In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law

Re:In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law by Animats on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @02:48PM (#10502052)

The Christian version of this is new. Previously, using US law to make decisions of religious courts binding has mostly been a Jewish and, to a small extent, Islamic thing. There are Jewish courts (Beth Din) in many US states.[1] They do both commercial and family law arbitrations. The commercial side is generally well thought of, but the family law side is iffy, because Jewish family law explicitly favors the husband and keeping children in the Jewish community.

There have been attempts to set up Sharia courts in the US, but there's much opposition.[2] Sharia family law also explicitly favors the husband.

[1] http://www.nylslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/201... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/sharia-law-usa-stat...

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Re:In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law by tovmeod on Wednesday November 04, 2015 @08:14AM (#10506209)

I don't know from where you have experience with Bet Din's, but in my experience and knowledge it actually favors the women.

Maybe I'm biased because I know a couple of divorced religious jews, but as I see the only example of favoritism to the husband is on get refusal, if the husband refuses to give the divorce the wife can't remarry, all the court can do is put pressure, in Israel they have more powers, they may imprison the husband until he agrees to the divorce.

What people don't tell is that the wife may refuse to accept the divorce, maybe is not that common or maybe people don't talk about it much, but in practice the husband can't remarry the same way until the wife agrees to accept the divorce. The difference is that the court don't apply pressure the same way they do to men.

Also there's the ketuba, on divorce the husband must pay an amount for "breach of contract", and this goes only one way, meaning there's no way the wife will ever need to pay any money, she has only money to receive.

Also children custody goes to the mother, while this is not a problem exclusive of Bet Din's, the court doesn't have powers to assure the father right's of seeing the children, meaning the ex-wife can create problems and difficulties and the court can't do much in practical terms

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Re:In Religious Arbitration, Scripture Is the Rule of Law by unit91 on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @03:42PM (#10502478)

I think the Christian version is new (and uncommon) because it's unbiblical.

"Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?" (1 Cor 6:5-7)

He appears to be saying Christians shouldn't sue Christians at all, especially not in a secular court, and grievances should be settled by a wise member of a local church.

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