Sermongate continues as Justin Peters shows evidence that Ed Litton used another unsourced quote in his latest Sunday sermon.
Justin Peters: ‘So, Mr. Litton, did you yourself personally tell someone that Jesus is not your crutch, he is your iron lung? Or, did you or one of your eight team members who helped you write this sermon read that in Nancy Hicks’s book?‘
Justin Peters exposed the latest Ed Litton plagiarism example. This example comes from Sunday’s service. That is right—Sunday, June 27, 2021. Peters plays video of Litton using a catchy phrase that he searched and found is strikingly identical to something written by Christian author Nancy Hicks.
In an excerpt played by Justin Peters, Ed Litton says, “Has anyone in your family when you came to faith in Christ accused you of Jesus being a crutch? I’m going to tell you what I told someone who did that to me. I said he’s not my crutch he is my iron lung. He is my heart. He is my very being.”
Peters was struck by this story and particularly the clever phrase and so went to Google.
“I was watching this sermon just because I wanted to see if Ed Litton was going to address the plagiarism controversy, but when I heard him say that I thought, ‘You know that’s an interesting phrase there. I’ve never heard that before, Jesus is not my crutch. He’s my iron lung. That’s pretty catchy. So, I thought, you know I’m going to google that and so I did google it and the first thing that comes up is this quote from Nancy Hicks. Now, I’m not familiar with Nancy Hicks and never had uh come across her until today, but she is apparently a Christian speaker and author…This is a line in her book.”
Peters provided a screenshot of the book with the phrase highlighted.
Peters also said, “So, Mr. Litton, did you yourself personally tell someone that Jesus is not your crutch, he is your iron lung? Or, did you or one of your eight team members who helped you write this sermon read that in Nancy Hicks’s book?” Justin Peters asked.
Then Peters pointed out the seriousness of plagiarism.
He said, “Dear friends, plagiarism is serious. It is theft. It is dishonoring to the people to whom you are preaching. It is ultimately dishonoring to God. It is very serious. It wasn’t too long ago that if a pastor was caught in this kind of plagiarism, he would have been defrocked.” H/T for the video to Reformation Charlotte.
When Redemption Church was hiding over 140 sermons, it probably should have hidden the latest sermon too.