Bart Barber is the Fauci of Sermongate
Or maybe the Moff Jerjerrod (I had to look it up, too). On second thought, perhaps I’m giving Bart Barber too much credit. While Fauci has been successful at fooling people with his persistent lying by definition, Barber’s shiftiness seems to be fooling no one. The commonality between them is their tendency to shift long-standing definitions and categories to fit their purposes – words like “cases,” “immunity,” and now “plagiarism” are all up for grabs.
Offering the kind of abysmally braindead take we have come to expect from him, professional SBC idiot and self-proclaimed Twitter addict Bart Barber spent all day defending sermon plagiarism – primarily by claiming that plagiarism as academically defined is not a sin and using the gospels of Mark and Luke as examples of (I suppose) holy plagiarism:
In a goalpost-moving redefinition of terms and conditions that would make Tony Fauci proud, Barber laughably argued that the plagiarism scandal plaguing the SBC and its new president Ed Litton boils down to Litton not citing his sources, not the fact that Litton has been passing off entire sermons (including personal stories) as his own for decades. Litton’s co-pastors have also stolen material, and Litton has even admitted to lying about his sermon preparation to his congregation.
While there is no direct commandment against plagiarism per se, there is a commandment against lying, a commandment against stealing, and a commandment against coveting. Yet to Barber, combining these sins into a single definition apparently means they cancel each other out.
Making the bizarre argument that Mark writing primarily from Peter’s account without citing Peter in Turabian format would be considered plagiarism by modern standards (I kid you not), Barber argues that plagiarism is anyone writing their own material yet failing to cite every place their information came from:
He similarly argued that because Luke consulted other sources when writing his gospel without citing sources, it is apparently okay for a preacher to use dozens if not hundreds of sermons prepared by another as his own work:
Barber capitulates slightly by admitting that Ed Litton telling personal stories as his own is “indefensible deceit,” while apparently maintaining that somehow those abject lies can be disconnected from the rest of the sermon:
I seriously don’t understand why anyone who has spent as much time in college as Bart Barber needs to be reminded of this, but here goes… Plagiarism is not primarily about failing to cite sources. Plagiarism is about stealing someone else’s work – their thoughts and originality – and lying by implying you did the work. The gospels were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, yet they were also the work of the men who wrote them. There was no deceit involved in their writing. In contrast, pastors who are charged with laboring in the Word and bringing messages to their flocks that are a product of this labor (1 Tim. 5:17) – yet present the work of another as their own – are liars and thieves.
It sadly comes as no surprise that Barber, who advocated for closing churches while Planned Parenthood remained open and pals around with the Baptist Judas Russell Moore is all too happy to fashion a plagiarism strawman that doesn’t include lying and stealing to run cover for his new SBC Palpatine.
The Southern Baptist Convention must be in big trouble if this is the best defense of Litton they can mount.
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I’m tempted to say that Litton is dragging clowns like Barber down with him, but the guy seems like a willing participant.