Questions About Lawsuits

1. Can we say, "As long as SWBTS hasn't done anything wrong, there's nothing to fear from a lawsuit"? Sure, if you are of the conviction that juries and judges always decide lawsuits correctly. Of course, the only way to hold that view is not to have read a newspaper for the past thirty years.
2. Are 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 and Romans 13:1-7 in tension with one another? Not at all. 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 is precisely, spot-on, exactly about the question of one Christian suing another Christian in a secular court. Romans 13:1-7, on the other hand, is about believers being in submission to legitimate governmental authority. Romans 13 says nothing about and has nothing to do with the question of a believer instigating a lawsuit against another believer. Here's what Romans 13 means with regard to lawsuits: If someone wins a lawsuit against you, the Bible mandates that you should submit to the verdict as unto the authority of God.
3. Is it an odd inconsistency that conservative bloggers have cried foul about the Klouda lawsuit without having criticized the Missouri lawsuits? I can't speak for everyone, but it is not at all strange in my case. I wasn't blogging when the Missouri lawsuits were filed. I don't live in Missouri and have not blogged extensively about Missouri events. I find it not strange at all that I have not mentioned these past events from a foreign land :-) in this blog. Once asked (in the last post), I immediately offered my opinion, and I think it falls right in line with what I've said about the Klouda lawsuit.
4. Are there any circumstances in which a Christian can file a lawsuit? The passage in question addresses the specific issue of Christians suing Christians in secular courts. If one were attempting to redress a grievance with someone who was not a Christian, I could not argue that this passage would prohibit a lawsuit. But I would think very carefully about it nonetheless.
5. But what about when someone acts dishonestly and it looks like they are going to get away with it. A man who pretended to be a friend of my family came and spent long hours visiting with my father. Dad took him throughout the factory, talked about proprietary practices—my Dad was a storyteller and loved to visit. A month later, this "friend" had opened a competing factory in the next town down the road and had launched a campaign to steal our customers. Not long afterwards, we hired a Purchasing Manager. She was a Christian—a Baptist—and very vocal about her faith. She signed an employment agreement promising that she would not leave our firm to go to work for any competing firm. After a couple of years, she left our company and went to work for the competing company that this purported "friend" had started. Her rationale, "[The employment agreement that she had signed] isn't worth the paper it is printed on." My thoughts: It was worth no more than her word was worth. Did we sue her? No. Even lost people refrain from suing someone for a debt of $200. Why? Because the costs of the lawsuit would be more than anyone could hope to gain. I submit to you that, for a Christian, the costs of a lawsuit must be calculated using more than a financial ledger. There is the cost to our witness. There is the cost that any of us bear when we directly contradict God's word and disobey it. Even assuming that the other person is 100% in the wrong...Vengeance is God's, not Judge Wapner's.