Often we have been taught, “Good Christian people are not supposed to fight,” and that is why minor irritations frequently build up until they finally explode. What can be done to help people who find themselves in the middle of a heated conflict? The Atlanta metropolitan area has a unique system of dispute resolution available as a free service to the community. The Neighborhood Justice Center of Atlanta, Inc., at 976 Edgewood Avenue, NE, offers a practical and effective alternative to court action.

Operating as a non-profit organization, the NJCA is designed to help people settle their differences amiably without going through the expensive, slow, and often alienating court process. The key concept is mediation – helping others to come to a settlement with which they can live.

NJCA offers a mediation service in which both disputing parties come to the center to discuss their differences on a personal level. The mediations take place in a cordial, non-judicial environment with a neutral mediator who hears the case, enabling possible solutions to surface. In a mediation the desired outcome is a written agreement signed by both parties and the mediator. Coercion is not a facet of the NJCA. The agreement reached is a mutual effort and is signed voluntarily, just as the presence of all concerned is voluntary. The success of NJCA is impressive. Eighty percent of the cases mediated reach an agreement that is satisfactory to all parties. When the cases are followed up 90 days after mediation, 75 percent are still abiding by the agreement.

When it began in 1977, the NJCA was part of a pilot program set up by the federal government to ease overcrowding in the judicial system. Of the three centers in the original program (the others were in Kansas City and Los Angeles), the Atlanta center is the only one still operating. Due to budget cuts, federal funding was lost in 1979, and since then it has been financed by the United Way, city and county governments in the Atlanta area, and many private foundations and citizens.

The staff consists of six full-time employees, three of whom have law degrees. The center, however, is not a legal service. The staff is responsible for obtaining operation funds, keeping an active referral system, doing intake work on cases, and scheduling mediations. The actual mediations are done by eighty volunteers who have gone through a very intense training course. These mediators make up the heart of the NJCA. The mediator is carefully matched with each ease and is someone both parties can trust and respect.

Ms. Edith Primm, Executive Director of the center, says, “No matter how compassionate a judge may be, he or she cannot possibly devote enough time to resolve disputes between people involved in continuing relationships. The judge cannot be professionally concerned with why something happened, but can only be concerned with the legality of the situation.” NJCA has discovered that more often than not underlying factors are more of a problem than the actual incident itself. The advantage of using mediators is that they can deal with this “hidden agenda,” or the why behind what happened. In fact, many judges refer cases to the NJCA.

In an age in which litigation is so prevalent, disputes between friends, family members, neighbors, landlord and tenant, consumer and merchant, employer and employee are often taken to the courtrooms. As a result, the courts are flooded with cases that require dispute resolution. The NJCA offers an alternative to the impersonal coldness of a courtroom. During mediation, persons involved in the settlement are treated as persons of worth who take responsibility for living up to the agreement they will make with each other. This process enhances a person’s sense of respect for self and society and eases the tension and hostility involved in a system that designates one party right and the other wrong. Instead of pitting persons against each other, mediation provides a context for working out problems together. It brings people from all socio-economic levels, racial diversities, and religious backgrounds together in a cooperative effort. Even clergy disputes have been mediated at NJCA.

The Neighborhood Justice Center reflects basic theological and Biblical presuppositions. In a world of discord and strife, the center offers a healing ministry of reconciliation. Though the center is not affiliated with a particular church nor professes Christian doctrine in any overt way. NJCA does embody principles found throughout Scripture.

One of the keys to the center’s great success is the way it revolutionizes the concept of justice. So often, justice is equated with revenge. The NJCA does not offer a way to retaliate against the other party, but offers a way to work out differences so that people can live with each other peaceably. In this respect, justice is no longer revenge but reconciliation. It would seem that this kind of approach to personal problems is inherent in the admonition to love one’s neighbor as oneself. This rule seeks not winners and losers, but harmony and reconciliation. Mediation strives for “both-and” thinking in an “either-or” society. Most of the cases seen at the center involve family conflict in which ongoing relationships are essential. Complainants and respondents go into mediation gritting teeth and ready to fight, but often come out friends. This process encourages continuing relationships as opposed to abandoning them. And when good people are reconciled with each other, then they can be reconciled with God. The center affords people the opportunity to work out their differences on neutral ground.

For more information on the Neighborhood Justice Center of Atlanta, please call 523-8236.

(The above article was submitted by students at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.)