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Legal Issues and Abuse

Truth in Love 196

How should the church think about abuse from a legal perspective?

Mar 4, 2019

Dale Johnson: Today, I am more than thrilled to invite Deborah Dewart to our podcast. She is an attorney, but little-known, she is also a ventriloquist and a songwriter, and she weds those two things together to minister to children on some of these issues that we are going to discuss today, issues of abuse. Deborah, your ministry has been so important and I think in the days moving ahead, your ministry is going to be all the more important because the church is going to face some major legal issues in our country, and we’re going to need to be very wise in the ways in which we approach some of these issues.

We discussed one of these very topics at our Annual Conference this past year, which you were involved in. You gave a breakout session on this topic, and we need to be discussing some of these legal issues. One of those that we see very prevalent in our culture right now is legal issues regarding abuse. Deborah, if you could just explain for us some of the things that we should be paying attention to as a church and as counselors, particularly on how to think through issues of abuse from a legal perspective.

Deborah Dewart: Every single state has a child abuse reporting law, and each state is a little bit different, so it is very important that you know what the law says in your particular state and that you have a county that you can call for questions. So, if you are counseling someone and you have a reasonable suspicion that there is some child abuse, you probably have a reporting obligation. So, you need to know your state law so you can properly report.

I have an informed consent generic form that I recommend at these conferences that can be modified accordingly for whatever state you are in, and a couple of things that I cover there require some comments as far as abuse is concerned. One of them is confidentiality. Of course, you do not want to go and make your counselee’s problems known outside the counseling room unless there is a real need to do so, but people need to understand there may be a biblical obligation. An example is when there is a Matthew 18 issue, or there may be a legal obligation such as child abuse reporting. That is one area.

The other thing is biblical dispute resolution. I always recommend that Christians don’t sue one another, and the Bible warns against that. I include a section in the informed consent that, if there is a dispute between the counselor and the counselee, that it will be settled within the church and not in a secular court. But this is an exception to that; if you are aware of abuse, you really cannot keep that within the church, but you can cooperate with the authorities. We actually had a seminar at one of these conferences one time by a pastor, Bob Needham, several years ago, and it was about how to go about cooperating with those secular authorities and actually helping make their job easier by counseling people biblically and holding them accountable within the church.

Dale Johnson: Now, you mentioned that it’s important for us to know some of our state legislation relative to this issue of reporting, and I think that’s a very important comment. For those of us who don’t have legal minds and we’re not really certain about how all the legal system works, what are some places that one of us as a counselor could go to find out our state legislation relative to reporting laws?

Deborah Dewart: That’s a good question. First, you need to have a local attorney on speed dial. Find someone, maybe a family law attorney who is a Christian, but there are some excellent resources out there. One of them that I have recommended at my seminar is The Church Law and Tax Report. I can’t say enough good things about them; they have actually some resources specific to sexual abuse, they have a resource that can be downloaded that gives a summary of the law in each state, and the phone numbers and web resources to access so that you can become better informed. There’s also the Christian Legal Society, and they have a “find a lawyer” tab on their website, so if you need to find a Christian lawyer in a particular state, you can look for one there. Then there is The Alliance Defending Freedom. That is a Christian legal defense group, and they don’t work specifically with abuse, but they’ve established a New Church Alliance, and it’s so new that I can’t give all the details about it. But it’s an excellent way to work with churches, and because of the network that they have across the nation of Christian attorneys, they’d probably be able to help you find someone that was well versed in that area.

Dale Johnson: Well, all of that is so helpful because there are many issues that we are dealing with and we want to make sure that we are informed and that we’re handling these situations that come before us in a biblical way, with integrity, and with our responsibility to the government. We understand scripturally that the government is a proper, God-ordained authority, and we have been called to obey the laws of our land, and so those things are helpful.

Now, I want to talk about some of the other issues that we see. Certainly, abuse at the moment is on the top of our minds with all the things going on in our country, but there are some other things that are coming down some of the legal pipes as well that we need to be paying attention to. You’ve mentioned before, in conversation, some arguments that were made before the Supreme Court and some decisions that have been made as well. One of those is relative to Crisis Pregnancy. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Deborah Dewart: Yes, and I wrote a Friend of the Court Brief in that case. California passed a very burdensome law that affected the pregnancy resource centers in that state; the ones that are licensed to provide ultrasounds. They were going to be required to give women information about free, state-funded abortions and contraception and other such things contrary to their mission. These centers that were not licensed to provide things like ultrasounds, they were simply required to provide a statement about not being a licensed medical facility or not having a medical professional on staff, which doesn’t sound as bad, except that it had to be on everything; every kind of advertising, and depending on the county, it had to be provided in more than one language. In Los Angeles County, for example, it would have been required in 13 or 14 different languages. They couldn’t even put up a sign that would say “Choose life” without this disclosure.

Well, that’s compelled speech, which is contrary to the First Amendment, and these laws would keep women from actually knowing about the pregnancy centers and being able to access them and receive the kind of good biblical counsel that they need about their pregnancies.

Dale Johnson: There are so many other issues as well. We talked about religious liberty and we see that has arisen to the top of conversation, even in the past several years, and we’re facing situations where the churches are going to be affected by some of the issues that are coming before the Supreme Court relative to religious liberty.

Deborah Dewart: Yes, and not only churches, but people sitting in the pews are too. The issue with marriage, with the Supreme Court having redefined marriage for legal purposes, it is important for churches to have good governing documents, by-laws and articles, and policies for use of their facilities, and to put a religious fence around those things about what they will or will not do. Of course, at the same time, we want to show compassion for people and help people who are struggling with those issues. It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s very important.

We had a case last year with Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado, who would serve anybody and sell anything off the shelf to whoever walked in. But he was particular about what he would custom design a cake for, and he loved to do weddings and he would get to know the couples and find out about them and create artwork for them that fit their particular situation and would celebrate their marriage. Well, he was asked by two men to design a cake, and he could not in good conscience do that because of his Christian faith, and so he was sued by them and Colorado ruled against him, and his family went through quite some trials.

They even received death threats, but he stood firm, and Alliance Defending Freedom represented him all the way to the Supreme Court. This past year, we had a 7-2 decision in his favor. There was a real victory for religious liberty, and it was primarily because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had shown such extreme hostility toward his faith and they had applied the law using a double standard, because there was a different case where someone had gone to a cake baker and asked to have a cake design that would criticize homosexuality, and the bakery refused, but that was okay. But that was quite a trial for his family, and people who are going through that kind of a challenge really need good biblical counseling and ministry in their churches. We have a florist in Washington, we have a printer in Kentucky, we have some other people in other parts of the country that are undergoing similar challenges, so it’s important to be aware of those things.

Dale Johnson: One final issue that I want to mention to you that is coming up in some of the legal battles that are going on, is the issue of sexuality, particularly relative to transgenderism. Can you speak about some of the legal issues that are coming on board?

Deborah Dewart: Yes, that is still on the table. We had a case that almost got heard in the Supreme Court. It had to do with bathroom usage, after the prior administration issued an ultimatum to every school district in the nation that they had to open their bathrooms depending on a particular student’s gender identity and didn’t require any notification to parents or any other corroborating evidence; a child could just walk into the school office and a boy could say, “I’m a girl, you have to let me use the girl’s bathroom.”

That generated a lot of confusion, a lot of anger on both sides, and some losses. But that ultimatum was reversed, so that case went away, but it’s still percolating in the lower courts. We also have, under federal law, laws that require that women be given equal opportunities in education and employment. Well, there are people that want to take the word “sex” as “sex discrimination” and instead of it meaning male and female, they want to expand that to cover sexual orientation and gender identity. There are petitions pending at the Supreme Court right now because the lower circuit courts, the Federal Courts of Appeal, are split on whether that term simply means male and female or whether it should be expanded. I expect that one of these cases, at some point in the near future, will be accepted for review.

Dale Johnson: Deborah, let’s say that a church is facing a legal suit or some sort of legal action, and they’re really not certain what to do. They weren’t expecting this, they weren’t prepared for something like this. What are some things that you would recommend that they do immediately to help bring clarity to their situation?

Deborah Dewart: Well, there are a number of groups that help churches in that situation. The one that comes to mind first is the Alliance Defending Freedom. They’re the ones that litigated the cake baker case and the pregnancy resource center case in California last year. They are excellent. But there are other smaller organizations that have come along that have helped local organizations, some that do litigation. Center for Law and Religious Expression is one that comes to mind. The Christian Legal Society is another great resource. They don’t usually directly do litigation, but they would be a good resource to find someone who would, looking in your particular state. There is a family policy council in every state that would help with some resources. On the west coast, we have the Pacific Justice Institute. In Texas, we have the First Liberty. There are a lot of organizations with the name “liberty” in them that do litigation. There are a lot of good resources out there.

Dale Johnson: Well Deborah, thank you so much. This has been very helpful to our organization as we continue to think through what we know is coming relative to legal issues.

Recommended Resources

Organizations:
– Church Law and Tax Report
– Christian Legal Society
– Alliance Defending Freedom
– Center for Law and Religious Freedom


To read ACBC’s Statement on Abuse and Biblical Counseling visit our Committed to Care website.