In the first part of this series, we described the historical Christadelphian position1 on litigation—namely, that it is morally wrong to 'recover debts by legal coercion'—and considered the argument for this position by its most ardent proponent, Christadelphian pioneer Robert Roberts. We then took a close look at one of the biblical texts used to justify the position—namely, the 'do not resist evil' saying and accompanying concrete examples from the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42).
In this article, we will look at the other major passage seen as prohibiting believers from engaging in litigation (1 Corinthians 6:1-9a), and will then consider overarching moral-theological issues, particularly the respective roles and jurisdictions of Church and State, and close by mentioning a historical account of litigation undertaken by a Christian in the mid-second century.
1 Corinthians 6:1-9a
1 How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? 2 Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? 4 If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? 6 But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. 9 Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? (NABRE)
In this passage, Paul issues a sharp rebuke to some of the believers in Corinth in response to a situation that had occurred (whether once or more than once, we do not know) in which one believer sued another believer in a secular court. Paul regards this behaviour as unacceptable, because he considers the secular courts to be fundamentally 'unjust,' and because it is 'in any case' a failure (with respect to the love ethic) for brothers to sue one another, and detrimental to Christian witness. Paul mentions two options for handling the matter that would have been better than going to court. The first option would have been to adjudicate the matter internally, within the church. (Here, Paul lays the foundation for the idea of an ecclesiastical court, which will be discussed further below.) The second option would have been for the plaintiff to 'put up with injustice' and let himself be cheated. It is important to notice that 'put up with injustice...let yourselves be cheated' is not presented as the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case should have been settled justly without going to court. 'Rather put up with injustice...rather let yourselves be cheated' is not ideal from the point of view of justice, but it is better to endure injustice than to inflict it; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Yet some Christadelphian writers remove 'let yourself be cheated' (or, in King James English, 'suffer yourselves to be defrauded') from this relative setting and make it a timeless moral principle. It is noble to sacrifice one's own right to justice; our Lord did so on the cross. However, when we allow ourselves to be cheated by our brother or sister in Christ, we are allowing our brother's or sister's sin to go unchecked. It is better that the matter be adjudicated by a competent authority within the church, so that the parties can be instructed and corrected as needed, and no injustice is done.
This passage only directly concerns the issue of a believer suing a fellow believer; it does not touch on the question of a believer engaging in litigation against a non-believer. Christadelphian writers have generally inferred that what holds in the one case also holds in the other, for two reasons. (i) Paul says the secular courts are fundamentally 'unjust,' so believers should have no recourse to them. (ii) The moral obligations of the believer are toward all men, and not only to fellow believers. Thus, if it is wrong for 'brother to go to court against brother,' it is also wrong for a believer to go to court against anyone else. To address (i) , we must consider the relative competencies of secular courts ancient and modern to render just judgment. Commentators provide abundant empirical evidence of the fundamentally unjust character of courts in the Roman world generally and in Corinth specifically.2 Suits were largely decided on the relative social standing of the litigating parties, rather than the merits of the case. Bribery was endemic, and judicial functions fell to procurators and governors, who were often installed in their positions for reasons other than expertise in matters of law (to put it lightly). It is very different today, particularly in the developed world. Legal and judicial systems have been built on the foundations of Judaeo-Christian morality. Strong accountability and transparency mechanisms are in place. Lawyers and judges are very well-trained. Of course, human justice systems remain far from perfect and the legal profession retains a reputation for willingness to manipulate truth and justice. However, we cannot fairly assume today, as Paul could in his day, that taking a civil matter before the secular courts is intrinsically unjust and tantamount to 'cheating.'
This brings us to the second consideration: treating unbelievers as we treat believers. As Paul indicated, the ideal outcome of a dispute is a just resolution. Thus, the ideal way to handle a dispute is the way most likely to lead to a just resolution. All would agree that settling a matter out of court, and avoiding costly and potentially bitter legal costs, is better than litigation. However, it is hard to deny that involving lawyers and other professional experts is preferable to asking the local church to resolve the kinds of complex legal and financial disputes that can arise today. Do most church leaders (or local church governance bodies) have the necessary expertise to determine a fair child custody arrangement or a fair amount of child support, to divide up a contested estate, or to liquidate the assets of a failed business partnership? And, in any case, a party to the dispute who is not a Christian (or even who does not belong to the same Christian community) is not going to recognise the other party's local church as a competent and impartial authority to adjudicate the matter.
If a Christian finds him/herself in a serious dispute and engages professional legal counsel, the motive must be to find a just resolution, not to achieve the best possible outcome from the perspective of the client's own financial and other welfare. This should be taken into account when choosing a lawyer. Every possible effort should be made to arrive at a mutually satisfactory settlement rather than a court judgment (cf. Matt. 5:25-26). Allowing oneself to be wronged is certainly an option the believer should consider (especially given the 'resistance through non-resistance' principle discussed in the previous article). However, there are circumstances—above all, those involving the welfare of children—when litigation may be the most prudent outcome to satisfy the demands of love-of-neighbour toward all involved.
The Legal Jurisdiction of the Church and the State
Paul infers in 1 Corinthians 6:1-3 that the Church has the God-given authority to judge matters involving its members (see also 1 Cor. 5:12-13). He makes an a fortiori argument: if the saints are judge the world and even angels in the eschatological future, how much more are they qualified to exercise judgment today? Thus Paul lays the foundation for ecclesiastical courts and tribunals, which would develop in the Church and still exist in the Catholic Church to this day. The question is, what are the scope and jurisdiction of the Church's judicial prerogatives, relative to the scope and jurisdiction of the secular courts?
This is a question that receives a fairly clear answer already in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus' opponents tried to trap him with a tricky question about paying tribute to Caesar, Jesus issued his famous line, 'Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God' (Luke 20:25). Of course, in the final analysis everything belongs to God, but in the present age, Jesus and his disciples concede jurisdiction over this-worldly affairs (such as taxation) to the State. Elsewhere in the same Gospel, Jesus extends this principle to a typical litigation scenario of his day: a dispute over an inheritance. A man in the crowd appeals to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me" (Luke 20:13). The man is effectively suing his brother with Jesus as the judge. Jesus responds, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" signifying that such disputes fall under the jurisdiction of Caesar, not God; of the State, not the Church.
The State's jurisdiction to govern and enforce earthly laws is powerfully defended by Paul in Romans 13:1-7, and his principle in 1 Corinthians 5:12 is that the Church's jurisdiction is over those who are within the Church. The things that belong to God (as opposed to Caesar) are spiritual matters; matters of faith and morals, of sin and salvation. Now often the same situation may have a this-worldly dimension (e.g. finances and taxes) as well as a spiritual dimension. In such cases, both the Church and the State must be involved. For instance, dioceses of the Catholic Church have marriage tribunals to adjudicate marital matters from a spiritual point of view (e.g., whether a marriage was validly constituted before God, or should be annulled) but defers to the secular courts regarding distribution of marital assets, in case of an annulment or separation. In the clerical sex abuse scandal, priests have gravely transgressed the laws of the Church, and so must be judged by the Church, but have also broken the just laws of nations, and so must be judged in secular courts as well.
Once it is recognised that, in the present divine economy, both the Church and the State—God and Caesar—have their respective, legitimate jurisdictions, it becomes clear that bringing a this-worldly dispute to secular courts for resolution is not intrinsically wrong. To say otherwise is to impugn the legitimacy of the State's authority, contrary to the clear teachings of Jesus and Paul. (As quoted in the previous article, Robert Roberts avers that believers need not concern themselves with the consequences of not exercising their prerogative to defend their rights through legal means, since "We are in [God's] hands." However, what if the institutions of the State are one of the primary means by which God exercises this providence? In that case, to eschew legal recourse is to eschew God's providence.)3 Nevertheless, it may be extremely imprudent for a believer to litigate a dispute before the secular courts, particularly in a social context where the secular courts are thoroughly corrupt, where the dispute is with a fellow believer, and/or where the dispute is small and simple enough to be settled through dialogue or informal arbitration.
Epilogue: St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology
We have an account from very early in Church history of a believer engaging in litigation against an unbeliever. Chapter 2 of St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology (mid-second century C.E.) relates the story of a certain married woman who converted to Christianity. Both she and her husband had previously engaged in licentious behaviour, and after repenting she tried unsuccessfully to persuade her husband to change his ways. Though prevailed upon by her advisers to remain in the marriage in the hope that he might yet change, his behaviour instead became worse and so she obtained a legal divorce (Latin: repudium) and separated from him. The husband then made a legal accusation that she was a Christian. In response, she submitted a petition to the emperor to be allowed to first set her financial affairs in order before answering the charge. In their commentary on Justin's apologies, Minns and Parvis explain that "In Roman law, dowry passed to the control of the husband for the duration of a marriage but reverted to the woman or her father at its dissolution through death or divorce."4 Thus, the woman's petition was intended to secure the reversion of the dowry. The petition was granted, but the husband then made accusations against the woman's Christian teacher, which led to his martyrdom and that of others who defended him (2 Apology 2.1-20). Since Justin includes this account in an apology (defense of the faith) addressed to the same Roman Emperor who had granted the woman's petition, he clearly did not regard her litigation against her husband as contrary to the Christian faith.
Footnotes
- 1 I must reiterate that, while this position has been 'on the books' in Christadelphian Statements of Faith since the 19th century, the extent to which these historic documents remain normative for doctrine and practice today varies from one ecclesia to the next.
- 2 To give just two examples, the Roman historian Dio Chrysostom (a younger contemporary of Paul) states that in Corinth there were 'lawyers innumerable perverting justice' (Orations 8.9). Cicero (In verrem 1.1.1) refers to rumours that throughout the Roman world 'the courts will never convict any man, however guilty, if only he has money.' For these and other examples, see David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 196-97.
- 3 This reminds one of the famous preacher's story about the man caught on a roof during a flood.
- 4 Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 275 n. 4.
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