Judge Rules in Sermon Sharing Scandal

Evangelical churches and ministries across America are reeling today after a lower court in Manhattan found the defendants guilty in the "U.S. vs. 'Rev. John Smith'" sermon sharing case. 

On April 1, 2007 the justice department filed charges against thousands of pastors and seminary students across America.  Due to the large number of parties involved, the justice department simply designated the defendant as "Rev. John Smith" to represent the whole. 

At the center of the suit are the sermons and writings of Rev. Timothy J. Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.  After an intensive three year investigation the justice department uncovered an extensive network of  pastors, seminary students and other church workers who downloaded hundreds of sermons by Rev. Keller, distributed them and preached them regularly in churches across America.

Lead investigator Roscoe P. Coltrane commented, "we received a tip from an elderly lady from Flynt, MI named Lois McGillicuddy.  Being retired, she travels extensively throughout America and is in a different church every Sunday. She noticed that she kept hearing the same sermons over and over and after three years of this became suspicious and notified us.  We launched an investigation which uncovered a massive underground network of illegal sermon sharing.  Mrs. McGillicuddy was right, the same sermons are being preached over and over again in the churches throughout America, and they all are tied to Keller."   

The means for sharing these sermons are various.  Coltrane noted that the recent explosion of "Christian leadership conferences" has been a major source of sermon sharing - "On any given day, one to two dozen of these 'leadership conferences' is being held in churches, conference and convention centers across America.  And these conferences are multiplying like rabbits, we estimate there are three to four new nationwide leadership conferences announced every week. Ninety percent of the pastors in America attend 6 or more of these conferences a year, as well as a large percentage of seminary students and others training for ministry."  Coltrane went on to point out that these are prime opportunities for sermon sharing.  "Attendees will frequently be found exchanging small USB devices containing pirated sermons, and there are many hallway and backroom conversations telling each other where to find more."

 

But by far the biggest source of sermon sharing has been the internet.  Just as hackers routinely break into Microsoft to acquire copies of the latest software, these sermon hackers have bypassed all of the security measures of the "Redeemer Online Store," which stores Keller's sermons.  Every sermon Keller has ever preached has now been downloaded and is available to preachers and ministry leaders across America from "sermon-warez" hackers.

When notified about this, Art S. Prince of Redeemer Church Associates, cooperated fully with the Justice Department.  "I can appreciate that pastors need material to preach from," said Mr. Prince, "but we have to maintain some quality control here, people are taking Rev. Keller's words and are mixing them with their own, so we need to put a stop to this."

On hearing about the verdict, Genea Simmons, a spokesperson for the Redeemer Church Associates said, "I do feel bad for these pastors who can no longer use Mr. Keller's sermons.  But we here at Redeemer believe this is all a part of God's sovereign plan.  For 15 years now we have been telling everyone that God wills that every Christian in America move to New York City - if we reach New York City with the gospel, we have reached the world.  This will force pastors and others who want to use Keller's material to come to New York City to hear it live.  And by living in New York City, they are helping insure that the Great Commission is fulfilled."

The fallout has been devastating, even catastrophic for some. One denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, found that from 2002-2006, 65% of the sermons preached in their pulpits were plagiarized from Mr. Keller.  Even more alarming was the fact that new pastors who graduated from PCA related seminaries from 1995-2006, 87% were using versions of Mr. Keller's sermons each Sunday. Because of this verdict, 37% of PCA churches across America closed their doors last month because they couldn't find preachers. 

The seminaries are also being hit hard.  There are no new enrollments at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, and the various campuses of Reformed and Westminster Theological Seminaries.  Sean Fanning of Napsterville, IL recently dropped out of Covenant Seminary. "The only reason I went to seminary was to get 'credentials' so I could pastor a church.  I felt called to pastor a church but have never been a good student.  The leaders in my church told me not to worry about that, I could go to Covenant and skate by with C- grades in all my classes and still graduate.  Then when I got 'on the field' they were going to hook me up with the 'Keller underground' and I'd have all my sermons taken care of.  Now that's all gone."

But it's not only the PCA that is suffering from this, the Southern Baptist Convention has also taken a hit.  Every Southern Baptist Church that has been planted in America since 1995 has either been planted by the Rev. Ed Stetzer or by someone who was following the script of one of his books.  But Stetzer confesses "frankly I lift all of my material from Tim Keller, with this ruling I'm done."  Because of this, Stetzer has been relieved of his duties as the SBC's "Missiologist in Residence," and he has ceased his writing and speaking ministry.  Dr. Frank Page, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, says "I'm not sure what we're going to do - now that Stetzer has dried up we can't plant SBC churches and most of our younger pastors are dropping out.  They just can't go on without Stetzer."

Geoff Hammond, President of the Southern Baptist's North American Mission Board (NAMB) is upbeat.  "Yes, losing Stetzer was big, and we wish him well in his new job as Marketing Director for the Dunder-Mifflin office in Erie, PA.  But we Southern Baptists are a creative and resilient sort - we'll adapt.  In fact, just this morning we recast the purpose and mission of the NAMB.  Since we don't have Stetzer we're no longer trying to plant churches - instead, we are moving forward with a new vision of hosting more Beth Moore conferences.  In fact, on January 2, 2008 Broadman and Holman will publish Beth's newest book 'Become a Moore Better You,' to coincide with her much anticipated 'Your Beth Life Now,' nationwide bus tour.  So yes I am upbeat - who needs Stetzer or Keller when you've got Moore?"

The internet was the arena where most of Keller's sermons were shared, amongst Christian blogs and social networks.  But these are being hit just as hard as the denominations.  Famed Keller blogger and minister Steve McCoy of the Reformissionary blog has shut down his blog and left his church and is pursuing his dream of becoming a member of the Hollywood paparazzi.  The leading Keller blogger on the internet, D. J. Chuang believes this is the end of the "Christian blogosphere."  Chuang says "when it comes to 'Christian blogging' 50% of the bloggers out there were either blogging Keller's words or commenting on them.  The other 50% were arguing with them.  Now 50% of Christian bloggers have nothing to say and the other 50% have no one to argue with."

It remains to be seen what the total fallout from this verdict will be.  Many Christian leaders refused to be interviewed for this story, evidencing a sense of shame over their involvement in this sordid affair.  But the feelings of all the defendants in this case were expressed eloquently by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  When asked to comment, Driscoll said simply  "@!%$*+^% *&^%@#!"

Technorati tags: Humor, satire, religion, Christianity

© 2007 - The Garlic News Service

Comments

[Leo]

Guess I am in trouble too...here all this time I had been using sermons from A. Paul...oops...gotta go - they are knocking down the door to arrest me!!!

Actually - given the latest state of lawsuits...while the names kept ringing bells (Art S. Prince...or at least he was formerly known as such...), it wasn't until Dunder-Mifflin that I knew for sure!!!

More...More!!!

[iCalvinist]

Stop, you had me at Roscoe P. Coltrane....you had me at Roscoe P. Coltrane

Scott Moonen wrote:
"You know, it would be funny if further "investigation" proved that Keller himself was plagiarizing his sermons from some rural pastor in Alberta or something."

Scott, I've recognized a few of Tim Keller's sermons being lifted (without citation) straight from a common professor we had at Westminster Theological, the late Edmund P. Clowney. I know this because I was once mistaken for bitting off of Keller before I even knew who "Keller" was. This in turn caused me want to hear Keller for myself to verify the "man-crush" on Clowney we obviously shared in common. Keller has admitted publicly that he is indebted in general to Edwards, Clowney, Frame, Miller, and Martin Lloyd Jones. Even heroes have heroes that they emulate whether consciously or not, but I agree that Saturday night plagiarizing is uncool.

[David Fairchild]

:::San Diego, CA::::

On Friday evening, David Fairchild, preaching pastor of Kaleo Church, committed suicide upon reading a blog post entitled "Judge Rules in Sermon Sharing Scandal" written by the leader of the reformed mafia hit crew who ironically calls himself Jolly Blogger.

Pastor Fairchild left a note for one of his elders to read to the congregation at Kaleo Church:

"It has become increasingly clear that I have nothing original to say about the Gospel. I've been utterly deprived of contextual creativity since getting my first hit of Keller 4 years ago. I admit, I'm a junkie with a horrible man-crush on Timothy J. Keller. This has led me to deep depression since I realize that I can never live up to Dr. Kellers standards as expected by my congregation. I know I'm accepted, but c'mon! Can't a brotha nurse an idol every now and again?

After trying to preach the gopsel to myself for 4 straight hours, I realized that my only escape from this scandal will come from slipping a velvet noose around my neck and kicking the Roland keyboard bench out from under me. Since I know I'm accepted, I won't expect a frowning face from my Father (though I must admit, I'm a little nervous about standing before Him realizing anything I know about Him comes from Keller himself).

Please let Kaleo know that I was addicted to the Gospel as taught by Tim Keller and any results from His teaching that has helped our congregation grow is owing in large part to my translation of Kellerisms into a San Diego vernacular. Any negative results from such teaching I will place firmly upon Tim Kellers shoulders since it was his fault all along.

What am I supposed to do? The first hit I knew I was hooked and from then on I just kept needing more and more. I sold my Tim Lahaye series to download more sermons and pirate his tapes from friends. I pray that everyone accepts my inability to stand before them because of either fear or pride, since both come from my disbelief in the Gospel of grace that makes me both humble and courageous.

This act may not be "in step" with the Gospel, but I'm under grace baby!

Toodles"

Sources say they found the note sowed into the lining of his jacket which he learned from Keller as he recounted Pascal's illustration in a sermon.

Most are grieved by this loss, but many are happy that they will get a kinder, gentler preacher who not only speaks about the gospel but lives it consistently.

[Reid Monaghan]

I am repenting...thankfully, I keep reminding myself that the gospel is not the ABCs but the A-Z of Christianity...

[guilty as charged]

Bravo. Hilarious.

I immediately recognized the joke though, I knew if there had actually been a lawsuit, they was no conceivable way to have the trial without me as a defendant!

[Michael Keller]

ha! i knew right away that this was a fake because i would have heard about a court of law or something of this nature. then for about 5 seconds i doubted, but as I read on it came to light. whew! i was worried for everyone out there- including me! ha!

[Rae Whitlock]

*applause*

[Read Cowern]

Hilarious! This Saturday morn is our "Godly Men Training" session with Keller leading and I admit I was buying it all reading furiously until the "Roscoe P. Coltrane" (Dukes of Hazzard) reference.

~another PCA brutha seeking to harvest

http://www.harvestpca.org/

[Travis Seitler]

Wow, great work! You had me completely fooled until I got to the Genea Simmons quote. :)

[Shane]

It took me until "Sean Fanning of Napsterville" to be absolutely sure :)

[Charlie]

I'm shocked, shocked! Round up the usual suspects.

[Chris Giammona]

Great post. As a former RE at Redeemer, you had me until the Redeemer Church Associates comment - then I knew.

Chris

[Bill Kinnon]

Well. I was getting tired of blogging anyway.

[Scott Moonen]

David, you say satire -- so what's the contemporary reference? Are you referring to plagiarization of Warren's sermons, or just a general appreciation for Keller's awesomeness?

You know, it would be funny if further "investigation" proved that Keller himself was plagiarizing his sermons from some rural pastor in Alberta or something.

[Vitali Zagorodnov]

Well, it took me about 4 min to realize it was a joke. Sigh...

[Steve McCoy]

Upon the advice of counsel and my new employer, TMZ.com, I cannot comment as I also have dogfighting charges pending.

Steve McCoy

[melee.]

hilarious. i've not heard of the infamous mister keller, but this entry is great.

[DJ Chuang]

The journalistic plausibility of this article was frankly too believable. I was racking my brains to remember when I gave an interview and sound bite like that. :)

[Bill Reichart]

LOL - awesome

Tim Keller has become the vernacular around our church. When someone preaches or hears an awesome sermon, we call it "Keller".

e.g. "Hey bro, that sermon was Keller!"

- a fellow PCA bro-in-Christ.

[Darryl]

Oh man - I just busted a gut.

I'm on my way to shut my blog down now...

[Ed Stetzer]

I am SOOOOOO busted.

It's true... I confess. I actually quoted Keller on Sunday so your timing is great.

But, for the record, I also CITED him!

"I am accepted, therefore I obey." - Tim Keller

Ed