The CLS Staff Roundtable on Serving Christian Lawyers

I think readers will enjoy this conversation about being a disciple of Jesus in the legal profession-- from the perspective of the Christian Legal Society staff.

Listen in!

Christian Legal Society Northeast Retreat

I'm pleased to announce that registration opened last week for the Christian Legal Society Northeast Retreat for law students, attorneys, and their families.

We've enjoyed the location at the Frost Valley YMCA in Claryville, NY so much that we'll be returning there again, February 7-9, 2014. Activities will include cross-country skiing, tubing, candle-making, broom ball, and snow-shoeing. 

Our speaker this year is Randy Singer, pastor, law professor, and award-winning author. Randy has been working with law students for many years, and he is an engaging and challenging speaker. He practices in Norfolk with the Singer Law Group, and has just published his 10th legal thriller, Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales.  Learn more about Randy here. The program promises to be encouraging for anyone interested in pursuing the legal profession as a disciple of Jesus.

If you're looking for a time of relaxation, fellowship, and spiritual refreshment, consider joining us in the Catskills in February.  There is more information on the CLS website, with details on cost, lodging, and registration. 

I'd love to see you there!

The Journal of Christian Legal Thought

This month the Institute for Christian Legal Studies published the inaugural issue of the Journal of Christian Thought, available in hard copy (to Christian Legal Society members) and in full electronic version at no cost. The mission of the Journal is to equip and encourage legal professionals to seek and study biblical truth as it relates to law, the practice of law, and legal institutions.

We hope to provide practitioners and students a vehicle through which to engage Christian legal scholarship that will enhance theological reflection about the law and the lawyer's work, and, in addition, to provide legal scholars a medium through which to explore the law in light of Scripture, under the broad influence of the doctrines and creeds of the Christian faith and on the shoulders of the communion of saints across the ages.

The Journal will usually feature two or three scholarly articles, abstracted in the print edition and available in full online. But we decided to make the first issue a special one, highlighting works that a variety of scholars view as important to the project of cultivating Christian legal thought. So we approached a number of Christian professors and theologians, and asked each to write 500 words on a book or article of his or her choice, “helpful to the project of cultivating Christian legal thought.” The result is a collection of 31 very short essays that give a diversity of expression to the concept of Christian legal thought.

The collection has a nice range: from broadly theological foundations—both Roman Catholic (Newman and John Paul II) and Protestant (Calvin and Kuyper) perspectives—to narrow practice areas (Climate Change and International Law), to sophisticated integration of the two (Uelmen’s Toward a Trinitarian Theory of Products Liability, and Craig Stern on Jeff Tuomala’s Christ’s Atonement as the Model for Civil Justice).

The essays cover a variety of sources for, perspectives on, and approaches to Christian thinking about law and legal institutions. Some essays address the body of work of an important thinker, others only one book or article. From the broadly philosophical to the very practical, there is something of interest here for every lawyer and law student.

I'd love to hear from readers with suggestions and ideas for future issues. Let me know what you think!

Sam Ericsson: Lawyer, Visionary, Disciple

Today in Fairfax, Virginia, hundreds of people are gathered at a memorial service for Sam Ericsson, to celebrate his life-- the life of a truly great man. Sam passed away on January 21 after a long battle with cancer.

Sam was a spiritual father and mentor to hundreds of lawyers around the world. He began as a pioneer and workhorse in the area of religious liberty legislation and litigation, and he served Christian lawyers as the Executive Director of the Christian Legal Society from 1985 to 1991. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom.

In 1991, he founded Advocates International, an organization that has truly made disciples of nations and the lawyers who work within their systems. Thousands of lawyers around the world have benefited from the influence of Advocates. For more on this amazing ministry go here.

Sam was an inspiring disciple of Jesus. He opened his home to hundreds of men and women, gave most of money away, and cheerfully gave himself to the mission that God had called him to: encouraging and equipping lawyers to serve Jesus in a thousand different ways. He wasn't critical; he was open-handed and shared his work with anyone. When my book Redeeming Law came out in 2007, he bought 6,000 copies to send to Christian lawyers everywhere. It had nothing to do with me or my ideas: to my knowledge, he never read the book! I wondered aloud to him why he would sink his resources into a project without knowing the details. With a smile, he answered, "I bought them based on the cover." As far as he was concerned, if the book encouraged lawyers to be a redeeming influence in the world, that was the only "detail" he needed to know.

I'll close with an excerpt from the letter sent to the CLS membership by my friend and colleague, Kim Colby, Senior Counsel for the Center for the Center for Law and Religious Freedom:

Sam wholeheartedly loved the Lord and life. He was a mentor and friend to many, but particularly to lawyers. As a Bible teacher, he brought to life Psalm 37, the Good Samaritan parable, Nehemiah, and so many other scriptures. Constantly, he challenged us with their practical application to everyday life.

But Sam never lived an everyday life. With a huge smile, he would beam, “How can anyone not be an optimist after the Resurrection?” A passionate and enthusiastic man, he strove to do good for his Neighbor, whether that was the person next door or a stranger in a distant land.

Fortunately for CLS, religious liberty was one of Sam’s primary passions. He was the engine behind the passage of the federal Equal Access Act in 1984. As a result, millions of public schoolchildren have had the opportunity to hear the Gospel in Bible studies after school. Countless people around the world enjoy greater religious liberty thanks to Sam’s efforts. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia, Sam helped attorneys in numerous countries write constitutional protection for religious liberty into their new constitutions.

Sam constantly preached thankfulness, taking seriously the injunction to give thanks to God in all things. When we suffered a setback on a case or legislation, Sam would insist that we give thanks and even celebrate with an impromptu party, trusting in God’s perfect will for an eventual positive outcome.

And he was a man of integrity. During my last visit with Sam, while praying for healing, he gave God heartfelt thanks for the lessons he was learning from his pain.

Quite simply, Sam lived Micah 6:8, a verse he quoted frequently: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Already missing him, we give great thanks to God for his life. Please keep his wife Bobby, daughter Monica, and sons Ryan and Nick in your prayers.

Sam was-- and is-- the real thing. We'll miss him, but he's left a great and lasting legacy to build on and an example of a life well lived for us to follow.

Thank you, Lord, for Sam Ericsson.

Gifts, Talents, and The Gift

Last week, I had the privilege to be a part of two great events. First, I gave an address to the students and faculty at the spiritual life retreat at Regent University School of Law. It was great to be with friends and colleagues and to discuss the calling of the Christian lawyer with so many committed, faithful students.

From Regent, I made my way to Seattle and headed up and over Stevens Pass to Plain, Washington, where I experienced the hospitality of the Seattle CLS group and the good fellowship of about 50 local lawyers and law students at the Christian Legal Society Northwest Regional Retreat. Our main event was the inspiration and encouragement of Bob Goff, whose stories of his "capers" are unsurpassed. If you don't know Bob or at least know of him, check out some of these videos, and get a glimpse of his passion, his taste for "whimsy"-- and his heart for justice at Restore International.

I also had the pleasure to speak after Bob headed off to Uganda to love his neighbors over there. In both my Regent Law School address and the Seattle sermon, I used 1 Peter 4:10-12, as my text. It begins:

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.

What "gift" has each of us received? Well, certainly, in the law school context, law students and lawyers have the gifts and talents that go with analytical reasoning skills, reading comprehension, and sound logic. I think this verse is most definitely talking about this kind of gift, for the passage is clear that we ought to use what we are given to serve others. I think that is the basic idea of "calling": we love our neighbors, wherever we are, using the gifts and resources we have on hand to love those people that God has placed "near" us. The lawyer's calling is not much more than figuring out how to love neighbors in and through the law. It's not easy, and it's not easy to figure out who these neighbors are and how best to love them. But that is the task, nonetheless.

In addition, though, the "gift" we have received is the stamp of the Creator—His image—that allows us to work and create and serve in this world in the first place. What a privilege! We are stewards of His grace, entrusted with His work in the world. The better we realize that or task is to serve one another with the grace poured out on us, the better we are able to be channels of that grace, living open handedly and graciously with our clients, our partners, our employees, and our classmates. And lawyers are notoriously bad, I think, at living open-handedly and graciously. Our pride tells us, perhaps only in a whisper, that really we don't need grace, since we're basically pretty smart and virtuous in the first place. Our cynicism tells us that those around us have a dark secret they're hiding, and that, nonsensically, they don't merit God's favor. And our legalism tells us that productivity and success are higher goals than loving relationships.

Live generously. Live gladly. Love your neighbors. It's a high calling.

Linkfest: Commencement, Grad Resources, CLS, Christian Union

It's the end of May, and I've been a bit out of touch lately, so by way of excuse and as an exercise in connecting readers to other good ministries and stories, here's a personal note on my month, with some interesting links to occupy your Memorial Day weekend.

Congratulations to my wonderful daughter on her High School graduation. I gave the commencement address, so I'm sure it was a bit anti-climactic for her, having to listen to a summary of the advice she's been getting from me for 18 years. My address could be described as an amateurish 15-minute summary of Dallas Willard's Divine Conspiracy. To be sure, the book was better. I wish I had seen Neil Postman's commencement address before I wrote mine. Despite its (apparent) historical shortcomings, he makes an interesting point, and I would have liked to have done something similar. By the way, this is the 25th anniversary of the publication of his truly great book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and it holds up extremely well, despite the fact that email and the Internet were not a part of his cultural landscape. Read it. The introduction is worth the price of the book (especially if you buy it used).

As part of my preparation for delivering the commencement speech, I golfed in the Grad Resources golf marathon to help raise money for this great ministry partner. Nick Repak runs Grad Resources with great energy and vision, and he invited me and our friend Don Paul Gross, a Regional Director for IVCF's Graduate and Faculty Ministries, to have some fun and talk to his donors about ministry partnership.

Much of my time in the office is being spent planning the program for this year's National Law Student Convention at the Christian Legal Society National Conference, to be held in Orlando, Florida, October 21-24. The student program will be excellent this year, with a keynote address by theologian Wayne Grudem, and panels featuring folks like Stanford Law professor Michael McConnell, the International Justice Mission, and practicing lawyers. The breakout sessions will feature topics such as women's issues, career options, missions, and law & theology.

Students who register before June 15 will receive double scholarships. The hotel rate is good through August 1. It would be great to see you there!

Finally, I spent some of last week at Princeton and in Philly on a great leisurely work/business as pleasure trip, and my son was able to accompany me to visit the ballpark in Philly to see the Red Sox play the Phillies. Yes, that is a ballpark cheesesteak in good hands.

My time in Princeton was spent recording the final six of twelve lectures on Christianity & Law for the good folks at Christian Union, who, Lord willing, will be distributing them through Lifelong Discipleship Media. Christian Union is a ministry to the Ivy League, and one of their goals is to network and support other campus ministries at these key schools. It was a pleasure to be part of their work and to enjoy the excellent hospitality of their staff and the team at Wilson House.

It was a busy month, and I am grateful for the many blessings the Lord has poured out on my family through my job, my sweet family, and the fun, interesting, dedicated folks who make me better at what I do, from authors and pastors to ministry partners and friends. The body of Christ is really something.

CLS v. Martinez Oral Arguments

Monday morning at 10 am eastern, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case that will have a lasting impact on how religious student groups are treated by public universities.

Video and transcript of PBS's Religion & Ethics Weekly piece on the case, airing on television tomorrow, are available already online. The reporting is fine, and it's a pretty balanced piece, yet the issues need more than a five-minute treatment. Here are just a few of the misconceptions that might remain after one watches the interview:

• "CLS discriminates based on sexual orientation, but thinks that its right to associational speech trumps the other issues." This isn't true. Conduct, not orientation is what is prohibited by CLS, and CLS asks all of its members, whatever their "orientation," to abstain from sex outside of traditional marriage.
• "This case is about public funds." Not so. Leo Martinez, in the PBS interview, says that because Hastings funds their groups with "public money," they can't fund a group like the Christian Legal Society. In reality, all student groups are funded by student activity fees. While CLS students are forced to pay for gay rights advocacy with their fees, their voice is silenced because of their particular beliefs about the way the world works.
• "CLS wants treatment that is different from other student groups on campus." This is not true, either. All groups, even religious groups, have the right to choose their leaders and members-- those who carry its message-- without being excluded from campus life. This is the gist of the case. CLS was kicked off campus-- no email server for its announcements, no classroom chalkboards, no web space, no funding-- because they have the temerity to actually believe orthodox Christian doctrine.
• "This is a case about the separation of church and state." It is not. Since at least 1981, the law has been clear that public universities don't violate the First Amendment's Establishment Clause when they recognize religious student groups, and in 1995, the court held that public universities can give money to religious student groups. In the 80's and 90's, hostile schools tried to de-fund groups through establishment clause litigation. Since that tactic didn't work, they now try to exclude them from campus by crying "discrimination."
  

When public schools are permitted to interfere if the Democratic Law Students' Association rejects republican members, or the Marxist Student group won't allow capitalists on the leadership ballot, something is wrong with world.

No student was ever excluded from a CLS meeting or banned from membership at Hastings, and to my knowledge, no gay student has ever been excluded from CLS. The case arose because the university didn't like the religious standards and requirements of the Christian Legal Society and refused them access to campus life.

The briefs from all parties and friends of the court are available online.

Be in prayer for the advocates and justices in this case.

"Taxpayer" Money and Christian Legal Society Chapters

This past weekend, Parade magazine did a small feature on the CLS v. Martinez case that will be heard by the Supreme Court on April 19. I've discussed the case before, but it essentially involves the question whether the Constitution permits a public law school to exclude a religious student organization from a forum for speech solely because the group requires its officers and voting members to share its core religious commitments. (For the Petitioner's Brief, go here).

Interestingly, the otherwise straightforward piece, that quotes advocates on both sides of the issue, includes an "online poll" asking:

"Should campus religious groups that exclude non-believers get taxpayer funds?"

Interesting question. The problem is that it has nothing to do with CLS v. Martinez, in which there are neither taxpayer nor public funds at issue. As The Buzz at CLS notes:

Taxpayer funds have nothing to do with the case. This is a a major error in fact. The only funds (they are not "public funds" as one of the other sources erroneously claimed) at issue are student activity fees, and the issue is their equal distribution to student groups.

What's happening right now is that CLS students are being forced to fund, through student fees, groups that conflict with their beliefs, but the school has set up a system that withholds those funds from Christian groups if they refuse to abandon the very reason for which they exist! Of course, the Supreme Court in Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), held that public universities could not engage in viewpoint discrimination against religious student groups in distributing student activity fee funds, which is exactly what is happening here.

The case is about recognition by the university, which brings with it the ability to participate fully in the community life of the school and full access to the services and tools used by other recognized student organizations.

Maybe Parade's poll question should have been:

"Should student groups whose leaders are required to share the group's beliefs have equal access to student fees?"

(By the way, my podcast interview with the Christian Legal Society's lead counsel, Kimberlee Wood Colby is available on iTunesU).

Coolest. Brief. Ever.

I have just posted my podcast interview with Kim Colby, Senior Counsel at the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, over at the Cross & Gavel iTunesU page. Kim is lead counsel in the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case, which I have mentioned before.

As readers will recall, the case involves a Christian Legal Society student chapter that was de-recognized by the Hastings Law School administration for allegedly running afoul of the law school's anti-discrimination policy. It will be heard by the Supreme Court in April, and we expect a decision in late June.

Kim Colby is a wonderful lawyer who has been involved in the religious liberty arena for three decades, and her expertise and insight have been invaluable in building a team to represent the Christian Legal Society's interests in this case. Michael McConnell, one of the finest and most respected first amendment scholars in the country, is on board to argue the case.

The case raises interesting and important issues, and I hope you'll listen to my discussion with Kim. If the iTunes link gives you trouble, access it through the Cross & Gavel homepage.

There is one fun and interesting side note that I'd like to highlight, and it involves one of the many amici that have weighed in with friend briefs on the CLS side. Of the 21 amicus curaie briefs, the most unique is the Brief of Amici Curaie Evangelical Scholars (Officers and 24 Former Presidents of the Evangelical Theological Society), Evangelicals for Social Action, and National Association of Evangelicals in Support of Petitioner. Fortunately, the brief is more interesting -- and a bit shorter-- than its title. In fact, it is downright amazing.

What is amazing about this short (even the standard appellate mega-margins, it is a mere 20 pages) piece of advocacy is that it is a beautiful and edifying theological primer . . . and a fine legal brief. All at once.

It has to be the coolest brief ever.

The purpose of the brief is to provide the historical-theological and biblical context of the position of organizations like CLS, who sometimes take unpopular or counter-cultural stands based on Scripture, and ask their members to act out their beliefs. With great economy of words and generosity of spirit, the brief meets this goal, setting out the basics of some fundamental Christian doctrines. Here is the outline of the argument:

A. Evangelical belief concerning the Bible

B. Evangelical belief in standards of conduct for leaders and regular members

C. Interpretation and application of the moral commands of the Bible to the present

D. Not based on animosity

E. A distinction between desires and conduct is common in evangelical ethical thinking

F. The Bible’s teaching on sexual conduct

G. Agreement among evangelical groups

H. CLS’s belief concerning the Bible leads to its Statement of Faith and its interpretation of the Statement

I. An attempt to compel disobedience to the Word of God

J. Evangelical Christian churches and organizations cannot comply with such a nondiscrimination policy

K. Broader implications

Read it and marvel. But here is a taste:

There is no animosity or malice toward any group of people (such as adulterers or homosexuals) that has played any role in the formulation of the CLS Statement of Faith and its interpretation, or in the practice of similar policies by Christian groups throughout history, or in the inclusion of these moral standards in the Bible in the first place. Indeed, animosity toward any such group would be contrary to the Bible itself, for it would violate the command of Jesus to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) and even to “[l]ove your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27).

Therefore it would not be surprising that a student who was known to engage in homosexual conduct would nonetheless be regularly welcomed at CLS meetings at Hastings College of Law, though not invited to become a voting member. This is exactly what one would expect from Christian students seeking to be obedient to both the biblical standards of sexual conduct for leaders and members and the biblical commands to love one’s neighbor.

Good stuff.

(By the way, all the briefs are accessible from the CLS website).

What I Learned in Seattle

Last weekend I had the privilege of spending some time with 30 lawyers and law students retreating in the Cascade mountains just over the pass from Seattle. Although I was the speaker for the weekend, I received much more than I gave.

What We Did


I laid out the four sessions this way:

Session 1: Law & Leisure. We began by discussing the role of true leisure-- the pursuit of the true, good, and beautiful in all that we do-- as central to the human calling and therefore a major part of the lawyer's calling. Josef Pieper's great book, Leisure, The Basis of Culture, was a major source for this.

Session 2: Vocation. We discussed the general doctrine, using many examples from Ed Veith's excellent book God at Work.

Session 3: We clarified all the stuff I muddied in session 2, then discussed what vocation might mean for lawyers in various practice areas.

Session 4: We broke into groups, shared what we had been thinking in this retreat setting, and then prayed for one another.

What I Learned


1. Session 4 is always the best and most appreciated session of any retreat. That's not to say that the speaker is never any good, only that a bunch of smart people, dedicated to faithful pursuit of their callings and their Caller create a fascinating community and a productive discussion. The wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and insight into the practical work of the lawyers is generally ferreted out only in dialogue. What a joy it is to dialogue with folks like this! On the prayer aspect, see #2 . . . .

2. This particular retreat began with a vision for such a gathering follwoed by the prayers of a few folks. When the vision became a reality, it was planned in prayer, and it was undergirded with prayer while we met. This matters. When we prayed for one another in small groups it was powerful.

I know it sounds like I'm in spiritual second grade, but I really am when it comes to prayer. I need to pray more. God is powerful and he acts when we pray. This was a good reminder for me.

3. God's people are great. God has created and empowered so many different kinds of folks, each with a unique bent, all with different backgrounds and goals. It is a joy to hear law students and lawyers share their journeys and their plans and marvel at the way God works through strange and interesting folks. Whether I was eating a Reuben sandwich next to new friends, sitting around before breakfast with a hot cup of coffee chatting about life, or engaging the formal Q&A, God was speaking to me through his servants. Good, clean fun, I might add.

A heartfelt thank you to the talented and thoughtful folks who lead of the Seattle Christian Legal Society group and who organized the event. I was encouraged and refreshed by my time with you, and I know the Lord is at work in your city and your community of lawyers.

And all of this is true even though Andy Toles wouldn't let me eat M&Ms on Friday night, because they were earmarked for Saturday's snack.

** ** ** ** **
PS If anyone is interested in attending next year's retreat, likely in Jan 2011 (the featured speaker will be a bit better), let me know and I'll get you in touch with the Seattle CLS leadership.