Texas megachurch Pastor Josh Howerton has repeatedly been accused of plagiarism. But now it appears another megachurch pastor may be plagiarizing the alleged plagiarizer.
Aaron Brockett, pastor of Traders Point Christian Church in Indianapolis, preached a sermon last Sunday that had the same outline and nearly identical wording as Howerton’s controversial Oct. 6 sermon, “How to Vote Like Jesus.”
Months earlier, Brockett’s election preaching had a different tone, urging unity during election season, warning against placing allegiance with a particular political party, and focusing on priorities more typical of Democrats, such as diversity and justice.
But last Sunday, Brockett echoed arguments expressed three weeks earlier by Howerton, pastor of Dallas-area Lakepointe Church.
“The Republican party today on the issue of abortion has become what the Democrat Party was 30 years ago when Bill Clinton said he wanted it to be safe, legal, and rare,” Howerton said. “So, this is where we are right now. Now, I also have to be honest. The other side is far worse.”
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Similarly Brockett said last Sunday, “The right had drifted to become where the left was about 30 years ago when Bill Clinton said he wanted abortions to be safe, legal, and rare. However, I will say this. The left has moved to something far worse.”
TRR reached out to Brockett multiple times to explain the similarities between the sermons, but he did not respond.
Howerton has been accused of plagiarizing others’ sermons in his own preaching. And he recently seemingly plagiarized an apology for a controversial sermon in which he joked that women should do whatever their husbands want them to do on their wedding night.
Howerton also drew criticism and made headlines across the country for his Oct. 6 election sermon saying those who don’t vote are engaging in “passive rebellion.”
Brockett patterns sermon after ‘Holy Spirit’ or Howerton?
In August, Brockett preached two sequential election sermons to his congregation in Indianapolis on the upcoming election, titled, “Jesus, The Election, and You.” The first sermon’s main theme was unity in the midst of division.
Brockett offered some Christian values to help Christians discern how to vote, but emphasized the values don’t fall in one single party. He said Christians should value justice, diversity, peacemaking, life, and sexual ethics when voting.
But he warned that Jesus didn’t want to be used as a “puppet” by political factions.
On Aug. 11, Brockett preached again, urging kindness in discussing politics with people of different opinions. He also taught submission to government, regardless of who is in charge.
But on Oct. 27, Brockett told his congregation that 12 days prior, the Holy Spirit had spoken to him and told him to add a third part to his election sermon series from August.
Brockett then delivered a sermon seemingly patterned after Howerton’s sermon, who preached at Traders Point Christian Church in June 2021. Last March, both pastors also spoke at the same church planting conference hosted by Strategic Launch Network.
The similarities between Howerton’s and Brockett’s sermons include:
Same voting priorities
- Howerton: “The government moved past things like building roads, issuing driver’s licenses, and teaching math to things like redefining marriage, erasing gender, reframing abortion as reproductive rights and then using the government school system to indoctrinate everybody’s kids.”
- Brockett: “When the government begins to drift into the lanes of the moral, the biblical, and the individual, meaning redefining marriage, erasing gender, reframing abortion as reproductive rights, using the public school system to indoctrinate our kids to believe all those things, this is not us getting political. It’s recognizing the government has been getting into the lane of the moral.”
Same reference to three institutions
- Howerton: “So I need you to see this that God established all three of these institutions, the family, the church, and the state. All of them established by God.”
- Brockett: “So God set up the system of the building blocks for society, namely these three things, the family, the church, and the government.”
Same reference to not being able to vote for Jesus
- Howerton: “Jesus is not on the ballot, guys. Get over it.”
- Brockett: “Jesus is not on the ballot, friends. Man, I wish that he was but he’s not.”
Same language about separation of church and state
- Howerton: “The separation of church and state does not mean a separation of righteousness and state.”
- Brockett: “The separation of church and state does not mean a separation of morality and state.”
Same reference toward immigrants
- Howerton: “If you are an immigrant that’s here, and by the way we have thousands of immigrants that are that are part of Lakepointe, I need you to know this we love you. This church loves you.”
- Brockett: “We have hundreds of immigrants at Traders Point, both documented and undocumented. . . . We are called to love you as our brothers and sisters in Christ and we do.”
Same reference to a lack of a pro-life candidate
- Howerton: “We do not currently have a consistently pro-life candidate in this race.”
- Brockett: “We do not consistently have a pro-life candidate. Neither candidate on the ballot has a sufficient solution.”
Was Howerton’s sermon original or copied?
In the weeks leading up to a tight presidential race, Howerton and Brockett join other evangelical megachurch pastors preaching Republican talking points. These include Ryan Visconti, pastor of Generation Church in Arizona and Gary Hamrick, pastor of Cornerstone Chapel in Virginia.
Ultimately, Brockett may not have been copying Howerton in his sermon but other pastors from whom Howerton seemingly lifted content.
In his sermon Oct. 6, Howerton responded to Christians who plan not to vote because of their dissatisfaction with both presidential candidates.
Neither of the parties are perfect, but “a vote is not a valentine,” he said. “Personalities come and go. Policies last a long time.”
On Sept. 8, Arizona Pastor Ryan Visconti had the same answer.
“A vote is not a valentine,” Visconti told his congregation at Generation Church.
However, neither Howerton nor Visconti came up with that phrase.
Activist Rebecca Solnit first used it in an essay she wrote the week of the 2016 presidential election, urging reluctant, disillusioned voters to get on board with voting for Hillary Clinton. Neither Visconti nor Howerton credited Solnit in their sermons.
TRR reached out to Howerton and Visconti for comment, but neither responded.
Howerton’s October sermon shared other similarities to Visconti’s sermon from September.
However, Howerton credited Visconti at the beginning of his sermon. Howerton also named pastors Mark Driscoll, Rob Ketterling, Gary Hamrick, Josh McPherson, and Wayne Grudem for informing Howerton’s Oct. 6 sermon, “How to Vote Like Jesus.”
They all have taught how Christians should vote. Driscoll, pastor of Trinity Church in Phoenix, released a book Sept. 1 called, “Vote Like Jesus.” And Ketterling, pastor of River Valley Church in Minnesota preached “Cast Votes, Not Stones.”
Hamrick, pastor of Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia titled his election sermon, “Church, Unite for the Soul of America!” Hamrick urged Christians to think of themselves as “salt to be sprinkled upon a decaying culture,” a phrase which both Howerton and Brockett used in their election sermons.
“When a Christian is choosing who to vote for, they’re not asking who perfectly embodies all my values,” Howerton said. “What you’re asking is whose set of policies is most likely salt to slow societal decay.”
Similarly, Brockett preached, “A vote is not an endorsement of everything a candidate says or does. A vote is a strategic decision between which set of policies will slow societal decay and usher in the kingdom of God.”
Howerton also used the same joke that Hamrick used in his sermon to introduce the uncomfortable topics of faith and politics.
“All I would ask is that if you remain, you stay courteous in God’s house,” Hamrick said in his sermon. “This is not a place for you to protest or a time to disrupt the service so that you can get your two minutes of fame. I know the saying really is 15 minutes of fame. But I guarantee you, it will only take two minutes for our security to show you a Bible study at Loudoun detention center.”
Similarly, Howerton said, “If you’re here at any of our campuses with the goal of being an agitator, I just need you to know that—and you want your 60 seconds of fame—this is not your moment. And you may be going, ‘No wait a second. I thought the phrase was 15 minutes of fame.’ It usually is but our security teams are so good, you’re only getting 60 seconds.”
Marriage and dating author Sheila Gregoire, who was one of the first to call out Howerton’s alleged plagiarism, criticized the practice of sharing sermons, saying it undermines intelligent engagement.
“I think they all just plagiarize each other all the time,” Gregoire said. “The level of discourse, of intellectual discourse, is just not there.”
Rebecca Hopkins is a journalist based in Colorado.
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20 Responses
Do these speakers do what they do because the hearers expect the speakers to be extraordinary in style and wit, so the speakers scrounge to find what seems to work?
Maybe people should read some of St. John Chrysostom’s homilies and ask if those are appropriate examples. St. John has been studied for1600 years. How long will the current preaching celebrities be studied?
Fortunately, Jesus said in John 14:26 that we have no need that any man should teach us, that the Holy Spirit would teach us all things concerning the Word of God. However, it entails spending time alone in our “closet”, our private space, with the Holy Spirit in study and prayer. It is obvious the pastors in this article and others are not spending time with the Holy Spirit learning from Him. They write sermons from their own thoughts and feelings, what Christ, Paul, and Peter called false prophets. Paul admonishes us to learn the Word, be steeped in it and in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we can easily discern who is a false phrophet and who is not. Otherwise, we will be easily led astray. All these plagiarizing pastors are biblically illiterate, possibly unsaved, self-absorbed, attention seekers. They do not seem, judging from their behaviors, to be called servants of God.
“I think they all just plagiarize each other all the time,” Gregoire said. “The level of discourse, of intellectual discourse, is just not there.”
The Spirit speaks to the pastor to convey the message. When the Pastor does so, the congregants who came hungering for the word, will be filled. 3 hours ago, I was at my church in the morning service. The Pastor’s sermon covered a major dilemma that I am struggling with. He doesn’t know I am going through it. God knows and He directed his servant to speak to my situation.
These men are playing with holy fire. And they are mega church pastors too. So it seems there are a lot of people who can’t discern the spirits. Sad and scary!
I’ve played this game in two different churches: Jotted down a few phrases word for word from a sermon. Put quotation marks around them and Googled them. Funny how my small town preachers sounded alot like sermons I found online.
If the big time preacher was flipped off in traffic…so was my small town preacher.
If the big time preacher got a high five from Kevin Durant, so did my small town preacher.
If the big time preacher used a risque phrase, so did my small town preacher.
What do you think should be done about this? The following website give examples of public figures (Biden, Obama and others) that apparently borrowed from others. It was costly for most of them. Have any church performers lost their jobs because they presented what other church performers had done and presented it as their own?
https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/politicians-plagiarism/index.html
Seminary trained clergy usually take as homiletics, don’t they? When I was an M.Div. student at Fuller, I had one. Those that depend on the sermons of others – are they lazy or unimaginative or something else?
It was previously reported that Howerton plagiarized from Joby at CoE22.
I recall that Joby has since shared from the pulpit that he shares his sermons with others (and even had Howerton do a visiting pastor message). I think I even heard this in last week’s sermon – something like ‘this is my most requested sermon’. Assuming my understanding is accurate, I have no idea if these are shared freely or if he sells them. That would be an interesting question.
Another question is whether sermon sharing or portion sharing is inherently unethical? This isn’t an academic environment. And if the HS moves in one pastor is there any biblical basis that pastors cannot use each other’s words? Consider the similarities of the synoptic gospels as well as Paul and other writers lifting from the OT and possibly Jewish commentaries.
I don’t know the correct answer to these questions. I’m reminded that in cases where there are reasonable differences of interpretation, be charitable.
When a preacher quotes scripture, he gives the reference, or at least says which book the statement is found in. Similarly, when quoting or paraphrasing another speaker, an honest preacher will give credit to the source. But when the sermon being copied has a statement at the end that says it is copyrighted and cannot be used in part or in whole without written permission of the author, and the plagiarist does not give credit, let alone get that written permission, and presents it as his own original composition, that is wrong, it is theft. Theft of intellectual property, and theft from the supporters who believe they are paying him to study the scriptures and impart what God has directed him personally to share on Sunday.
Charlotte, sermon sharing is not unethical. What’s wrong is failure to attribute content to its original creator; that’s plagiarism. Minus credit to the source of a quotation (e.g. “D. L. Moody described this parable as ‘xxxxx’ “), a speaker implies that he or she alone composed a message.
It’s considered a massive breach of ethics in journalism and academia. And grounds for losing a job, rejection of a thesis or dissertation, and expulsion from a university. Pastors who do this are breaking the commandment against stealing. While it’s easy to dismiss these concerns (“if the sermon blessed our church, who cares?”), plagiarism can be a gateway to further moral lapses. I’d be wondering what other ethical shortcuts these ministers are rationalizing.
I don’t think this a big deal, and I’m not sure it rises to the level of plagiarism, which is an academic standard governing an environment where originality is a virtue. My unpopular opinion is that originality is NOT a virtue in the pulpit. Homiletics is hard for a lot of preachers. Coming up with a winsome sermon on a weekly basis is a genuine challenge. A few preachers are gifted at it; the vast majority aren’t.
Many megachurch pastors assemble whole teams of (paid!) writers, production designers, and media experts to help them come up with, draft, refine, and assemble sermons and sermon series. Often these projects turn into books that are sold in the church’s bookstore near the entrance of the worship center.
Preachers lifting or copying or getting “inspiration” from other preachers has been going on for about as long as churches have been around. In the mid-1800s, Charles Spurgeon published 63 volumes of his sermons. Generations of preachers since then have scoured those volumes for “help” with preparing weekly sermons; lots of word-for-word and paragraph-for-paragraph copying in the pupit ensues. Spence’s 23-volume Pulpit Commentary has rescued many a preacher from having to come up with original material on some passage of Scripture; same for Matthew Henry’s Bible commentaries and G. Campbell Morgan’s The Westminster Pulpit volumes. In the late 20th Century, Rick Warren and Saddleback Church developed a multi-week sermon series on the Purpose Driven Church–including handouts for the congregation–which was specifically and explicitly marketed (sold!) to preachers to copy, use, and preach, freely and without apology.
When it comes to preaching, imitation really is the sincerest of flattery.
Brent, I beg to disagree slightly. Inspiration is one thing; word-for-word copying without credit to Spurgeon, Henry and other authors is theft of intellectual property.
It is a big deal because pastors lead morally by example. Talk to teachers who must employ plagiarism-detecting software because a generation of youngsters has learned to cut and paste from online content. The students omit attribution to original writers and are truly baffled as to why such behavior is unethical.
Several years ago, we discovered the pastor of our small church was literally reading the sermons of a prominent preacher every Sunday. Online copyrighted sermon texts of the big name preacher compared with 5 years of DVDs made the claim if plagiarism undeniable. I attempted to follow Matt 18 in dealing with the obvious sin, but was fought every step of the way, first by local leadership, and ultimately by the head of the denomination. So, instead confession, repentance and healing, the church eventually ceased to exist. How sad.
I sure hope this practice is only done by a few leaders in the church. If it’s done too often it’s demonstrating that the leadership role of pastors in the church is gravitating towards administration and executive functions and not as leaders who can theologically reflect on scripture as well as understand the culture around them.
Many pastors routinely “Subscribe” to sermon websites where, for a fee, they can download sermons on a host of topics and preach them as their own. This has been going on since the early days of the internet. Using someone else’s story or illustration is one thing, if it’s credited, but this practice is basically spiritual plagiarism.
I thought these men marketed themselves as “preaching the Bible.” There’s nothing in the Bible about voting.
Religious Syncretism and outright plagiarism are as old as civilization. The biblical flood was likely plagiarized from the Epic of Gilgamesh. The dying and rising god meme predates Jesus in the pagan Levant by hundreds of years under many names. The cadence of the gospels bear a strong resemblance to the Homeric epics, widely read and studied for centuries prior.
Robert Haufman, what you write in your comment is simply untrue.
The Bible is unique.
It cannot be compared to any other group of writings and NOTHING ELSE that has been written that over several centuries has anywhere near the same level of coherence as Scripture.
It had 40 authors and spans 1500 years!
Your biggest insult and inaccuracy is left until last. It’s incredible to me that you can even write that.
Have you read Homer? Have you read the Gospels? Are you just repeating what you’ve read somewhere (namely ONE book – a THEORY – by ONE man about ONE Gospel)? Are you relying on the probability that most haven’t read Homer?
Why come on a Christian website and defame God and His son? No serious secular historian denies Jesus existed. He was/is 100% not a fictional character!
That’s ok. Your ideas are not original, either, but bear a certain resemblance to some events, excuse me, stories in the Bible, sorry, bible. “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” Genesis 3:4-5 ESV Satan was lying to Eve to cause her to doubt God’s Word.
“Again, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’”” Matthew 4:8-10 ESV Here Satan was lying, trying to get Jesus to doubt God’s Word. You doubt the truth of God’s Word. You seem intelligent. Other intelligent people, including Malcolm Muggeridge and C. S. Lewis, also fiercely doubted, but in their studying the Bible to prove it wrong, they eventually believed. I pray you will do the same.
Dan, I think you need to read Genesis again, carefully. Did Eve die when she ate? Were her eyes opened, knowing good and evil? Which of the characters lied to her and which told the truth?
First, “day” does not always mean 24 hours with a sunrise and sunset. For instance, in the chapters before the serpent incident, we read that God created the earth in 6 days. But He created the sun on the 4th day, so at least the first 3 days were something other than what we know as “days”. Day can also mean era.
Second, Satan was claiming to offer equality with God. Knowing good from evil isn’t enough without having God’s wisdom and omniscience, so they did not become like God.
Finally, Adam and Eve died spiritually that day, and they and all of living creation were cursed with death:
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”
Romans 5:12
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 2:1-7
So, Satan was lying, God was telling the truth.
Is it possible God gave the same message to two (or more) pastors? I believe it is. Jesus said that through God all things are possible. I also believe that pastors make mistakes and maybe that’s what happened here. They need grace as much as anyone else. Jesus said we’d be judged by the same measure we judge others. Also, are you without sin? I’m not. Jesus also said to take the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the speck in your brother’s eye. ❤️🙏