The Journal of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America July-September 2017 - 20

sTorIes oF Peacemakers

Let Us Reason Together
by Judge Wendell Griffen

hen I was a child, the King James Version (KJV) of
the Holy Bible was the only one found in our home (in
Delight, AK), read in our church (Harrison Chapel Baptist
Church), and quoted by most people I knew (parents, pastors,
other preachers, relatives, friends, neighbors, and strangers).
So when people read or quoted Isaiah 1:18, this is what they
read and said: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD.
The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) rendering of
that passage reads: Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD.
The passage is a call to engage in honest and thoughtful
conversation. It reminds us that humans are blessed with the
capacity to contemplate situations and experiences involving
ourselves and others, including our Creator. Indeed, the passage
is an urgent call from our Creator to engage in that effort. Come
now, let us argue it out. I grew up in a family, neighborhood, church,
and around elders of people who valued and enjoyed thinking,
debating, re-thinking and challenging the thinking of others.
I suspect that was one reason I became a lawyer, a minister of the religion of Jesus, a legal educator, a judge and a
strategic consultant about cultural competence and inclusion.

I have long enjoyed pondering the possible interpretations and
meanings of what others do, write and say, and weighing facts,
ideas, values and competing arguments and interpretations
about the situations and conditions that we call life.
Along the way, I learned that the words that John Adams
spoke in December 1770, while defending soldiers charged in
the Boston Massacre, are true:
Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our
inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the
state of facts and evidence.
As a lawyer, pastor, judge, law professor and consultant, I
work at learning facts, weighing competing facts, and deciding
whether facts prove what people claim to be true.
When a judge gets a motion for a temporary restraining
order (TRO), he or she considers whether facts show that
imminent and irreparable harm is threatened unless the he or
she issues an order that preserves things as they are-the status
quo-until he or she can hold a full hearing and consider all
of the available evidence.
The law requires that judges determine whether the party
that claims it is threatened by a situation that poses imminent
and irreparable harm, is likely to succeed on the merits of the
dispute before issuing the TRO. If no such facts are presented, the TRO must not be granted. But, even if these facts are
presented, if the facts do not show that the threatened party
has a legal claim that is likely to succeed, the TRO must not
be granted.
No matter what the judge's personal views may be about
the dispute, the judge must be governed by two things: whether
the facts show some imminent and irreparable harm is threatened if a TRO is not issued and whether the party seeking the
TRO has a legal claim that is likely to succeed.
On Friday, April 14, 2017, I was preparing to join other
members of New Millennium Church for a good Friday prayer
vigil outside the Arkansas governor's Mansion when I received
a motion seeking a TRO. The moving party was a distributor
of medical supplies and pharmaceutical products. Its motion
was accompanied by a verified complaint, meaning a pleading
signed under oath.
In that verified complaint, the moving party declared
that the Arkansas Department of Correction had purchased
Left: Judge Wendell Griffen (far left) talks to reporters at a press
conference held in his support in Little Rock, AK. Photo courtesy of
Wendell Griffen.

20 Baptist Peacemaker

jul-sep 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America July-September 2017