Having done two arbitrations in the last month, I\u2019m reflecting on some troubling aspects of Christian arbitration.<\/p>\n
How can a witness be cross-examined to cast doubt on credibility, without violating\u00a0 biblical commands to love one another? Should a Christian arbitrator permit cross-exam that dredges up dark incidents in the witness\u2019s past, for the sole purpose of attacking the witness\u2019s credibility? When does it turn into gossip, or slander? Is it kind? Is there another way for a lawyer to raise doubt about credibility besides by humiliation and innuendo? This is obviously an issue for any Christian litigator in court, but Christian arbitration is supposed to be conducted according to biblical standards. So how different should cross-exam be, when it\u2019s in a Christian setting?<\/p>\n
Should a party be permitted to question the motive of the other party? In one case, the party\u2019s brief expounded on the theory that the other side was motivated by greed. In Christian mediation, mediators often recommend a ground rule of, \u201cNo assuming motives\u201d\u2014that neither party is permitted to speculate on what motivated the other party to do something, since such speculation is usually negative and sometimes worse than the truth. \u00a0If parties shouldn\u2019t speculate on motives in mediation, should they in arbitration? Is it helpful for the arbitrator to be supplied with a possible motive for the other side\u2019s [unacceptable] behavior, or is it simply unkind? Should the arbitrator impose a rule of \u201cNo assuming motives\u201d in arbitration, or is that excessive?<\/p>\n
Must each provision in an arbitration award be legally enforceable? Can the arbitrator include a recommendation that a party apologize to the other, for example?<\/p>\n
Christian arbitration literally fulfills I Corinthians 6:5 (that there are indeed people within the church \u201cwise enough to judge\u201d) so it\u2019s important to get it right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having done two arbitrations in the last month, I\u2019m reflecting on some troubling aspects of Christian arbitration. How can a witness be cross-examined to cast doubt on credibility, without violating\u00a0 biblical commands to love one another? Should a Christian arbitrator permit cross-exam that dredges up dark incidents in the witness\u2019s past, for the sole purpose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","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=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}