Law & Business – Episode 38: Rev. Mark Schaefer, the Chaplain of American University.

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Law & Business – Episode 38 – Anthony sits down with the Rev. Mark Schaefer, the Chaplain of American University. Yes, that means that this episode takes a little different path than the usual episode of the “Law & Business” podcast.

Mark talks about his history from practicing law to being a member of the Methodist clergy. Mark also discusses some of his philosophy and how law and religion relate to each other.

Mark’s book is The Certainty of Uncertainty: The Way of Inescapable Doubt and Its Virtue, published by Wipf & Stock. The book takes a look at our desire for certainty, explores the unavoidable nature of uncertainty, and reveals how embracing uncertainty and doubt is transformative for our selves and for our world. Of course, the book can be found in bookstores and on Amazon.

Rev. Mark Schaefer is the tenth University Chaplain in American University’s history, appointed to the position in September 2016 after having served for 14 years as AU’s United Methodist Chaplain. He is a graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary and is an ordained elder in the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church. Mark has also been teaching as an adjunct professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department since fall 2006. He has also been a summer instructor in Biblical Greek and New Testament at neighboring Wesley Theological Seminary. Prior to his ecclesiastical career, Mark was a practicing attorney in the District of Columbia and is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School. Mark holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Russian Language and Literature from the State University of New York at Albany. A native of New York State, he was born in Buffalo and grew up in Center Brunswick, near Albany.

Here is the full transcript of the conversation:

Anthony Verna:
Thanks for listening everybody. Welcome to the law and business podcast. We are recording in DC this week at chatter, the only podcast studio restaurant hybrid I’ve ever known. I’m here. Marc, you’re recording. Thanks for recording for us. Yes, we are recording. We’re rolling live right now. Our guest today is the American University chaplain, Mark Schaefer. Mark, thanks for, for being with us. Thanks for having me here. One of the, the most interesting facts about you and the reason why, why I have you here with me is because you used to practice law. Technically, I still do. I still, I still pay my bar dues so I still can hang a shingle outside my office I suppose. But yes, I don’t practice nearly as much as I used to. I mean, this seems like a waste of money if that’s correct. Well, it’s, it’s honestly it’s so that because I know people are going to ask me for legal advice from time to time.

Mark Schaefer:
It’s to avoid committing malpractice by offering legal advice without the license to practice law. And you know, because if ever my family or friends gets into trouble, I want to be able to help them in some meaningful way. So that’s why I keep the license up to date and that way I’ve got that in my back pocket.

Anthony Verna:
So let’s go here. How do you go from practicing law to, to a vocation? I mean, what changed? What, what clicked in your mind? What flipped there? I was going to ask how did I switch sides, which is a little unfair.

Mark Schaefer:
I’m still a lawyer. I take that a little personally, but, honestly it was the intersection of questions of justice that did it. I was working in a law firm here in DC, a smaller practice, with an attorney who is very active in the DC voting rights movement. Um, and so we would have conversations about DC voting rights, about, um, possible solutions to the issue. And one of the things that occurred to me in our conversations was that there had not yet been laid a sufficient moral argument for district voting rights. And that is before you get to the legal and political solutions for how you enfranchise the citizens of the district of Columbia, you have to actually get people to understand that the disenfranchisement of more than half a million American citizens, who are, who pay taxes, who are sent off to fight foreign wars, who are subject to all federal laws and regulations and have no vote in the United States Congress is immoral.

Mark Schaefer:
So I remember thinking, well, there is a role here for the churches and for the communities of faith to get involved. And I had recently become a member at foundry United Methodist here in DC, just a very active, a church in the community. And I went and proposed to them a mission group to advocate for the voting rights as a moral and ethical issue. I said we would avoid coming up with a political solution, you know, statehood, all that. So we will just simply make the case that this is an immoral state of affairs that the church care about. And so they gave me the permission to create that group. We got a number of young adults involved in that. We drafted positions, we had information sessions, and we actually were ultimately able to get the United Methodist Church as a whole to adopt our resolution as a, as an official statement on the issue.

Mark Schaefer:
Um, but when I did that, I started to get noticed in the congregation and people started to invite me to be a part of this effort and that effort. And before long people were saying, have you ever thought about seminary? Have ever thought about the ministry? Um, and to be quite honest, I resisted as long as I could until I came to the realization that, um, the law as much as I cared about it was not fulfilling the vocational part of me. And I guess I had done it because it seemed like a practical thing to do, but I don’t know that it ever really spoken to my heart. And so the ministry became an avenue for that. I think a lot of lawyers have that particular problem as well that there’s a mental aspect of practicing law.

Anthony Verna:
There’s sometimes an emotional aspect of practicing law and as somebody who litigate, um, I can certainly attest to the ups ups and downs on that. And even today, for example, I had a conference call with the magistrate judge and opposing counsel and the other side. And one of the defendants is also a pro se in the, in that representing himself in the case. And emotionally you can go up and you can go down to the matter of of minutes. But ultimately then I hang up the phone and I’m like, well, we’re still sitting in the same position we were a half hour ago. Absolutely nothing has changed. And so I can understand where sometimes practicing law isn’t really all that all that fulfilling. How were you feeling not fulfilled in practice of law?

Mark Schaefer:
You know, honestly, it’s kind of a paradox to me because I was working with a great boss. I found the work interesting. Um, he was a good person to learn from and to work with. Um, we were doing interesting things on the DC level. We were, uh, we had won, uh, an award to draft some legislation to reform our regulatory structure. And I mean, there are all kinds of interesting things that were going on. It was actually starting to make a little money, you know, things like that. Um, I just think that in, in the long run it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing. And there was a part of it did that where my days felt that they were the same. There was a kind of a sameness to sure that it found hard to kind of overcome. Um, but what’s interesting is that when I went into the seminary, it was my legal training that I found helped me the most in deconstructing complex dense theological arguments and, and making ethical cases, you know, making ethical argument. I remember my, a Christian ethics class, our professor said, I don’t even really care what answers you come up with to these questions.

Mark Schaefer:
I just want to understand your processes correct. And all my friends turned and looked at me and said, you’re loving this, aren’t you? I said, this is how I think it’s the process that matters.

Anthony Verna:
And as somebody who’s Catholic, I’m used to get bishops, archbishops and cardinals who are lawyers, or at least have a law degree. And then also, right, also went to the seminary.

Mark Schaefer:
I mean, for centuries it was the same profession. These are the teachers of the law, right? I mean, these are the folks who understood the rules. And in some ways the lawyers in our society occupy the niche of the priesthood. And in an older, more ancient society, you know, they know all the magic words to say, right? They understand the intricacies of the, you know, the mysteries of the temples and to get things done in ways and they occupy that kind of center place in our commerce and social and political life. That would’ve been a priesthood at an earlier age. So I think on some level it’s the same career. I’m just, you know, working in a different organization.

Speaker 2:
So, so what is the, what do you see as a crossover between justice and morality now that you’ve stopped practicing law? Because there are some times when, when practicing law is not necessarily very just, I, I, you know, you and I were having a conversation about copyright law and in the United States, if a one does not have a copyright registered, you can’t even walk into court. Even if somebody is infringing you, worldwide, those statutes are written very differently, right? Like, what’s the justice if, you know, an artist can’t, you know, can’t get recompense for, uh, for somebody else, you know, stealing and swiping ideas.

Mark Schaefer:
For example. Well, it’s from a religious point of view, justice is the equal access to the levers of power. That is, it’s the idea that every single person has the ability to participate in the community, to participate, to have access to the resources of the community, to have access to the influence on the community. The decision making of the community regardless of station, regardless of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, you name it. That, that’s, that’s the basic concept of justice. What a court system does is it’s attempting to provide a, just result within some construct, but that may or may not be the same as what divine justice course. Right. And, and I think that’s, you know, where there is a need for humility in any system of justice is to understand that it is imperfect. Um, I know that there is, there’s a difference between the just result and the true result. Right. Um, for example, if a person gets off, uh, because the state was unable to prove guilt, that is the just result, but it may not be the true result. That person may have actually committed that crime. Right. And which case you have set someone free who is in fact guilty, but in fact guilty and just guilty aren’t the same thing.

Mark Schaefer:
Right? Because you want to the, because the overarching thing is the state does not have the power to remove your liberty without having proved that. That’s the just principle that is upheld by even when a guilty man goes free from a crime that he committed. So I think part of it is also understanding that there are different levels of justice and sometimes the system itself is just even when the result is not. And that is, that’s something to bear in mind as well. So I think, you know, when I look at the questions of morality and justice, it’s about aspiring for that higher level of justice of, of that sort of, where is the system pointing toward? Is it pointing toward protecting the rights of all people or is it pointing toward enshrining the privileges of a few, in which case the individual just results don’t matter as much as where the overall system is, is pointing.

Anthony Verna:
Understood, understood correctly. How does that then apply on your daily life?

Mark Schaefer:
As a minister, well, I think what that means is that I have to be prepared to call out the systems that are unjust, not just simply the results that it’s, it’s, and to help people to understand that for from my perspective and I’m United Methodists or Christian denomination, that from my Christian perspective, Christians are required to speak out on behalf of justice. That means that we are about reforming the very systems themselves. This is an idea known as the Social Gospel, the idea that the gospel is not meant simply to convert individuals but to convert entire communities to being more just more righteous, more equitable. This was a movement that, you know, sought to end a child labor that sought to end, you know, tenement housing that sought to end all manner of social injustices, um, and aimed themselves high that way.

Mark Schaefer:
So I think where my task is is to help people to understand that it is actually part of a, of a living, thriving spiritual life to work for justice on a systemic social level.

Anthony Verna:
And when you talked about starting at at the church and getting that particular ministry off the ground and then you said, well then we got noticed by the entire Methodist church. I would assume that as a lawyer that helped you because there’s has to be a lot of procedure in that. Like no matter what the hierarchy is, you’ve got to deal with rules and you have to deal with the procedure. And that has to like for me, I would say the most frustrating part of litigating is dealing with rules and getting an email like the other day, well these Rule 26(f) initial disclosures don’t follow this. And then, and, and at some point I get, I get frustrated over the rules and then when I joined another organization, I, I tend to go, okay, I already deal with enough rules. So I want to get past the rules here. But, but that has to help you in some aspect.

Mark Schaefer:
I mean the, the church is a rule driven organization. Like anything else. I mean, it’s a human institution. And so we’ve, I mean, the United Methodist Church has a book of discipline, uh, which just sounds harsher than it actually actually is. Um, now that I think about it to outsiders, that might sound a little strange. Um, but the book of discipline is our Constitution. It’s our rule book. It’s our, it’s our statutes and it, you know, there are procedures for how things are done. And so what we do is, so for example, the, the resolution I talked about, that was something we had to get passed by my local congregation and we had to ask them to forward it to the annual conference, which is the regional body. But, and they afforded it to the regional body. And the way we had drafted it said, we call on the United Methodist Church to do, to support, you know, voting rights and sorry. And that language actually meant that that resolution then got automatically forwarded to the general conference because it called on the general church. The resolution itself then went automatically to the national body that meets every four years. And then they adopted it as their position statement.

Mark Schaefer:
So part of it is, you know, just drafting it correctly, drafting it in a way that moves it up through the, through the chain of, you know, authority in the denomination. Um, other parts are knowing how to draft things so that people will be persuaded by the argument, you know, um, not having 18 million where as-is, you know, and having a numb and making, building a case sort of because we start here, that leads us here. That leads us here. I mean there are times when I’ve seen my legal career really influenced the, some of the things I do in the ministry. And then sometimes it actually works the other way around too, which has also been kind of interesting to see how so? Well, so when I was in law school or in seminary, I still had a case that was left over from when I was practicing and we had an appellate level argument. We had oral argument before the DC court of Appeals. And, um, I had taken a couple of homiletics classes by then and had become much more comfortable with sort of a preaching style that told a story. And so rather than get up and just read through my yellow legal pad worth of notes, I told the judges the story of the case, I walked them through it. I made it sort of a narrative that was understandable and amend, even was able to kind of tie it all up in a nice little bow at the end, um, in the way that I would have with a sermon on some level. Um, and I think that that helped tremendously because it made it clear what the points were that I was going for, what the main thrust of the argument was and helped the judges to center what their response ultimately was around the way I had framed it. But I think that’s something that law school doesn’t do.

Anthony Verna:
No, it doesn’t.

Mark Schaefer:
Well, even even a boy, you’re giving me flashbacks to my moot court class and, and my, um, you know, and we’re writing classes and we don’t talk about what the story is. We talk about the formalities, we talk about case citations, we talked about the holding of this case, and then it compares to that case. But on the same token, you don’t focus on telling your client’s story and communicating that right to whoever the here is, whether it’s a judge or a jury. Right? And there’s, there’s something that, you know, while any professional has, right, is that it’s what’s called the curse of knowledge. It’s where you know what you’re talking about. And so you assume other people know what you’re talking.

Mark Schaefer:
You are completely correct about that. And, and I think at that three lawyers in a room and nobody else can can jump into that conversation. And, and so what they are is bored at the two of us right now. Well, I think what happens is, you see, it’s so you’re making a case to human beings though, right? You are making your case to human beings who may or may not understand the intricacies of what you’ve dealt with, especially when you’re talking with a jury. If you can’t translate that into ordinary experience, then what do you then what are you doing? Even, you know, and I think that’s um, you know, that’s a lesson from the preaching side of things is, you know, I can come at you with all the biblical interpretation.

I can explain who king Nebuchadnezzar was and why the Babylonian Empire fell and all this stuff. But if it doesn’t have anything to do with how you might be losing your job this week, right, then what does it matter, right? That’s the, the whole point of this kind of proclamation and I think, and also the advocacy piece and the law is to be able to tell the stories of those who need help telling their stories. Right? That’s why people come to lawyers as they need someone to advocate for them, right. To speak on their behalf. And so if we’re not actually good at the vocal thing at the communicating, then we’re not being good lawyers. And so I, you know, I remember the legal research and writing classes and how they weren’t focused on style or clarity, they were focused on checking those boxes. Right.

Is Everything Blue Book cited correctly at you? You know, did you, I tell the size the period and ebbed, you know, all that kind of stuff. You know, I, I’ve never been able to tell the difference between an italic period and a non italic one. Right. But what you see is that there is too much of an emphasis on the form sometimes with out an emphasis on how that form needs to be used to, to serve the message that’s being made.

Anthony Verna:
Sure. And you know, reminds me recently, I filed a case against Kylie Cosmetics. That’s a matter of public record because I did an interview for it, but recently, my client just sends me all of these news articles and clippings on the story or even YouTube videos about the case. And there are a lot of people out there. And this is the interesting part for those who don’t understand my particular area of law. And I know that intellectual property is very niche and I understand that a lot of people don’t, don’t truly understand it. And seeing videos that say things like, companies sues Kylie Cosmetics for stealing makeup. And it’s like, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” That’s not, it, that’s not it at all. How can lawyers, you know, now that you’ve, you’ve gotten this training from, from multiple professions, how, how can lawyers communicate better, especially when we’re in these, these niche areas? I mean, the general public doesn’t, there is, there is a need for lawyers and ministers and other professionals to communicate better. There is also a need for journalists who can have the time to learn about these professions. Because what I notice is that, um, science and religion have one thing in common is that the articles about both are often incorrect.

Mark Schaefer:
You know, they, they often claim that something has been done that has not actually taken place. You know, oh, the pope changed a policy. No, the pope articulated something that’s been on the books for 700 years or, or scientists have discovered this and now the scientists did nothing of the kind, you know? And so there’s, there’s a lack of basic literacy in the culture about these things. So part of it is that we need more journalists because we need journalists who can actually take the time to focus on in particular fields and become expert in them. But then we also need to, in our professions, recognize that people don’t actually understand what we’re talking about and define and to think carefully about, if I didn’t know anything about this case, how would I explain what happened? You know? And how would I talk about the events that have taken place in ways that make sense to people without any particular knowledge?

Mark Schaefer:
That’s a hard thing to do. I mean, I know that I’ve gone back through the things that I’ve written and said, wow, if I, you know, I don’t know how anyone understood this. It was so clear to me at the time, and now that I read it, I realized it’s completely insider language and insider even ways of framing things. Um, and it’s tough. It takes a lot of training to look at your own stuff and to ask yourself, what would this sound like if I didn’t already know what I was talking about now? And, and I agree with you completely that it is a skill that we’re, that’s hard to grow. Yeah. Very difficult. Since we are running out of time, I will let you plug your book because I think there’s a, I think there’s a big, I think there’s a big intersection there anyway, so, so, so tell everybody about your book a little bit.

Mark Schaefer:
Sure. The book is called The Certainty of Uncertainty, the way of inescapable doubt, and it’s in virtue, and it is meant to address the problems that people have with uncertainty, both those who are, doing everything they can to stave uncertainty off or those who are feeling like they’re drowning in it and that by doing so, they’re doing something wrong in their lives. Uh, the basic argument of the book is uncertainty as a fact of life. And actually it offers us a lot of opportunity for more meaningful life when we embrace uncertainty in doubt than when we try to clamp down on rigid certainties in our thinking and in our belief systems especially. Um, and where I think it intersects is the willingness to admit that you don’t know something actually opens you up to different kinds of relationships and different kinds of conversations than when you feel that you have to be the expert or the authority or have to have all the answers.

Mark Schaefer:
It forecloses the ability, even in this conversation to say, well, what, what might not I understand, what might I misunderstand about this? Or why might I not have considered about the way I’m making this argument? Is it really self-evident or is it possible that there’s a lot of room for interpretation in doubt here? So I think that’s, that’s where they tie together for me.

Anthony Verna:
And, and you know where I see that a lot is when a potential client comes to me for a case and they say, you know, we talk about it and then they say, give me a percentage. I want to, I want a percentage to know what’s my chances of winning. Right. I don’t know the answer. I can sit there and I can make the arguments. I mean, I certainly know when, when somebody has, uh, you know, a losing case for sure. You know, you know, something simple. Well, you’ve never registered your trademark, you’ve never registered your copyright. Um, you’re, you’ve been selling your, your product for three years and you’ve never filed a patent. So, I mean, yes, zero. Right? But I, you know, outside of that, the answer truly is, I don’t know. I can make an argument. My job is I can make an argument to, to the court if I can’t do that, I don’t want, I don’t want to handle your case because it’s not ethically proper.

Mark Schaefer:
Exactly. And I think allowing people to embrace uncertainty also allows them the opportunity to, well, it’s actually, you know, it’s the difference between a kind of a brittle strength and a, and a resilient strength, right? As the brittle strength requires on having everything figured out and everything known in certain and those things snap where they, they crumble like houses of cards when anything is pulled apart. The resilient strength is the one that admits that it doesn’t have everything worked out but commits to the course of actions, right? I don’t know, we might not win this case, but this case is important. So let’s go forward and um, and if it doesn’t work out, we knew that going into it. And so we can rebound, we can try something else, we can do some other course of action. And I think that that’s something we’re not seeing a lot of. In our day and age, we’re seeing a lot of people who are feeling called to kind of entrench into these certainties. And especially in the political arena where it’s just not even possible anymore to admit the other side might have a point. You know, it’s a, you can’t even say, well you know, that idea, it has some merit. We don’t, we don’t agree with it, but it’s not completely out. It’s not, you know, completely out of the blue. We can’t even get to that point because that sounds like being a traitor to your own side by acknowledging the other side might have some, you know, some small foothold in the truth. And I think if we can get to the point where we become comfortable with not having it all worked out, then that allows for greater community and for greater conversation.

Anthony Verna:
And how can, how can people find your book?

Mark Schaefer:
They can find The Certainty of Uncertainty if they are in the DC area. IIt’s at a number of our local booksellers. It’s at um, Politics and Prose. It’s at Kramer Books and it’s available on Amazon and thecertaintyofuncertainty.com or links to other online resellers, including the, uh, the publisher itself with in stock where you can buy copies in bulk at a discounted rate.

Anthony Verna:
You’ve got that, that answer down pat.

Mark Schaefer:
It comes with the territory.

Anthony Verna:
Mark, thank you so much for coming on and, and doing this interview with me.

Mark Schaefer:
You’re very welcome. Thank you for having me.

Anthony Verna:
Thank you.