{"id":1074,"date":"2024-10-05T14:32:28","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T18:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=1074"},"modified":"2024-10-05T14:33:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-05T18:33:58","slug":"settle-quickly-with-your-adversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/settle-quickly-with-your-adversary\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSettle Quickly with Your Adversary\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Johnny Hunt, sued the SBC last year in federal court for defamation. This summer, the court (U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee) ordered the parties into mediation. They reportedly met in mediation<\/a> for one day last month, on September 19, 2024, but did not reach an agreement. Now the case is headed for trial.<\/p>\n

Courts have embraced mediation as a way for parties to settle their differences short of a trial. In contrast with a judge or arbitrator, the mediator has no power to decide the outcome; the mediator instead helps the parties to reach a resolution. The process itself can take many forms. The typical court-ordered mediation of a litigated case is conducted by an attorney-mediator who meets with the parties separately for a day to help them reach a compromise on a dollar figure to settle the case. I suspect that is the process that was used in this case.<\/p>\n

A Christian alternative to \u201clitigation mediation\u201d encourages parties to deal with relational as well as substantive issues, and to apply prayer and Scripture so as to attain both resolution and reconciliation. In Christian mediation the mediator typically meets separately with each party, sometimes for hours over several weeks, until both sides are ready for joint session. Christian mediation is offered by several national ministries, including Peacemaker Ministries<\/a>, the Institute for Christian Conciliation<\/a>, and Crossroads Resolution Group<\/a>. One need not file a lawsuit in order to initiate Christian mediation.<\/p>\n

Christian mediation is the appropriate process for a conflict among church leaders. Christians are not supposed to sue one another in civil court (I Corinthians 6:1-7), and the financial remedy that Mr. Hunt seeks can be attained in Christian mediation. It also offers the possibility of healing the fractured relationship, which rarely occurs in \u201clitigation mediation\u201d but is important to God (see, e.g., John 13:34-35).\u00a0 I blogged about this case when it was first filed in March 2023 (see my post of March 25, 2023<\/a>). It\u2019s sad that both sides have continued in litigation instead of resolving it within the church.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not too late for the parties to heed Jesus\u2019 advice to \u201csettle quickly\u201d (Matthew 5:25) before this matter comes to trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Johnny Hunt, sued the SBC last year in federal court for defamation. This summer, the court (U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee) ordered the parties into mediation. They reportedly met in mediation for one day last month, on September 19, 2024, but did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-lawsuits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1077,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions\/1077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}