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The Contribution of John Howard Yoder to Recent Discussions in Christian Social Ethics1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
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The publication of The Politics of Jesus in 1972 established John Howard Voder as the most intellectually compelling, critical, and constructive Mennonite theologian of this generation. In that volume, Voder articulated an interpretive method and a substantive doctrinal position that affirmed his sectarian and ‘restoration’ theological vision but at the same time gained him a serious hearing in several corners of the North American Christian community. His recent tenure as President of the Society of Christian Ethics and appointment in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame University are only two examples of his standing among ecumenically-minded Christians.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1992
References
2 Yoder, John Howard, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1972).Google Scholar
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22 Schweiker, William, ‘Iconoclasts, Builders, and Dramatists: The Use of Scripture in Theological Ethics’, 129–162 in The Annualof the Society of Christian Ethics 1986, ed. Anderson, Alan B. (Knoxville, Tennessee: The Society of Christian Ethics, 1986)Google Scholar.
23 McCann, Dennis, Christian Realism and Liberation Theology: Practical Theologies in Creative Conflict (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1981), 164–175Google Scholar. For an analysis of Voder's contribution that shares this assessment, see Cartwright, Michael, ‘The Practice and Performance of Scripture: Grounding Christian Ethics in a Communal Hermeneutic, 31–53 in Annual of the Society oj Christian Ethics: 1988, ed. Yeager, D. M. (Knoxville, Tennesee: The Society of Christian Ethics, 1988)Google Scholar.
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26 ‘On Divine and Human Justice’, in On Earth Peace ed. Durnbaugh, Donald F. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press, 1978), 205Google Scholar; The Original Revolution, 115, 131; ‘Radical Reformation Kihics in F.cumenical Perspective’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 15 (4) (Fall 1978): 651; The Politics of Jesus, 45.
27 The Politics of Jesus, 47; ‘Church and State According to the Free Church Tradition’, 279–80; Nevertheless, 104, 110, 112–13.
28 Preface to Theology, 58, though to interpret Yoder as a ‘realized eschatologist’ would be an error, since he defines eschatology as ‘a hope which, defying present frustration, defines a present position in terms of the yet unseen goal which gives it meaning,’ The Original Revolution, 53; The Christian Witness to the State (Newton, Kansas: Kaith and Life Press, 1964), 9Google Scholar; The Politics of Jesus, 10–11, 47–53, 234–9.
29 ‘To Serve Our God and to Rule the World’, Presidential Address to the Society of Christian Ethics, Duke University, Durham, NC, January 1988, 3–14 in The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics: 1988.
30 See Klaassen, Waller, ‘The Anabaptist Critique of Constantinian Christendom’, Mennomte Quarterly Review 55 (July 1981): 218–230Google Scholar and Yoder, ‘The Constanlinian Sources of Western Social Ethics’, 135–147 in The Priestly Kingdom Yoder periodically criticizes different manifestations of the ‘Constanlinian’ trend, including the political theologies of Luther and Calvin; Hegel; modern Protestant liberalism (including positions developed by Max Weber, Krnsi Troelusch, the Social Gospel, H. Richard Ncibuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Harvey Cox); several strands of the theologies of hope, liberation, and revolution; and some contemporary ecumenical movements, cf. The Original Revolution, 145–6.
31 The Priestly Kingdom, 99–100. The early Church's (including Ambrose and Augustine) embodiment of this position concerning justifiable involvement in war might serve as a striking example of the logic Yoder is attacking, see the discussion by Childless, James, ‘Moral Discourse About War in the Early Church’, Journal of Religious Ethics 12 (1) (Spring 1984); 2–17.Google Scholar
32 ‘What Would You Do if …?’ 84, 101. This general issue is deftly discussed by Harris, John in ‘The Marxist Conception of Violence’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (1974): 192–220.Google Scholar
33 The Priestly Kingdom, 140: The Original Revolution, 78–9. See, for example Weber, Max, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans., ed., and with an introduction by Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958) 119–127Google Scholar; and Walzer's, Michael analysis of this element in Weber's thoughi in ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’, in War and Moral Responsibility ed. Cohen, Marshall, Nagel, Thomas, Scanlon, Thomas (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974), 62–82Google Scholar. Voder's attack against H. R. Niebuhr focuses on the latter's constructive position developed in The Responsible Self and elsewhere, but Yoder overlooks a correlative strain in Niebuhr's work that stresses the providential guidance of God that could support a posture toward the powers of the world similar to Yoder's own, cf. Yoder, ‘Christ and Culture’ (unpublished mimeograph) and Niebuhr, , ‘The Grace of Doing Nothing’, Christian Century 49 (1932): 378–380.Google Scholar
34 The Original Revolution, 65; The Priestly Kingdom, 135–8; The Christian Witness to the Slate, 28.
35 The Original Revolution, 119; The Priestly Kingdom, 100.
36 The Original Revolution, 41, 160, 172; ‘Radical Reformation Ethics in Ecumenical Perspective’, 650; The Politics of Jesus, 52.
37 ‘Discerning the Kingdom of God in the Struggles of the World’, 370–71. Though this definition of responsibility is formulated in relation to Christ independent of a concern with feasibility and efficacy, Yoder admits that at times the posture may lead, as a secondary effect, to certain desired or appealing ends. The Politics of Jesus, 236 and ‘The Biblical Mandate’, 105. For a discussion of the rationality of this position, see ‘What Would You Do If …?’ 96; The Original Revolution, 122, 172; The Politics of Jesus, 202, 204, and Max Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation', 120–121. With respect to the distinction related to conduct, see Childress, James, Who Should Decide? Paternalism in Health Care (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 158–159.Google Scholar
38 The Original Revolution, 42. ‘The “pacifist” stand of the radical Free Churches must be understood not as a moralistic insistence on a particularly simple interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, but as reflecting the priority, as the context of Christian moral decision, of the community sharing in Christ's death and life (H Corinthians 4: 10–11)’, ‘Church and Slate According to the Free Church Tradition’, 287.
39 ‘Capital Punishment and the Bible’, 4.
40 The Original Revolution, 61, 172; The Christian Witness to the State, 6; The Politics of Jesus, 202, 204.
41 See ‘What Would You Do If…?’ where Yoder argues against a situation ethic grounded in our belief that God may choose to intervene; his argument against radical act-deontology in Karl Barlh and the Problem of War, his criticisms against utilitarianism in ‘Radical Reformation Ethics in Ecumenical Perspective’, 655; and criticisms against the casuistic reasoning of classic just war thinking in When Waris Unjust (Minneapolis. Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1981)Google Scholar.
42 ‘The Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State’, 137, 138; The Priestly Kingdom, 97; The Original Revolution, 71; ‘Evangelicals At Chicago: A New Openness to Prophetic Social Critique’, Christianity and Crisis 34 (February 18, 1974): 25.Google Scholar
43 I suggest, that McCormick's analysis of Yoder's position, which interprets Yoder as holding an ethic of ‘community’ or ‘story’ at the expense of an emphasis on principled morality and processes of public justification is wrong. However, I agree with McCormick, as Yoder would, that a comprehensive Christian morality must be concerned with both normative and justifactoiy issues construed in terms both of narrative and principle, cf. McCormick, Richard, Note on Moral Theology: 1981–1984 (Lanharn, Maryland: University Press of America, 1984), 123–128.Google Scholar
44 See, for example The Ecumenical Movement and the Faithful Church (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Mennonite Publishing House, 1958), 35Google Scholar where Yoder notes lhai ihe imperative of love of neighbour (developed from an interpretation of what it means to love God) may require expression in terms other than nonresistance and nonviolent, resistance, such as ‘Christian unity … evangelization, and nonconformity’.
45 The issue for Voder is notwhether actions can qualify as both effective and obedient. They can. Rather, the issue is really one of maintaining the proper posture and motivation toward witness, cf. ‘What Would You Do If…?’ An Exercise in Situation Kthics’, Journal of Religious Ethics 2 (Fall 1974): 94.
46 ‘To Serve Our God and to Rule the World’, 11.
47 The Original Revolution, 48; The Christian Witness to the Slate, 54; ‘Why I Don't Pay All of My Income Tax’, Sojourners 6 (March 1977), 11–12; ‘What Would You Do If…?’
48 The Politics of Jesus, 64–77.
49 ‘On Divine and Human Justice’, ‘the Spirit of God and the Politics of Man’, Journal of Theology of South Africa 29 (December 1979): 62–71Google Scholar: ‘The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood’.
50 The Christian Witness to the State, 36; ‘Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State,’ in On Earth Peace ed. Durnbaugh, Donald F. (Elgin, Illinois: Brethren Press), 141Google Scholar. Yoder also argues that the essential nature of any state ought to be defined in terms other than the maintenance of order with force, Nevertheless, 39; The Christian Witness to the State, 12.
51 ‘Church and State According to the Free Church Tradition’, 283. According to Yoder, a comprehensive doctrine of the state developed from a Christian perspective would need to discuss (1) an essential definition of the state; (2) an evaluation of the goodness of the state in relation to its divine institution, and of its place in the economy of God's redemptive plan for humanity; (3) the goals and norms that serve to concretely guide it; (4) the obligations of the Christian to and for the state; (5) guidance concerning how Christians and nonchristians are to deal with the non-state or enemy state, including specifications on and justifications for war and revolution.
52 The Christian Witness to the State, 6; ‘The Christian Case for Democracy’, Journal of Religious Ethics 5 (Fall 1977): 210–223.Google Scholar
53 The Christian Witness to the State, 23, 36, 38. Though under God's providential will, it is ‘an incarnation of semisubdued evil [that] denies the limits of its authority, failing to submit its claims to a higher moral instance’. It is useful in the divine economy, but it only approximates the imperatives that are incumbent on it, cf. The Original Revolution, 59, 67; The Christian Witness to the State, 23, 39.
54 Middle axioms are tangible, principled expressions of general patterns that serve as a bridge, in casuistic thinking, between general beliefs and situational application of belief to rules and action, cf. The Christian Witness to the State, 33–35. They possess this generalized form ‘not because definite and knowable understandings of God's will do not exist, but because such insights are known only in Christ and their application is therefore possible only mediately’, The Christian Witness to the State, 32. They are less prescriptively stringent than even prima facie principles, though they appear at times to be more than simple maxims. Still, Yoder's formulation is unclear concerning precisely what the relationship of the genesis of middle axioms is to the incarnation of Christ.
55 ‘Why I Don't Pay All of My Income Tax’, 12; The Christian Witness to the State, 75.
56 The Original Revolution, 59–60. While the use of power, force, and violence are thus permissible — in some cases required — by the state, objective parameters exist that regulate the state's actions.
57 The Christian Witness to the State, 5; The Original Revolution, 75, 163; ‘Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State’, 142. The state possesses no absolute or fundamental responsibility, beyond general requirements of respect for persons, peace, and order, to be involved in the restructuring of political economy. Beyond a minimalist involvement in these issues, the state needs to justify any expanded vision of this task that permits it to assume the position of economic custodian, cf. The Christian Witness to the State, 58. Most significantly (and perhaps because of his realistic anthropology), Yoder argues for the primacy of procedural justice which is seen as a necessity for the long-term survival of all states and for the proper exercise of all other types of justice and the establishment of peace and order, cf. ‘Capital Punishment and the Bible’, 7, 12. It is with respect to procedural justice that Yoder recognizes the intrinsic strength of democracy, though such a recognition does not mean that the fundamental status of democratic governments vis a vis the Church is different from other forms of government, cf. ‘National Ritual: Biblical Realism and ihe Elections’, Sojourners 5 (October 1976): 29–30; ‘The Christian Case for Democracy’, 221, 223; ‘On Divine and Human Justice’, 210; and ‘To Serve our God and to Rule the World’, p. 9.
58 The Original Revolution, 72.
59 The Politics of Jesus, 204.
60 See, for other examples, his discussion of various types of power in Nevertheless, 40; and the discussion of the relationship of coercion to force in The Christian Witness to the State, 6, 7; ‘The Biblical Mandate’, 104.
61 Yoder, When War is Unjust.
62 ‘The Christian Witness to the State’, 31, 33; The Original Revolution, 75.
63 The Politics of Jesus, 173–90.
64 The Politics of Jesus, 191–98, 207, 211–12; ‘On Divine and Human Justice’, 209; ‘The Christian Witness to the State’, 13.
65 ‘On Divine and Human Justice’, 208–9; ‘Why I Don't Pay All of My Income Tax’, 12. The limitations placed on the mandate of the state are especially important, in the present discussion, with reference to conscription for military, police and even judicial activity, cf. The Politics of Jesus, 205–6; ‘Theological Basis of the Christian Witness to the State’, 142.
66 ‘The Christian Case for Democracy’, 221; ‘Church and State According to the Free Church Tradition’, 285; ‘Radical Reformation Ethics in Ecumenical Perspective’, 656.