THE 19th CENTURY Danish theologian and cultural gadfly, Søren Kierkegaard, wrote a little essay entitled “On the Difference between an Apostle and a Genius.” His argument was simple: An apostle strives to be faithful to the message with which he or she has been entrusted, while a genius is always original. Kierkegaard concluded this essay by wondering whether Christendom wasn’t beginning to turn away from apostles to run after geniuses.

Recently I thought of that gloomy Dane when I read a story about a local minister caught preaching recycled sermons without acknowledging his sources. Let me state unequivocally: I understand his congregation’s surprise, and I respect his decision to resign his pulpit. But words such as outrage, betrayal and plagiarism strike me as oblivious to the obvious. We not only live in an age that demands geniuses over apostles, but we have come to inhabit a culture that possesses no informing story.

For the first 1,600 years or so, the Christian sermon was a commentary of sorts on the narrative world of the Bible. The preacher’s task was to explore the terrain and contours of certain texts within the context of worship — to mold his words around the words of Scripture. His task was never understood to be simply a statement of private opinion and personal insights

Many preachers did indeed bring their personality, vocabulary and theological bias into the pulpit. Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Donne, Jonathan Edwards — I won’t deny that there haven’t been pulpit prima donnas — great preachers but prima donnas nonetheless. Nor would I deny that some of the greatest of these preachers have loaded down the Gospel story with a weight it can’t float. But, in the end, even prima donnas could always be held accountable to the gritty specificity of the Bible story.

Likewise, no matter how uneducated or inarticulate or muddled a preacher was, he possessed a definite “score” he had to play. Moreover, he was preaching to a congregation that, however “illiterate” shared the same story. Indeed, aware that some local parish priests might be deficient in both rhetoric and theology, the 16th Century Church of England produced a book of homilies to be read by such inept preachers.

Preachers could and did “steal” from such volumes as well as from other preachers. Why not? They all were bound and judged by the same narrative. Faithfulness mattered more than originality. Indeed, to praise a preacher for his originality was once upon a time a theological insult.

All this began to change in the early 19th Century. In part, this was because the Bible ceased to be a world and became another ancient text to be dissected, or it became a fundamentalist repository of proof-texts by which to arm oneself against such tone-deaf liberalism. And, particularly in America, society became infatuated with a certain type of religious individualism. Consider William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, strong individuals with vast rhetorical — and political — power.

The American pulpit in most main-line denominations has thus become a platform in large part for personal insight, social criticism or therapeutic technique. The Bible is often referred to, but I know few preachers who would focus on this same text in any rigorous fashion for 10 consecutive minutes. A movie review, that morning’s headline, the winsome personal anecdote — these have become the primary homiletics teasers by which preachers seek entrée into the hearts of their flock.

The results of this development? Consider those denominations (especially those rooted in the New England Puritan tradition) for which the sermon has been Sunday’s center of gravity. They have bidden farewell to the world of the Bible, so they cannot but demand of their preachers a weekly genius nigh unto divine.

Likewise, lacking any authoritative “narrative world,” these denominations’ preachers find themselves thrown back on their own creativity (or genius) Sunday after Sunday — there being no message to which he or she has to be accountable. To climb up into a pulpit week after week has become much like the tight-rope artist who must amaze a demanding audience with ever more daring routines.

I understand why preachers are increasingly tempted to use another’s words — especially given the Internet. Yes, they should tell us when their words are not their own, and, yes, it’s disappointing when they don’t. But their dilemma is as understandable as it is onerous. They must comfort the sick and dying, chair countless committees, raise money without talking about money, affirm the middle-class while trying to be prophets — and then stand up every Sunday and try to be creative and inspiring. If we’re going to ask all this of our preachers and be outraged when they “fail” us, let’s at least give them a safety net of compassion.

I would caution those congregations that go seeking a new pastor to grace their pulpits with weekly rhetorical acts of daring-do: Genius has always been rare at the best of times, and perhaps more so nowadays when our words are “processed” and ideas go naked, bereft of a story. A genius has always been rare — almost, but not quite, as rare as an apostle.

The Rev. David Lewis Stokes Jr., a Catholic priest, is an associate professor of theology at Providence College.