The Kansas City Star articles on Jerry Johnston, and this e-mail from Pastor Adam Hamilton should be part of every seminarian’s education.

What good is proper theology, if your financial secrecy is a stumbling block to fellow Christians,  and a convenient excuse for non-believers to reject the gospel?

The blogs are lighting up over Klouda v. SWBTS, et al. A few thoughts:

First, this suit doesn’t allege illegal discrimination. There is a lot of talk about avenging gender discrimination, but Klouda doesn’t claim that SWBTS violated laws against gender discrimination. The First Amendment strongly protects religious institutions, and Courts won’t get into the middle of doctrinal disputes. It would be hard to hold the school liable for a sincere belief that only men should teach theology, even if other Baptists disagree about the necessity of this position.

This suit is about alleged misrepresentations — Klouda essentially says that Patterson intended to apply a belief that the Bible prohibited female theology professors, but misrepresented his position to her. Believing the misrepresentation, Klouda says she stayed at the school, and was harmed when Patterson applied his belief. This asks the court to judge whether Patterson said something he knew to be false, not whether his position is doctrinally sound.

Second, this situation isn’t strictly covered by I Corinthians 6 — Klouda is suing an organization, and that organization’s agent, Paige Patterson. Organizations are creatures of law, and it can be hard to fit their actions into the “believer vs. believer in a church” paradigm Paul gives in I Cor. 6. Organizations don’t have souls, and they’re not church members. They can act through multiple individuals, who may or may not be belivers. As creatures of law, organizations can’t always be subject to the authority of the church. So, it isn’t clear how they relate to Paul’s advice in I Cor 6.

But, this is closer to the core case of I Cor. 6 than some are giving it credit for.  Klouda says Patterson wronged her, and that she was harmed.  Believer A says Believer B wronged Believer A, and the Courts are asked to decide which believer isn’t telling the truth — which sure seems close to Paul’s example.  One difference is that Patterson (and perhaps others) wronged Klauda as an agent of SWBTS, the institution. Thus, the institution is named, not just the individual. Does this satisfy Paul’s concern? It might, but I’m not fully satisfied…

But, third, it’s hard to be sympathetic to anyone who says, “even if you’re defrauded, and there’s no fair way to settle the dispute, you’re a poor Christian for not taking the lumps.” Especially if that speaker could have created someplace to settle disputes, but didn’t.

All of this leads me to wonder: what if the Seminary’s employment contracts had arbitration clauses? An arbitration clause is essentialy an agreement to use a trusted third party (or trusted system of rules) to settle disputes that would otherwise go to court. Maybe the seminaries are like corinthian churches, maybe not — but if that whole debate can be avoided by agreeing to some rules in advance, so much the better.