Christian Mediation Thwarted by Lawsuit

November 20, 2014 – 6:26 pm

Two Christian parties who ended up in court despite a contract clause requiring them to mediate their disputes biblically have now settled their dispute.

Dr. Edward O. Blews, Jr., was fired from his position as president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) in October 2013 after just nine months in that position. His contract with the CCCU contained this dispute resolution clause:

The parties recognize that conflicts or disputes may occasionally arise. In recognition of the biblical calling to make every effort to live at peace with one another, and to resolve disputes with each other in private or within the Christian church, this Agreement commits to the parties to attempt to resolve any dispute in a biblical manner, according to the principles stated in I Corinthians 6:1-8, Matthew 5:23-24, and Matthew 18:15-20. If any dispute cannot be resolved in private meetings between the parties, the parties agree to enter non-binding Christian mediation before pursuing litigation.

The parties apparently attempted to honor this clause through some type of private meeting shortly after Blews’ termination, but it presumably did not resolve their dispute because Dr. Blews filed a lawsuit against the CCCU in federal court in Washington, DC, in February of this year. In his complaint, he alleged that all parties and counsel met on November 25, 2013, to try to resolve the matter. The complaint alleges, “While the November 25 meeting was being scheduled, counsel for Dr. Blews requested the presence of a mediator, pursuant to the employment contract, but CCCU declined.” It’s not clear whether he means that CCCU declined the idea of mediation, or whether they rejected the mediator that Dr. Blews’ attorney proposed, because the next sentence of the complaint begins, “When the dispute was not resolved during mediation,…” which implies that some type of mediation did take place.  The complaint alleges that Dr. Blews proposed “an additional mediation with an agreed-upon mediator,” scheduled for January 29, 2014, but that CCCU said it would not make itself available for a second mediation until March 2014. Apparently Dr. Blews decided he couldn’t wait that long, as he filed his lawsuit on February 12, 2014.

The CCCU responded to the lawsuit filing by saying that it was “surprised and disappointed … particularly since we had just recently agreed to the date he proposed for mediation of March 18. The CCCU remains committed to the mediation process, but it also stands ready to defend its decision to make a presidential transition.”

The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice on April 22. Last month, the parties announced they had reached a private settlement, without mentioning mediation or disclosing other details.

So was the event last November actually a mediation? Their contract clause did not specify a convening organization, such as Peacemaker Ministries or the American Arbitration Association, so it was up to the parties and their lawyers to arrange for mediation. They obviously had great difficulty doing that.

The CCCU could have asked the court to enforce the dispute resolution clause and order the parties (back) to mediation. But the mediation clause is somewhat problematic. It calls for parties to “attempt to resolve any dispute in a biblical manner.” It doesn’t take much for one side to say they tried. The dispute resolution clause recommended by Peacemaker Ministries is more emphatic: a dispute “shall be settled by biblically-based mediation and, if necessary, legally binding arbitration…” (emphasis mine)The CCCU clause does not require settlement in mediation; it requires only that they “enter” mediation. Again, it doesn’t take much for one side to say they “entered” mediation—for example, agreeing to mediation, even if they fail to show up, might meet the definition. So a court might have decided that the parties had already done what their contract clause required.

And I’m not sure what the clause means by “non-binding mediation.” If mediation results in an agreement, it’s binding. If “non-binding” means that parties don’t have to reach an agreement in mediation, that would be consistent with the requirement that parties merely “attempt” to resolve their disputes biblically. But why emphasize that this is all toothless?

If these parties really wanted to keep their disputes out of court, their contract would have required arbitration for disputes that did not settle in mediation. Instead, they took a year and a tortuous route to reach a settlement; now hopefully they will be able to live in peace.

By abfifer | Posted in Christian Lawsuits | Comments Off on Christian Mediation Thwarted by Lawsuit

At Least They Apologized

November 15, 2014 – 7:52 pm

Church discipline is supposed to be restorative. In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus outlines a four-step process for dealing with a sinning member; each step is designed to get the member to “listen,” i.e., repent and change their behavior.  If a couple of witnesses can’t get the member to listen, Jesus says, “then tell it to the church.” If the offender won’t listen even to the church, then the church may treat the person as a non-member. Generally speaking, this process is called church discipline, and the goal of each step is repentance and restoration.  It is a powerful tool, and unfortunately has too often been used for ill.

An example of church discipline gone awry came to light recently at a mega-church in Chicagoland. Three elders at Harvest Bible Chapel were in disagreement with the rest of the elders (there are more than thirty elders on their board) over “how compensation is set, how elder authority is shared, and whether Pastor James has truly owned his part in past conflict.” In June 2013, the three “problem” elders resigned and that September they were disciplined out of the church (i.e., excommunicated).

Now, a year later, the church has issued an apology. Senior Pastor James MacDonald apologized from the pulpit, admitting that “our church discipline was a failure, not the least of which was a complete lack of a biblically-required restorative component…. Our discipline condemned them; we lost sight of the biblical priority of seeking a redemptive solution of our differences.”

While it’s disappointing to hear of yet another example of a church mis-using church discipline, it’s hugely encouraging to hear a church apologize for that. Church discipline typically ends with the offender apologizing, but here it was the church that apologized. Pastor MacDonald announced that, while there were still differences between the current and ex-communicated elders, they were all now fully reconciled.

He also said that the reconciliation was “brought about by outside Christian leaders we invited in to help us all get to the table.” The church is to be commended for demonstrating humility by inviting outsiders to come in and help them resolve this. Peacemaker Ministries, Crossroads Resolution Group, and Peacebridge Ministries are just a few of the ministries available to help churches work through conflict like this.  May the healing continue at Harvest Bible Chapel!

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Let’s Limit Term Limits

November 7, 2014 – 3:42 pm

Voters in Grand Rapids approved a proposal Tuesday that limits the terms of our elected city representatives. My fellow citizens have in effect restricted my voting rights. Neither of my two city commissioners, Ruth Kelly and Rosalynn Bliss, can run again; my right to vote for them has now been taken away from me. They have both been effective leaders, and now they cannot serve as city commissioners once their current terms expire. Ever. Term limits are un-democratic.

We already have term limits: it’s called “losing the election.” Would that the term-limits proponents put as much effort into attracting and supporting new candidates as they did into passing term limits. But, proponents say, it’s just too hard to mount a campaign against an incumbent, and government needs “fresh faces” from time to time.

I understand that, but it doesn’t seem to me the problem warrants a lifetime ban on public office. So allow me to propose a compromise: What if we require officials to “sit out” a term after a certain number of years? After that, they’re eligible to run again. In other words, let’s limit term limits, so they don’t forever prohibit a talented official from seeking office again.

The amendment to the Grand Rapids city charter approved by the (slim) majority this week states, “No person shall be eligible for election as City Commissioner if they have served as City Commissioner for two terms, and no person shall be eligible for election as Mayor if they have served as Mayor for two terms.” What if we inserted, “unless their second term was followed by a full unserved term” [or words to that effect] ?

Let’s limit term limits, so they give newcomers a fighting chance but don’t permanently ban “the good guys/gals” from public service.

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Christian Peacemaking on National TV

October 16, 2014 – 3:44 pm

The CBS TV series “The Good Wife” depicted a Christian dispute resolution process in its October 5th episode. Entitled “’Dear God,” it portrayed a dispute between a farmer and the local supplier of genetically-modified seed, not unlike the dispute in the recent U.S. Supreme Court case, Bowman v Monsanto (2013) . The seed supplier—represented by the law firm featured in this series– sued his neighbor in court, then both agreed to Christian arbitration. The show depicted portions of the arbitration hearing,  including use of Scripture, to the initial befuddlement of the non-Christian attorneys. The two parties eventually stepped away from the table and reconciled and settled the deal on their own, while their lawyers argued with each other in the background.

Click here for a link to the episode — it’s an entertaining 45 minutes.

Overall, it portrayed the Christian dispute resolution process sympathetically. The producers got many things “right,” and I commend them, both for taking this on, and also for consulting with Ken Sande, former long-time head of Peacemaker Ministries, to learn more about Christian conciliation. Starting the hearing with prayer, the non-Christian lawyers learning to argue from Scripture, the more relaxed atmosphere where rules of evidence do not preclude testimony – these are all typical of Christian arbitration.

The arbitrator was more casual than the Christian arbitrators I know (including myself) – he didn’t mind circumventing the customary process, and he did little to make the lawyers comfortable with this foreign forum. But he was affable, and he admitted at the second hearing that he had made a mistake in the previous session, a nice sign of humility.

Perhaps the most endearing portion of the show was when the plaintiff’s attorney—Alicia, an atheist who is “the good wife” and star of the show — has a conversation with her Christian teenage daughter about how to interpret Scripture. The media often resorts to stereotype when depicting Christians but this scene rang true.

While the show referred to the arbitration as “the Matthew process” (Christians usually refer to it as “the Matthew 18 process” in reference to the chapter in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus outlines how Christians should resolve their disputes), it actually depicted the process in reverse. In Matthew 18, Jesus advocates negotiation first (“just between the two of you,” Matthew 18:15), then bringing along “one or two others” (Matthew 18:16). Christian conciliation further divides the role of the outside neutral(s) into two steps: mediation, then arbitration. In the TV show, the parties abandoned litigation for arbitration, and as the two principals began talking to one another at the table, the neutral was mediating, and finally the principals moved away from the table to negotiate their resolution. Most cases follow the opposite course: a failed negotiation leads to mediation, and if that doesn’t resolve the matter, parties go to arbitration.

As Ken Sande suggests in his blog, perhaps this show will help litigants realize that there is an alternative to litigating their disputes. My Christian conciliator colleagues like to joke that more people might use Christian ADR if there were a TV show that promoted it. This “Good Wife” episode is a start!

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Pursuing Peace

October 1, 2014 – 6:28 pm

During this year’s Peacemaker Ministries Annual Conference last week, I gave a devotional one morning on “pursuing peace.” The Bible exhorts us not just to “seek” peace but to “pursue” it (Psalm 34:14). The word translated “pursue” can also be translated “persecute” (cf. Romans 14:19; Galatians 1:13), offering an unusual perspective on how zealously we should pursue peace.

I don’t have any dramatic stories about how I myself have zealously pursued peace, but I heard two inspiring examples from conference speakers last week:

On a Sunday in December 2007, a heavily-armed young man walked into New Life Church in Colorado Springs and began shooting. He killed two teenage sisters, then himself. The church’s senior pastor, Brady Boyd, described for us how he later facilitated a meeting between the two sets of parents – of the sisters, and of the shooter–, all grieving the tragic deaths of their children. Apparently the meeting turned out to be very healing for all of them. I can only imagine the courage it took for these parents to meet, especially the parents of the sisters, David and Marie Works—David Works was himself seriously injured during the shooting. They truly pursued peace.

The other story of “pursuing peace” was told by Dr. Valery Shean, an American veterinarian who works in Uganda. She served two tribes that had been at war with each other for decades until she was able to help them make peace. But after about a year of peaceful co-existence, someone from one tribe murdered the leader of the other tribe, and Dr. Shean feared the tribes would resume their vengeful warfare. So she tracked the footprints of the murderer through the bush, to a hut in the other tribe’s village. She knew the young man was inside, and she demanded that he show himself; he refused. So Dr. Shean stayed outside of his hut for two days, pleading with him, and with God, for him to give himself up. She said she was lying prostrate on the ground, praying and fasting, until eventually the young man emerged and surrendered himself to the tribal elders. Justice was done, and the tribes once again live together peacefully.

Most of us will not be called to pursue peace in the wake of the murder of someone dear to us. But we have all been hurt or offended by people close to us. These examples demonstrate that it is possible, with God’s help, to “pursue peace.”

 

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