over all of this. It's a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. And so they wanted to appeal to the Supreme Court to basically have that recognition.
And the Supreme Court denied that. And now Will McCraney can go forward with discovery, which means he can get evidence from NAMM that supports his case or shows, you know, this is what they're doing.
This is what they've done. This is the things that, you know, I don't know to what extent he can use discovery, if he can open financial records. I'm sure there's a lot he can do. This is something that people need to support, though.
And I think it's willmcraney .com. I'm gonna check that out real quick while I'm on here. But I mean, he's fighting the Southern Baptist Convention by himself in a way, and it is willmcraney .com. And you can, there is a donate bar right there.
So I would just point you to that if you want to support Will McCraney in this. And this is the right thing. I have a lot of respect for him and what he's, at least what he's doing. And at the very least, I think opening those books is gonna be important.
So wanted to bring all that to you. I hope that's helpful for you Southern Baptists. I understand, and we could be praying for this, I think the PCA has their general assembly today. And I don't know how long it goes this week, but that's something that I'm hoping to look into a little bit more.
I'm not as familiar as I am with the SBC, but I know that that's another important denomination out there that's also going in the same direction. So we can be praying for them. And again, I hope summer, I hope you're having some fun out there too.
I hope you're taking a break here or there, taking a walk, going fishing, doing something other than sitting at the office, or I know there's all sorts of different people who listen to me. So working, you know, on outside with your hands or inside, maybe your stay at home mom.
I hope you're able to get out and take a walk somewhere, which is what I'm hoping to do later today. So God bless you all until next time, bye now.