Kathy and Ed Litton Plagiarized a Tim Keller Sermon in 2012

Apparently J.D. Greear isn’t the only muse that Ed and Kathy Litton have garnered ‘inspiration’ from, as a new compilation video shows the Litton’s plagiarizing a 1991 Tim Keller sermon, making one wonder what his 8-member preaching team actually does all day, or whether or they were so arrogant to surmise that as long as he stole from a sermon that is 20 years removed from his, he would not get caught.

Keller has not yet indicated whether he gave them permission to preach it unattributed.

Previously Litton only admitted to the barest of borrowing from Greear for his Romans series, until it was revealed that far from mere borrowing he practically preached the same sermon. And not just the Romans one, but other sermons as well, going back years. Even another one of his church pastors got in on the action, himself preaching his own plagiarized sermon.

Now, Kathy Litton has joined the ranks of preachers from Redemption Church who has been caught plagiarizing during one of their tag-team preaching jams. While she may not have said the words in question, if she shares in the praise she shares in the pain. If she’s going to preach a sermon with her husband, we’re going to assume she also did sermon prep and wrote the sermon with her husband, making them both culpable for any sermonic shenanigans that may arise.

Capstone Report, who broke the story, explains that comparing sermons “reveals many areas of similarity in the sermons. Too many to be coincidental. Large sections of Tim Keller’s sermon were quoted without attribution by Ed Litton….the sermon utilized many similar points including Keller’s definition of marriage, advice on how to use Jesus to overcome criticism and even Keller’s definition of what shows a servant’s heart.”

Two of several such examples provided by CR show what’s going on.

Tim Keller: “You will start to fall out of like with that person in most cases before you marry them. In the courtship or in the engagement that’s where most people say I guess I shouldn’t marry this person I fall out of like with them.”
Ed Litton: “You are going to fall out of like for one another. As a matter of fact, it is going to happen before you get married just in the process and the minutiae of trying to get ready for a wedding.

and

Tim Keller: “The essence of marriage is a covenant a legal, a legal commitment.”
Ed Litton: “The essence of marriage, we said last week, is a legal commitment, a binding covenant.”
Tim Keller: “What makes a marriage a marriage?”
Ed Litton: “What makes a marriage a marriage?”
Tim Keller: “A priest can marry. A minister can marry. A justice of the peace. Marriage is marriage. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a captain on a ship. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a justice of the peace marriage is marriage.”
Ed Litton: “Some people say, well, I got married by a priest, do I get married by a pastor, a justice of the peace, a judge or a sea captain? I mean does it matter where I get married? I don’t think that it matters who performs the ceremony.”
Tim Keller: “When marriage pops up, originally was given to Adam and Eve. It wasn’t given to only Christians it was given to human beings as human beings.”
Ed Litton: “God created marriage and gave it to mankind. The first man and first woman were the only man and only woman. And God said, ‘Here, I give you marriage.’ So, marriage is for all groups, all races, all nationalities, all nations and frankly all religions.”
Tim Keller: “What is it that makes you married? What makes you married is this: a permanent and exclusive public legal commitment to share your lives together—all aspects of it. It’s got a permanent. It’s got to be exclusive.”
Ed Litton: “What is marriage? It is a permanent, exclusive legal relationship.