I have written before on the spectacle of Christians suing Christians, but the phenomenon is common enough that we really need to continue to discuss it in an ongoing way. To recap, the apostle doesn’t prohibit Christians adjudicating disputes in civil court, but rather prohibits it before unbelieving civil courts. The issue is testimony before unbelievers, not strict justice. If you could get strict justice from a pagan judge in a lawsuit against a fellow Christian, you should refuse to do it. This is because the name of Christ is involved, and the name of Christ is worth more than $10, or $10 million.
Now I know that for some resorting to the courts is an ordinary thing, and so my position comes across to them like I was a radical hippie. That’s as may be. Over the years, I have seen many disputes between Christians, and the disputes can get pretty gnarly. Some of them have been conflicts with very high stakes indeed. On top of that, I have at times been astonished by Christian leaders, men I thought would understand clearly what Paul prohibits, but who didn’t appear to understand it at all.
In my view, we allow the lamest of excuses to justify disobedience at this point. We know a Christian attorney who has “a different interpretation.” There is too much money involved. That’s not realistic. Christian mediation/arbitration services are lame. I am not doing this, it is the collection agency I use. Christian mediation/arbitration services are not as reliable as the secular courts. I am in this dispute because the other guy is not acting like a Christian, so it is okay for me to unilaterally decide to treat him as though he were not a Christian. We think the cause of Christ will actually be harmed if I don’t take measures to protect my money/reputation/brand/etc.
In other words, it seems to us that what the kingdom of Christ really needs is our pride, and not our humility.
Part of the reason we stumble when it comes to money in high level instances like this is because we have already stumbled with regard to money in the small issues of life. How many Christian professionals do not want to take clients anymore from the church they attend because they always complain about the prices, ask for a discount because they “are a brother,” and at the end of the day, don’t pay anyway? We think we are shrewd, and think our steak is greatly improved because it is marbled so wonderfully with our mammon. But that is not marbling—it is rancid self-interest. Expecting a Christian professional to give you a discount because you are a brother is equivalent to him charging you 5% more because you are a brother. It makes no spiritual sense in the world whatever. Christians who get into financial spats over restaurant bills, Aunt Milly’s last will and testament, business deals that were such a sure thing that there was no need to write anything down, and board room ego issues, are Christians who are more likely to take their disputes into the big time—into court in front of scoffing unbelievers. “What’s on the docket today, dear?” “Another couple of evangelicals. Dominion Widgets v. New Song Trucking.” Not only do saints in the church do shameful things, but they do them shamelessly.
Infidelity in small issues prepares the way for infidelity in the big ones. And money is like catnip. If you make way for it in your life, if you find that mammon has you instead of the other way around, if you determine to play the cat to that catnip, you will find that one of the things this does is create a hermeneutical filter for you. That filter will not let you see any passage clearly if the passage sees you clearly.
One more important thing about the passage itself. Paul says that we should prefer being defrauded than to have this kind of shame unfold before the unbelievers. But he is extraordinarily strong in making the point. If you look carefully at the transition between v. 7 and v. 8, you see that refusal to be defrauded is a mark that you are branded as the one defrauding. “Why don’t you allow yourself to be ripped off? No, you do wrong, and you rip off, and you do it to brothers.” Even if you were the one in the right in the original dispute, and New Song Trucking totally messed up the invoices, to win that dispute in front of unbelievers puts you in the same position as the one who wronged you.
Now having said all this, I do want to take a moment to point out that this is a high standard, not a perfectionist one, and not an impossible one. When it is truly impossible to stay out of court, as it sometimes is, that is a different story. But it is a different story in the same way that rape is not the same as fornication.
“But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?” (James 2:6, ESV).
There are times when it is not up to you. You don’t have the means or the money to settle, or to prevent a shameful display before unbelievers from happening— despite conscientious attempts to do so. Someone else is being unreasonable and as it happens, they have the whip hand. They will not be reasonable, and there really is nothing you can do about it. They drag (helko) you into court. Suppose the rich man in James 2, the one doing that dragging, has a fish bumper sticker on his limo. That bumper sticker doesn’t change the realities of the coercion involved.
Adopting this Pauline standard—which is a mandate to not let unbelievers see how unready for prime time the believers actually are—does not mean that Christians are required to let others defraud them in fact. Not at all. “Go and tell him his fault” (Matt. 18:15). “If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him” (Luke 17:3). We do have recourse when we are wronged by a fellow believer, but that recourse is to be within the Church.
The final retort comes. Might it be possible that you are wrong about your interpretation? Yes, I might be wrong. Sue me.
Commie.
I wish that you, as a lawyer, would give your thoughts on this. My own first thought was that, unless it was an issue of no great consequence that an intelligent arbiter could settle, I would no more invite my church to handle my lawsuit than I would ask them to remove my appendix. My second thought was that the American legal system cannot accommodate church courts if anyone outside their jurisdiction has a financial interest in the outcome. As a condition of treatment, my HMO requires that I pursue damages against the responsible party any time I am injured.… Read more »
My first instinct is that the first objection is either a failing in your church or a failing in your allegiance to the current system. Can you give an example of an issue you would take a fellow believer to court over where you wouldn’t trust your church to know the difference between right and wrong? The second issue seems to imply that if the requirements of your faith and the HBO conflict, you would consider going with the HBO. Those are both strong ways for me to word it, but I’ m starting there. Can you come back at… Read more »
“You wouldn’t trust your church to know the difference between right and wrong?” You, sir, must be very naive or not keeping up with the Christian world today. You just need to google to find out how many churches do not kniw right from wrong or worse, do not care.
What is the point you’re trying to make there?
If you’re saying that you’ve given up on your own church as a source of truth, well then.
If you’re simply saying that there’s certain churches that we should stay away from, well of course, and quite irrelevant to the point.
What I am saying is that the church is doing a very poor job in arbitrating anything. Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips are infamous for using lawsuits to silence their opponents. Doug Wilson and his elders are infamous for defending child abusers. There are many injustices going on in the church that are being swept under the carpet. If I had a dispute I would trust a pagan court of law before I would trust the church. Being a woman I would insist on a civil court . What a sad indictment on the church.
You point out bad churches. I can point out bad courts. And the American civil system in general is heavily, heavily weighted towards the rich.
One difference, of course, is that you can choose which church to be under the authority of. You can’t pick and choose the “just” civil court you want.
Being under the authority of anyone other than God is a bad, unbiblical idea.
Does that not apply to secular courts? I don’t even disagree with you that churches sometimes behave unjustly. But I object to your blanket condemnations of those for whom Christ died.
Not blanket condemnation. I have been and can be more very specific. Even those who have a millstone around their neck for the way the have abused the sheep can still be saved if they only repent.
“the church is doing a very poor job…” Those are your words. When you lump a large corporate entity together in one basket (deplorable or otherwise), then attack it, you are issuing a blanket condemnation. Or at least a blanket attack. Just like if I say that women as a class are irritating – I can think of lots of irritating women, and right off the top of my head, too. Not hard at all. I could be extremely specific. But if I did that, some members of the fair sex would be right in thinking I was being unfair.
Don’t use “the fair sex” at the office! I have seen men beheaded for less.
Which really isn’t fair.
I agree, and it is pretty silly as well. But I can see times it would be totally suicidal to do so–if I were a man arguing a case in front of SCOTUS, I would refrain from addressing the female justices as the fair sex! “Ladies…oops.” But, funnily, I haven’t heard that expression, other than today, in years.
“if I were a man arguing a case in front of SCOTUS, I would refrain from addressing the female justices as the fair sex!”
Unless you’re Groucho Marx ‘Justices of the fair sex, (I’ll address the rest of you latter).’
Refusing to be under the authority of anyone except God is a sure fire way of becoming even unsubmissive to God.
Leslie Lea wrote: Being under the authority of anyone other than God is a bad, unbiblical idea. Speaking of unbiblical ideas. Contrast Lea’s remark with Peter’s instruction: Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. — 1Peter 2:13-15 And also the instruction from the book of Hebrews: Obey your leaders and… Read more »
You clearly have an axe to grind here. If your church is such a hive of scum and villainy that you, being a woman, don’t trust it not to cheat you… well, maybe you ought to pick a new community that suits you better.
No, just trying to shine the light
*Wretched* hive.
It’s not always that simple. I think that the church, like any institution, can have presuppositions, of which it is not always aware, that prevent the administration of even-handed justice. When such presuppositions include beliefs that the word of a priest (or other clergyman) automatically holds more credibility than that of a parishioner, that a woman is by definition less intelligent than a man, that the majority of sexual abuse cases are mendacious, that a woman’s testimony must be viewed with extra caution because she is always emotional and at the mercy of her hormones–it is difficult to assume that… Read more »
Again, Amen
I would be quite suspect of justice at a church such as you describe as well.
Well, there is the two-witnesses standard. Doesn’t that seem to imply that the word of an overseer (priests aren’t really exactly elders, of course) counts twice as much? But I agree that we ought to be careful with stereotypes. But surely you don’t think that secular courts are free from bias? I mean, injustice happens everywhere, granted, and sometimes in the church.
More importantly, do you do with Paul’s point that it is better to be wronged than to take a believer to court? If we agree on apostolic authority, I don’t see an obvious way around that.
I don’t think Paul’s statement has universal and literal applicability to all Christians in all times and places. I am not sure even what “believer” would mean in this context. Any of my 15,000 fellow parishioners at my local church? What if the extent of their Christian faith is their attendance at mass, and that they are not a believer in any other sense? Paul’s admonition surely presupposes a small and close-knit community, not a parish with more people than you would find in a small town. If I imagine myself to be part of such a small congregation, where… Read more »
So what would lead you to think that Paul’s injunction is inapplicable? I’m usually skeptical of that move in a discussion of biblical ethics, especially when it is preceded by an account of how difficult or personally inconvenient a command would be if followed. Is there some reason aside from that why you would expect him not to be speaking to you, now? Added: and I don’t see how the size of the local church matters – there were thousands of believers in Paul’s day, even if they didn’t generally sue each other. If your church is content to accept… Read more »
In Calvin’s commentary (and it is a rare day that this Catholic gets to quote Calvin), he remarks that the Corinthian Christians were a litigious people, suing one another at the drop of a hat. He writes: “What Paul, then, condemns in the Corinthians is this — that they harassed one another with law-suits. He states the reason of it — that they were not prepared to bear injuries patiently. And, assuredly, as the Lord commands us (Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:21)not to be overcome by evils, but on the contrary to overcome injuries by acts of kindness, it is certain,… Read more »
All very good points. I’ll think about them!
I referenced this in the other reply: I don’t think Calvin is right. I don’t see a way to take a fellow Christian to court, on the grounds of being a fraud and a cheat, without a breach of love. To name the charge is to break fellowship. There’s nothing chummy about a legal summons. I don’t think you can sue your doctor – I think your doctor should compensate you, and is in grave sin if he does not. I think if he should continue in sin, he should be disciplined by the church, and possibly kicked out. In… Read more »
I thought later of one more point I wanted to ask you regarding my hypothetical (I have a passion for hypotheticals; I don’t know why I chose teaching over law). Suppose that you, a third church member, are in the print shop when the accident occurs, and that the owner of the print shop says to you, “Oh dear, I knew that machine was an accident waiting to happen.” If the victim were to sue the owner in civil court for negligence, would you feel compelled by Paul’s admonition to refuse a subpena to testify? The other thing I thought… Read more »
Last issue first – re: preferential status, yes: decisively once and a thousand times again for emphasis. Believers definitely have preferential status – we’re a family, united by Christ’s blood. There is no injustice in treating different categories differently. Moreover, we are commanded to favor believers: they shall know you, Jesus told his disciples, in that you love each other. I don’t think Paul says anything to third party witnesses, so I see no direct command of the Lord there. But I’m liking this excommunication loophole – it seems reasonable to me, and settles Paul’s objection, for if the offending… Read more »
I was just reading a Protestant opinion and then a Catholic scriptural commentary. First, the Protestant one: “The kind of cases involved in the passage are described in the text: A “dispute,” that is “trivial” in nature, “between believers,” involving being “cheated” and “wronged” and this dispute could well be judged by a “man of little account in the church.” The type of actual dispute is not revealed, but from the description above it is clear that it involves a matter that is between two believers, where one feels cheated or wronged and appears–to others at least–as “trivial” in nature.… Read more »
Well fine – I’m not saying we should collude with believers to commit grand larceny. But you are using fraud in a sense so wide that it’s become nearly meaningless. Successfully preventing another fellow from doing wrong is not the standard to avoid complicity in his offense. Put the case otherwise – what if someone robs you and you find him later, only he won’t say where the money is. You need this money. You have debts and obligations and a family. Are you morally obligated to torture him until he talks? It is to laugh. And the reason that… Read more »
It has been a very interesting discussion with the benefit of making me look favorably on Calvin for a moment or two! I think we are not likely to agree, and given the large number of lawyers who are also Catholic, your position is one that my church does not require me to hold. But I do agree that lawsuits should be avoided wherever possible, that they tend to engender outright hatred, and that many of the issues they arise from could have been handled by impartial arbiters. I have never personally sued anyone, and I pray that the need… Read more »
1. I don’t know, but I think not. I wouldn’t sue on behalf of one of my children.
2. Either works – both are true.
Judge Leslie, Sounds like jamin wight wrote two confessions of his abuse of a minor, the second confession complete, according to the victim. Then wight confessed to the crime and served time for it. Mr. sitler, (17 at the time?) wrote a complete confession of all his acts of child abuse, and received a life sentence. Please explain, and document, judge Leslie, how you say that Wilson and any elders “defended”, the two confessed criminals. It is my understanding that the involved churches required the above, complete confessions, of both Sitler and Wight. It seems like you might be conflating… Read more »
I would not expect my church to be able to untangle complicated financial transactions that involve not only the other parishioner and me, but also outsiders who may be defrauded by a wrong decision or inability to collect on assigned damages. I would not assume that my church has the kind of legal expertise to handle the kind of complex wills variation cases that even ordinary attorneys refer to experts. There is a reason why corporate lawyers have law degrees and ongoing professional training. Just off the top of my head, suppose that my fellow parishioner and I run a… Read more »
But you’re seeming to assume that YOU can discern right and wrong (to the degree that you’ll sue a fellow Christian in court over it) in a case where you also think your church has absolutely no one else who can. I’d say there’s three possibilities here: 1) You and your Christian sister can negotiate and work it out without ever having to go so far as a government lawsuit. 2) You go to the church. While working out certain financial entanglements will of course require legal advice, the basic questions of what the right thing to do and the… Read more »
Taking a case to civil court does not necessarily presuppose my thinking I can always discern right and wrong. It can mean a willingness to let the court decide the merits of our respective positions. You answered regarding the doctor (whom you are quite willing to see defrauded), but you did not answer regarding the innocent victims in my hypothetical. First, we should assume that any moral principle must admit of universal application. What if half the doctor’s patients stiffed him? For how long could he go on treating the sick? And while a doctor may have an ethical obligation… Read more »
I had one further thought about that. The purpose of Paul’s admonition, as I understand it, is to protect the name of Christ from scandal. I think that if Christians became widely known for an insouciant willingness to defraud their creditors, all in the name of religious conviction, the name of Christ would be even more dishonored.
“The purpose of Paul’s admonition, as I understand it, is to protect the name of Christ from scandal.”
I’d say it’s to discourage christians from scandalous behavior.
A completely unnecessary worry, because you’ve made up that situation. Civil bankruptcy courts show FAR more willingness to defraud creditors than the rare Christian who won’t sue to please his insurance company AND who can’t make up for his decision and can’t get the perp to make it up either. I’m taking a REAL problem that is caused by trust in the courts. Going back to Trump, I’ve seen many a Christian praise Trump for his use of bankruptcy court and frequent restructuring of his debts. He even brags about it as a sign of his business prowess. Your imagined… Read more »
I can’t even imagine taking someone to court when I dont even know who is right. Court cases involve such large expense, create such negative feelings between people, and are so substantially decided by the relative skill of the participating lawyers that the idea of suing someone who I’m not sure even deserves it becomes completely odious to me. Let’s use Trump as an example. He has a long history of not paying workers, waiting for them to take him to court, then allowing his high-priced lawyers and better ability to absorb time and costs to force those suing him… Read more »
I agree with you that the hypothetical has become ridiculous. But I adhere to my original position that I don’t expect my church to have legal expertise and that I don’t think I must accept financial ruin (let alone impose it on a third person who trusted me) rather than sue a fellow Christian in civil court. Intentionally defrauding one’s creditors is theft. But I think we will never agree about this. I think that perhaps, as a Catholic living in a huge parish in a giant archdiocese, I have an entirely different view than you of the role of… Read more »
I don’t think “the only way I avoided financial ruin was by suing my fellow Christian” really happens as often as you’re implying. In 99.99% of the suits in question, that’s not what’s at issue. In fact, I’d bet a heck of a lot more people meet financial ruin by suing their fellow Christians than by not. And again, “refusing to sue at your insurance company’s command” is not equivalent to intentionally defrauding your doctor. And you haven’t explained how you feel about the courts’ approval of bankruptcy and society’s acceptance of it, which is a much better example of… Read more »
But, Jonathan, the point isn’t how often it happens, only whether the principle is right. Of course I believe that lawsuits are a curse, a plague, “the expense of action in a waste of shame.” Of course I think it is sinful to file a lawsuit unjustly or maliciously or frivolously. And especially is it sinful to file for bankruptcy protection fraudulently or unnecessarily. I agree that the petitioner loses more often than not, and that an innocent respondent can suffer unjustly. But, all that being said, I would still not be willing to rely on an amateur church tribunal… Read more »
How often it happens is important if it is considered by doctors to be a minor cost of doing the business of serving the community, as opposed to a frequent issue which compromises their ability to work and serve. Since we’ve determined that the person cannot pay and never ever can pay unless they do something with Paul has condemned, it really can’t be considered to be an immoral principle from the debtor’s side. As far as what you don’t trust the church to do, you don’t trust them because we haven’t been doing our job! How would you feel… Read more »
Yes, I think it is sinful. I think that priests will never stop hearing confessions because no one else can offer absolution. But I understand your point. I don’t see the role of the church as providing for people’s daily temporal needs. Even if I thought they were likely to be good at it, it just doesn’t seem to me to be their function. I might see a Christian counselor if I had a spiritual problem, for example a particular temptation, that only a Christian could address. Secular psychotherapists are not helpful with such issues. On the other hand, would… Read more »
When you read the New Testament, does it feel like a “foreign notion” to see all the assumptions of church community? Do you ever say, “that worked for Paul’s churches, but I thank God I live in an era when church community is meaningless in any practical sense and I might as well be listening to a podcast other than the opportunity to ‘eat my little wafer.'”? Now, I should make clear that I love Catholics and many of them (famous and not) have deeply shaped me. But every one of the things you describe sounds like a failing of… Read more »
Well, I understand that you hold a different view and I respect that. But I don’t think you will ever have found me actually taking a central Protestant Christian doctrine and treating it with lightness or an appearance of contempt. At the very heart of my faith is Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. What you call “eat my little wafer” is, for me, receiving the body and blood of my Lord, and hearing it trivialized like that causes me pain. Of course I would never expect you to believe in Jesus’s presence in the communion host. But please don’t make… Read more »
I certainly apologize for me not doing a good enough job of that statement hitting its mark. My church’s view of Eucharist is not opposed to yours, and while I’m slightly agnostic on the subject (it’s not an easy one!), I am completely fine with your side of the spectrum. I wasn’t mocking the Eucharist, I was mocking Trump – that phrase is a direct quote from his famous line explaining why he doesn’t feel he needs God’s forgiveness. I guess it hasn’t gotten quite enough legs to be obvious enough of a reference yet.
Hi Jonathan, I wanted to respond to the other part of your comment. I did mention in my earlier post that my experience is that of a Catholic living in a very large parish in a very large city. I checked some numbers. Nearly 40% of the 12 million people living in the archdiocese are Catholic. There are 4.3 million of us who are registered in a parish, meaning we are active Catholics. With 287 parishes in the archdiocese, that means an average parish size of 15,000 people. There are 590 diocesan priests, which works out to roughly 7300 Catholics… Read more »
That’s all fine and dandy, and I’ve experienced much the same phenomenon. But that still doesn’t answer the question – when you read the New Testament, do the ideas discussed there about Christian community seem foreign to you?
Yes,of course they do. But something I have not experienced is going to sound foreign. When I read about communities that are trying to principles laid down by St. Paul, there are parts that sound attractive and parts that sound repellent. I have no criticism of such Christian communities, and I am sure they bring many blessings to their members. But I have been raised in a different tradition, and my temperament is not suited to close community and I expect I would try to resist anyone (other than a priest if I fall into spectacularly public sin, or my… Read more »
I am not sure what you call “temperament” isn’t more likely to be “conditioning”. I think you could find great joy and benefit in a Biblical Christian community too. I was in no way temperamental prepared when I first was, but the adjustment to goodness was quick.
The Catholic Church did not try to “solve” the priest crisis in-house, they tried to cover it. In the cases where the church has a conflict of interest, I think it would be wise to put discernment in the hands of an outside church. That may be necessary for all suits involving the church’s own finances. But that would be a minority of a congregant’s complaints. Do you trust the state to look at tax returns and make moral judgments between the filers? Why shouldn’t the church be able to have resources to make that judgment as good or better… Read more »
Now, now. First some definitions. Infallibility means only that when the pope makes an ex cathedra (i.e. from the throne) statement about Catholic faith and morals, a Catholic is required to believe what he says. No pope has spoken infallibly for around one hundred years. It is an exceptionally rare event, and there are built-in safeguards. When a pope gives his opinion on economic policy, racial injustice, Hollywood blockbusters, or whether it will rain today, he is not speaking infallibly and no Catholic is required to believe that he is right. But when a previous pope defined abortion as a… Read more »
The Bible doesn’t address this directly, but then Catholic teaching does not derive solely from the Bible. This is a huge difference between Catholics and Protestants, and it can tend to shut down discussions between them when the Protestant says “where in the Bible does it say that?” and the Catholic replies that it doesn’t have to be in the Bible! But Catholics believe Jesus established the papacy with “Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Sometimes I express myself too flippantly. There have been… Read more »
I think that we have come a long way in our ability to discuss our differences. When I was a little girl, the publics and the parochials used to walk home from school on opposite sides of the street. There was a constant shriek of “Cat-Licker” and “Protes-Stinker” between the warring factions!
That’s how it ought to be. I am probably a lot older than you. I seem to be a lot older than just about everyone these days! I can’t imagine such a thing happening now. That would require kids to know first of all what is meant by “church”!
Hard to be mad ever when the sunlight is flirting with the palm fronds, when gentle breezes are tickling the azure waves, when every waiter might be an undiscovered Gregory Peck, when the police choppers are thumping overhead day and night–wait, how did that get in there?
They are exceptional. I don’t think anyone thinks popes over the last centuries have been wicked,
If so, then they don’t think coddling and covering up for homosexual child molesters is wicked, because the last few popes have certainly engaged in that.
I’m convinced that child molestation had something to do with Benedict resigning.
People think it was some kind of homo deal, but popes don’t generally resign over mere homo deals.
It is funny, but as I wrote that, the priest crisis completely slipped my mind.
I believe that the cover-up, which was perhaps even more wicked than the offense, went very high up the hierarchy. I have not seen solid evidence that it reached papal levels, and I hope that it didn’t. I think history (and God) will judge how much Benedict knew.
The infallibility of the Pope is a carefully bounded artifice. The practical result is that the Pope is infallible except when he isn’t. Deniability has become more precious to the Roman Catholic than the power of infallibility itself.
God alone is infallible, and He has spoken through His Word. God alone is infallible and He works infallibly through fallible men, including Pilates, Pharaohs, and Popes.
I think that is overly severe, although I do not expect anyone outside my own communion to see any virtue in a doctrine he does not hold. I would say that the pope is always fallible except in those rare cases in which he speaks infallibly. Is your perception of Catholics that we tend to march in lockstep with the pope?
A claim that deniability is precious to the Roman Catholic, unless applied to specific individuals, sounds a little like an attack on a Catholic’s intellectual integrity.
jillybean wrote: I would say that the pope is always fallible except in those rare cases in which he speaks infallibly. Yes, but I would say that jillybean is always fallible except in those rare cases in which she speaks infallibly. See how meaningless that is? The Pope is infallible so long as he swears by the gold on the altar. Fortunately for everyone involved, he almost never does so. What good does it do to be infallible if one is never willing to play the infallibility card? What is the motive of refraining from one’s power of infallible clarity… Read more »
There is a difference between defrauding the doctor and being defrauded so that you cannot pay. It is not fraud if you are unable to pay an unavoidable expense because someone robbed you. Would you argue that Christians have a duty to hunt down bandits who steal our life savings so as to recover the money and keep paying off the mortgage?
They have a duty to use every means in their power to recover the money and to prevent their own maintenance becoming a burden on someone else. Of course, that means relying on law enforcement and the criminal justice system. If they don’t succeed (and they probably won’t), they will lose their home because the bank will not care in the slightest that they were robbed. But they have a duty to try. They also have a duty to the society they live in to cooperate with a subsequent prosecution. If I have it in my power to obtain legally… Read more »
While I was out buying cat food for my four-legged children, I reflected that I do have some familiarity with church courts: the annulment courts run by every Catholic archdiocese. As you are probably aware, these courts exist to decide whether a Catholic marriage is canonically invalid. If they reach that finding, the Catholic is free to remarry, and otherwise not. This can become a dispute between two believers when one spouse seeks an annulment against the wishes of the other. Usually, by then, a civil divorce has been obtained, and the only issue is whether the tribunal will rule,… Read more »
I am not so certain that is a good example. As annulment is pretty much antithetical to Scripture courts set up to assess annulments are starting on the back foot.
Did the OT allow for annulment when a marriage was shown to have involved fraud, or when one party was found afterwards to be incapable of the sexual act? If it was called divorce in the OT, it would still correspond to a Catholic annulment for such a reason.
I am uncertain about your first example. Can you point me to that.
As to your second, the only situation I believe one could reasonably make an argument for annulment is no consummation of the marriage.
Was there an annulment if a groom found his bride not to be a virgin although she had said she was? Or if she was already married to someone else? Or if she turned out to be a close relative? Or that she entered into the marriage through trickery (being told that the ceremony was actually something else, the kind of thing that happened in Gothic novels)? All of these except the first would be grounds for a Catholic annulment.
If the bride defrauded the man about being a virgin and she was not then there was an execution. The only relative close enough would be a sibling or parent. Though I would see that as prohibited rather than to be annulled. It is still a marriage, just a prohibited one. Abraham, after all, was married to Sarah. I guess I struggle with the concept of arguing there was never a marriage versus the marriage is invalid. A man marries a rock. Well no marriage. A man marries a man, no marriage. A woman is asked to go though a… Read more »
That makes sense, and that used to be the primary reason the Catholic church granted annulments. The other traditional grounds were that one party entered the marriage with no intention of keeping the vows (you had to have pretty good proof for that) or with no intention of ever having children. In other words, one party received the sacrament of matrimony blasphemously.
And how many of these rare events occur?
This is the sort of thing that gets to me. Because of a strong stance on divorce the concept of annulment gets expanded. And sounds very much like the traditions of men overruling the law of God. Vows are vows. If a man has no intention on keeping his vows but then does? If man intends on keeping them but then doesn’t? Disallowing divorce but allowing an annulment when the situation is in fact a divorce is disingenuous.
I agree. I have known Catholics who refused to get annulments precisely because they would rather defy the church and get remarried outside it than go through a charade they saw as dishonest. But it doesn’t have to be dishonest, and in the old days, it wasn’t. Recently some dioceses have tightened up the rules, which is a good thing. But claiming “I was too young and immature (at 30) to understand the nature of a lifelong vow” is deception.
But claiming “I was too young and immature (at 30) to understand the nature of a lifelong vow” is deception.
Yes, that might’ve flown back in the old days when girls got married at 14 and 15.
But not these days.
The system also rewards bad behavior. If I chose to break church law and get married without its blessing, I am free and clear to remarry when the forbidden marriage breaks up. But annulments are much harder to get these days since bishops and canon lawyers got tired of dealing with this kind of thing. I believe that the Kennedys will still get their annulments, but I am a little bit cynical these days.
Yet even an arranged marriage at 15 is still a marriage. And a claim to immaturity doesn’t stop it being one. This is my problem with annulments. For the 1 marriage in a decade where there is no consummation how many are using it to get divorced but thinking (pretending) they are not divorcing.
Which also suggests there should be a statute of limitations on annulment. It should be apparent pretty shortly after the wedding.
This is complicated by the fact that there are both civil and religious annulments, as well as a multitude of different Christian teachings about divorce. I can only discuss the Catholic position. It is not necessarily sinful for a Catholic to obtain a civil divorce. It would be sinful under many circumstances, but not all. Official church teaching says: The separation of the spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law. If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the… Read more »
That is so wrong . Underage marriages are not capable of consent. This is more like sex trafficking
15 isn’t underage everywhere in the world. (I am not arguing for marriage before puberty).
Mary may have been 15 when she had Jesus, was her marriage invalid?
Not to interrupt, but “the bride” is actually a metaphor for the church, and trust me, she is so NOT a virgin.
Sorry, ME, I didn’t get that. Did you mean the bride in the first instance?
We make a grave mistake when we pretend that 2000 years of White Christian history have never occurred, and that every thing Jesus and the Apostles said should be understood and applied today in exactly the same way their auditors and readers understood and applied it. (In fact, that’s one of the main reasons we’ve lost our country and Western Civilization.) We have to keep in mind that Paul wasn’t writing to people with 2000 years of Western (White Christian) history and civilization behind them. He was writing to a tiny, tiny minority of people, who were widely and deeply… Read more »
I was happily nodding away until I reached the third paragraph. What insane levels of intelligence, cunning, and determination do you imagine Jews possess that a few million of them could have destroyed Christian America? Why do I not see this brilliance, this fanatical devotion to world domination, this fiendish ingenuity, among my dozens of Jewish friends and family members? Why do these dozens of JFFAFM lose their cases in court, have their houses taken over by the bank, have credit card bills they can’t pay, see their jobs shipped overseas, and have their insurance canceled when they get sick?… Read more »
Yeah, I was afraid that third paragraph was going to be hard for you to get past.
Thing is, they’re a people who never have shown any interest in defending whites or Christianity.
Be they religious and orthodox, they have a pharisaical disdain for the Christ and the Church. Some may empathize with “white nationalism” to some extent, so long as it remains relatively ‘kosher’, anti-Islam, and religiously neutral (or even Darwinistic).
If we’re talking about your more progressive Reform Jews, there may be a bit of self-loathing going on, but still no love for traditional, conservative Western culture.
I do think the Orthodox crowd are more pro-Trump than, say, Jill Stein.
Well, can we take this a bit at a time? Most Jewish people I know, unless they are clearly members of another race (the chief of staff at my hospital is a black Jew), identify as white. Possibly, like me, they don’t see their whiteness as their defining characteristic, and possibly, like me, they don’t think that whites are generally in need of defense. They may not see the world as a zero sum game in which every time a black succeeds, a white man fails. Jews tend to have a historic sympathy for the underdog. I believe this tendency… Read more »
So you’re saying that the problem with Jews is that they don’t identify strongly enough with White Christian Nationalism? Am I misinterpreting you at all?
Come on, what’s not to love? “The problem with Jews is that when confronted by people who openly long for their destruction as a people, they have the nerve to place their sympathies somewhere–anywhere–else. The problem with Jews is that, given a choice of religions, they dare to prefer their own to ours. The problem with Jews is that they have the unmitigated gall to remember how white “Christian” nationalism worked out for them the last time.”
And all that being said, there are still plenty who are willing to carry the water for the conservative Right as strongly as any non-Christians out there. I don’t listen to much conservative talk radio nowadays, but when I did, it was dominated by Jewish voices – Medved, Praeger, and “Savage” (birth name Weiner) were three of the biggest voices out there. Savage was basically alt-right before alt-right was cool, and the other two certainly weren’t opposing them.
I’m not a defender or proponent of traditional, conservative Western values. So I don’t really care. My point was just to explain why someone can make sweeping generalizations with regard to the machinations of ‘the Jews’, such that one begins to see a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ at work. If our starting point is ‘traditional, conservative Western values’, then, so long as that means traditional Christianity, don’t expect the synagogue to care. And so long as ‘Jews’ have some sort of political influence within the United States, don’t look to see them aligning themselves with Latin Mass Catholics or classical ‘orthodox’ Protestants… Read more »
“Thing is, they’re a people who never have shown any interest in defending whites or Christianity.”
In my recollection, this is not true for all Jews. It’s been so long that I cannot remember where, but I distinctly recall reading lengthy statements by one reasonably well-thought-of Jew (maybe he was unusual) regarding poor treatment of Christian values. If anything, it is my perception that some Jews recognize that poor treatment of any faith is likely to eventually happen to them, too. I understand that means it is not altruistic, but it can happen.
Scripture always applies until it affects your middle-classness(no homeless in church are there?!) or if it’s ‘illegal’!
without duty of satisfactory alternative one would be put in a legal-guantanamo bay; without access to trial and alternatively the freedom of rights.
‘commies’ pretend to offer an alternative; republicans offer ‘tort reform”….which means trust the hospitals and corporations and not the ‘chased’ ambulance attendees. when it comes to the ‘explosion in litigation’!!! ‘it’s the Family Courts Dummy!’
Doug, you start a thread in the opening that isn’t picked back up on later, which I’d love to hear further exposition of. Asking for a friend, er, for myself that is, as I am a Christian and a lawyer. You say: “To recap, the apostle doesn’t prohibit Christians adjudicating disputes in civil court, but rather prohibits it before unbelieving civil courts.” So if it is the civil court’s unbelief that makes it a bad forum, what would a “believing civil court” mean? Can it only exist in a nation that is formally Christian? Or if we know the presiding… Read more »
I believe the Biblical way to handle disputes would be through the court of the church. That is, the elders of the church(es) of the parties involved. And if that idea sounds crazy to anyone I would suggest one of the following; 1) a new church, 2)new leaders of your church or 3) a renewed understanding of the qualifications of church leadership. I get this from 1 Cor 6:2,3,5
I agree about dispute resolution through church courts being proper. We practice that in our church, & it’s well and good. But I don’t think that’s what Doug meant when he said “the apostle doesn’t prohibit Christians adjudicating disputes in civil court, but rather prohibits it before unbelieving civil courts,” since church courts are not “civil courts.” I’m curious about what a “believing civil court” would actually mean, and if it’s something that can only exist in a Christian state, or if it’s something we had but lost in America, or if it’s something that depends on the judge being… Read more »
Hi Adam, I too, am interested to know what a “believing civil court” would look like. But since we are not likely to see many of those courts (whatever they would look like) in America in the near future, I think another important question to ask is what the ecclesiastical adjudication process should look like in the interim. I come from a smallish church (200+ members) which — thankfully — has not had any intramural legal disputes, so I don’t have any first-hand (or even second-hand) experience with what that looks like in practice. How does your church do it?… Read more »
We haven’t had any church-court cases since I joined the session 3 years ago, but my understanding is that in past disputes one or both parties would ask to come before the session for help adjudicating a dispute. These have typically involved property disputes, e.g. one church member sold a house to another and allegedly didn’t disclose defects, etc. For the process to work well, both parties need to bind themselves to the judgment of the session. The session would come up with some sort of hearing process, that may be more or less informal depending on the nature of… Read more »
Thanks for the reply. As I suspect is the case in most churches, the process you describe sounds somewhat ad hoc — though it sounds like it worked well. If churches got serious about teaching 1 Corinthians 6, it would be good to have established procedures parallel to those in the secular courts. I imagine one of the big obstacles to getting Christian businessmen (and others) to get on board with Paul’s mandate would be their having to sacrifice the predictability of the established secular process.
I hope you did brilliantly! Good luck with your career.
Adam – Doug’s original post (hyperlinked in the first sentence) addresses his position on this pretty well I think. I had the same question.
You’re right – thanks!
Very good points. Is “fellow believer” limited to members of my own parish church or my local diocese? Are the billion plus Catholics in the world immune from litigation initiated by me? And, as a Catholic, can I sue an Seventh Day Adventist because I think he is just the slightest bit heretical? What are the implications for people with car insurance? As they pull me out of the wreckage, must I look at the other driver and gasp, “Are you a Christian, and if so, what kind of Christian are you?” Must I instruct my Christian lawyer to search… Read more »
Do you really come into the need to sue someone so often that these are meaningful questions?
P. S. – I’m referring to the first set about who you’re suing. I think the stuff about lawyerd/judges/physicians is a misunderstanding of Douglas position listed.
I have not personally had that experience. But my daughter was seriously injured in a car accident caused by an under-insured woman who was texting at the time. Let’s suppose she was a fellow parishioner. My daughter incurred enormous medical bills for immediate treatment, surgeries, rehab, and ongoing pain management. (She also lost a year of college, for which the $50,000 tuition had already been paid, but that is not a loss I would expect the other driver to cover.) And, of course, her car was a write-off. Are you seriously suggesting that this matter should have been resolved by… Read more »
I think that ideally the matter should have been resolved by your daughter and the fellow Christian. It sucks that we’re in a world where Christians are so often so vile that we already assume that is not a possibility. When that is not possible, the matter should be settled by the Church. That does not necessarily have to be the parish church, it could be a larger body. Can you explain where you gain your confidence that the State can correctly determine what is right and wrong in this instance, and will use just and holy means to “coerce”… Read more »
The civil courts can certainly arrive at an unjust decision. But they are guided by experience, settled principles and legal precedent. Let’s assume that the just resolution in my daughter’s case is that the other driver (there was no question that she was to blame) is ordered to buy her a new car and to pay all her medical bills. The chance of a civil court getting that wrong is very slight. I do have less faith in a church court in such a matter. In my experience of how some churches assign virtue or blame, the church court would… Read more »
Amen
You’re saying that you trust the state to do something the church is ordained to do because Christians have been trusting the state to do church work so long that they’re the only ones with experience in the matter anymore.
About those evil acts of violence the church could never take part in…I am not so sure. There is always the spectacle of the Spanish bishops blessing the rifles used by the firing squads under Franco.
When I say “impossible for the Church”, I mean impossible to justify as right or good.
“In other words, it seems to us that what the kingdom of Christ really needs is our pride, and not our humility.”
I don’t really have a comment. I just wanted to cut and paste that sentence into the comments.
Lol! I know, right?
I tried to make it underline, italic, and bold, but I failed.
I think an interesting part of this discussion is the reality that Paul is speaking to members of one church under the same spiritual authority (i.e., the elders). When both parties are under one authority, this makes sense. What makes it difficult is when you have two believers under two separate sets of authority (say, a Presbyterian and a Baptist). I think the prescription still applies, but it adds an extra wrinkle to who should have authority to bind whom. In those cases, at best, you can *strongly* suggest that the two parties submit to Christian arbitration, or a denominational… Read more »
Oh, amen! I totally believe this. It’s sure not easy and there have been some major tests there, but the rightness of Paul’s words really speak to me.
If two Christians get to the point where litigation is necessary, I wonder where they went wrong in the original negotiations. Maybe the lesson is that we shouldn’t give brothers and sisters the ‘benefit of the doubt’ and should instead protect them as well as our ourselves from falling into a snare.
I agree with this. Americans seem to take everyone to court for the most trivial of reasons. Yet some clarification. Let’s say that you went to your church to resolve your dispute and the church found in favour of you but the other block won’t abide. An option is that I can be defrauded, as per Paul. But should the church address the guy who won’t listen. If it is egregious enough does the church excommunicate him? And if excommunicated do we stay out of court for Jesus’ name (what the guy might say in court) or can we now… Read more »
Some versions say, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you are thoroughly defeated already.” I like this point because it indicates that the lawsuit-worthy conflict itself is already an epic failure, because everyone has let it fester, let it get to that point. So already we have a problem with authority and with church discipline, a series of small failure leading to bigger problems. You cannot fix all the little things by now bringing in the big things, like excommunication or attempting to justify a lawsuit because the guy is now outside the church. Christians aren’t… Read more »
Sometimes litigiousness is built into the system and can’t be avoided. My giant health care organization will not treat the victim of a car crash, assuming the other party was at fault, unless the victim agrees to sue the other driver. My preference would usually be to get a neck brace and some pain pills from my doctor, and just let it go. But that is not allowed under the terms of my agreement with my provider. Even the most ethical person, forced into a lawsuit under these conditions, will be pushed by his or her attorney to claim for… Read more »
What do you mean “not allowed”? What will they not do if you don’t sue?
I think anyone who” forces” me to sue another person is either going to lose my business or lose my compliance.
Do you have health coverage, and have you ever read the fine print? My HMO, one of the largest in the country, will bill you for recovery of the costs of medical services incurred as a result of an accident caused by someone else. The Christian could possibly lie and say that he or she was the victim of a hit and run. But I hardly think that is a better solution. Almost all health insurance coverage agreements have similar clauses. This is true any time there is likely to be a second set of insurers. Suppose that I negligently… Read more »
Yes, I have health coverage by a Christian organization, and I’ve read the fine print. The “fault” of my medical problems has absolutely ZERO bearing in their willingness to cover, so your ethical issue will never come up for me. They cover me for what’s wrong, not for who caused it.
But I should have added that I think litigiousness is a built-in aspect of a certain kind of American. I think it is part of the take-no-crap-from-anyone attitude that I have seen in Los Angeles far more than anywhere I have ever lived before. There seems to me to be a common misconception that every time something bad happens to you, somebody else needs to pay. If I get mugged at the bus stop outside my doctor’s office, clearly either my doctor or the bus driver must be to blame!
Yes, but it makes them ungrateful and bitter; both attributes being very corrosive to faith.
Not to mention unjust; an inability to judge rightly and always blaming others regardless of the truth.
Isn’t the key here the reasoning behind Paul’s statements? Is it because we show the world we are Christians by our love for one another, and it’s difficult to do that in a pagan court? I know there is more, but I don’t see it yet.
I don’t entirely understand Paul’s reasoning. Is the purpose to insure secrecy so that no unbeliever becomes aware that one Christian has allegedly wronged another? If so, that would seem to me to suggest that neither could a Christian file criminal charges against a fellow believer. Is the purpose to avoid the adversarial nature of the civil courts? But wouldn’t church courts also be to some degree adversarial? Or is it simply the assumption that a non-Christian court cannot do justice?
I had to go back and read it. Doug said it. We are to judge angels. We are to establish our own nation within the church. A presbytery and more than a presbytery too.
Does anybody know of a good book that discusses this?
My church teaches that, other than the fallen ones, angels are beings of perfect goodness. I have often wondered what we would be judging them for.
Maybe he’s talking about the fallen ones.
Then again, there’s a connection between the new church and angels and stars that may be part of what he’s talking about. I really don’t know for sure what is being referenced in the Old Testament that shows we’ll be judging angels.
more than a few of them thought their perfectionism led to God-like status.
What if you sue a guy in church court, win, then he renegs, is excommunicated, and then he joins some other church? Is he outside or inside?
If we take this teaching seriously it would mean we have to be very careful doing business with each other. It would require a higher than usual degree of trust to agree to big deals since you know you won’t have recourse to the courts.
And that there is no possibility of ever collecting damages. The fellow Christian who knowingly and maliciously defrauds you is not likely to be deterred by the prospect of excommunication. This could only work in a culture in which excommunication was likely to mean social and vocational ruin. Here, your fellow Christian would just shrug and move on down the road.
If we can sue non-Christians, and an excommunicate Christian is to be unto us as a gentile and a tax-gatherer… maybe what Doug suggests is that we include elder arbitration as an initial buffer step, so as to screen out the disputes that can be settled without breaking fellowship. If a so-called Christian actually intends fraud against a believer, and refuses to repent under threat of discipline… I don’t see the harm in taking such to a secular court. By refusing to obey the elders, hasn’t he cut himself off from the benefits of church membership?
I would agree with that.
Most evangelical preachers say that the ban on unequal yokes means we can’t co-own a business with an unbeliever.
So, if we shouldn’t be co-owners of a business with an unbeliever, why is it fine to be a co-owner of a business with millions of unbelieving co-owners, via the stock exchange?
I agree with you. But, then, the stock exchange itself seems problematic in itself when viewed through the lens of traditional Christian teaching. Is it a form of gambling? Does it reward honest labor? Does my profit necessarily involve another’s loss? Is it inextricably connected to a financial system that thrives on usury, forbidden to Christians? I think it might be difficult to single out tiny corners of an utterly unchristian system and make them conform to Christian teaching.
That would solve a number of the objections.
1 Peter 4:17. Let judgement begin in the house of the Lord.” There are so many supposedly Christian leaders who have failed miserably in the area of settling disputes. There are so many supposedly Christian leaders and pastors who within the past few years have initiated lawsuits.
You seem to have made a pretty good beginning.
why I don’t attend ‘ad-homily’ churches anymore; so much conjecture at the same time superficiality. When ‘christians’ talk about ‘law’….smh! First they know nothing of God’s Law; nothing of the civil law derived from it/nor precedent and procedure much-much less of the current thing metastasized on to it. I think it was that radio guy Burkett; said you shouldn’t seek alimony cuz divorce is wrong….Note: same guy makes PROVISION for ‘child-support’ and custody. Funny how the Gov. is controlling(see Blacks) in marriage and even criminal, and familial ‘law’, but lacks ‘jurisdiction’ on money. Pastors living in their status quo parsonage… Read more »
I’m actually not a litigious person. Nor do I have the means to sue you, Mr. Wilson. I’m just another tired person and the Church all but spit on me. So, I won’t find any refuge there.
In fact, at the several churches where I tried to find solace, I was served much worse than mucous and spit. So now, I’m just sad. And alone. Of course, I’m not the only one. But that doesn’t make it any less bad.