|
This question is prompted by the fact that in three cases over the last forty years, some of the local churches have found it necessary to take legal action against false and defamatory accusations advanced by several closely-associated authors. Hence, there may be a concern that our actions are not scriptural—specifically, that they contradict Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 6 concerning lawsuits between believers. This is not the case. On the contrary, we firmly believe that the most desirable way to resolve conflicts between Christians is reconciliation, when possible, according to the principle of fellowship set forth by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17. There the Lord charged His disciples to take the way of fellowship to resolve any offenses, initially approaching the offending party in private.
First Corinthians 6:1-6 introduces the issue of lawsuits between believers. Rather than endorsing such behavior, Paul strongly rebuked a brother for taking a fellow believer to court over a personal offense. Instead of resolving the problem by way of fellowship, first individually with the offender and then, if needed, together with other believers, the offended party initiated a lawsuit. Thus the reason for the rebuke: the failure to first address the problem as brothers in the Lord, a violation of the principle of fellowship in Matthew 18.
In Matthew 18:17, the Lord Jesus Himself anticipated that situations would arise between believers in which the principle of fellowship would be rejected by one of the parties: “If he [the offending brother] refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile [unbeliever] and a tax collector” (NASB). This word implies that such a situation has deteriorated beyond the scriptural bounds of reconciliation through fellowship, necessitating a second principle, found in Acts. Acts 25:10-12 is an account of Paul's “appeal to Caesar” (the ultimate civil authority of his time) when unlawful actions by unbelieving Jews threatened his ministry. In contrast to the case in 1 Corinthians 6, such an appeal was neither for personal gain nor to avoid mistreatment, but purely to defend and preserve the ministry entrusted to him by the Lord. The Lord vindicated Paul's use of the civil legal system for this purpose: it resulted in a period of peace for his ministry (Acts 28:30-31) and allowed him to write eight more New Testament Epistles.
In several instances, the local churches have been the focus of libelous publications, which jeopardized the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to us. As these false accusations began to adversely affect our ministry and our relationships with other Christians, brothers in the local churches sought repeatedly to meet with these authors and publishers in hopes of achieving a peaceful resolution through fellowship. In each instance, their requests were ignored and the publication of these defamatory books continued. Since the scriptural approach of fellowship and reconciliation was repeatedly rejected, the local churches had no choice but to follow Paul's example of appealing to Caesar for the sake of the ministry's continuation. In the controversy over the resulting libel suits (against The Mindbenders and The God-Men in 1980 and against Harvest House's Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions in 2001), the legitimacy of the local churches' legal action against fellow believers has been questioned by some. It must be emphasized that these were not cases concerning doctrinal disputations or personal gain, but concerning the publication of false and defamatory material alleging gross illegalities. Having made every possible effort to solve the problem according to the pattern of fellowship in Matthew 18 and receiving no response, the local churches took the necessary step of appealing to the law courts in order to make known the truth so that their service to the Lord would not be annulled.
As a result of the legal action taken by the local churches in the 1980s, The Mindbenders was retracted with a public apology, and The God-Men was determined by the court to be “in all major respects false, defamatory and unprivileged, and, therefore, libelous,” and written with “actual malice.” Following this retraction and judgment, the local churches experienced many years of peace in which to minister.
In 1999, however, there was a resurgence of false and libelous material with the publication of Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions by John Ankerberg and John Weldon. This book makes accusations which are even more serious than those which had previously been proven false and libelous (one of its co-authors being closely associated with the defendants in the God-Men case). The scheduling of a trial date for the suit pertaining to this new publication is on hold pending a decision in the Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas at Houston
For more information, please see:
www.localchurch-vs-harvesthouse.com/scriptural.html
www.localchurch-vs-harvesthouse.com/
questions-answers-litigation.html#8
|
