The Methodology of John Howard Yoder

Part One: Influences and Development

Introduction

Yoder’s theological contributions to the twentieth century were not by any means revolutionary. In fact they were radically submissive and meek.[1] Yet, even though he seems to have had little impact, some of America’s premier theologians of the twenty-first century will owe much of their distinctiveness and faithfulness to the Church to his example. Stanley Hauerwas says of him, “I am convinced that when Christians look back on this century of theology in America, ‘The Politics of Jesus’ will be seen as a new beginning.”[2] Hauerwas capture the scene onto which Yoder arrived with typical colorful candor.

Yoder comes into this territory from the sectarian badlands. He is the lone hero standing up to the mob that is willing to secure justice through the anguished acceptance of violence. He insists that the christologically disciplined account of nonviolence displayed in “The Politics of Jesus” cannot be dismissed the way that liberal Protestant pacifism was. Also, Yoder’s account of nonviolence requires theologians to acknowledge that their work makes no sense abstracted from the church. In short, for Yoder both the subject and the audience of Christian ethics are Christians—the people who are constituted by that polity called church.[3]

This image, (and Stanley acknowledges this) though amusing and telling of the adversaries he encountered, does not do justice to Yoder’s life work of questioning the role of knight, and praising the role of martyr. The word “martyr” means witness, and that is precisely what John Yoder saw the church to be, but to understand Yoder’s vision more lucidly it is helpful to understand the development of his methodology through the examination of his influences; both positive and negative.

To attempt to unfold a methodology for Yoder is a dubious task. He strongly resisted any suggestions to write introductory or overview materials for his theology, saying that theology can never “start from scratch,” and he therefore “insisted on writing and speaking always in response to specific requests and on behalf of particular audiences.”[4] Even the compilation of his lecture notes into “Preface to Theology,” was done with some hesitation. The introduction to “Preface to Theology” describes Yoder as “often puzzled that anyone not part of the original audience would think what he had written important.”[5] Yoder claimed that “The Politics of Jesus” was merely a report on scholarship, and editors of “Preface to Theology” Hauerwas and Sider imply that “he would no doubt claim that ‘Preface to Theology’ was no more than an attempt to acquaint Mennonite seminarians with the theological developments required by the Gospel.”[6]

“Yoder was a comprehensive, but not a systematic writer,” says Alain Epp Weaver in an article in “The Review of Politics.”[7] “As a result, most of the times Yoder addressed the question of the church’s political witness.”[8] Lectures and essays always began with the task at hand or “the assignment” given, and one of the reasons much of his work remains unpublished is because “he distrusted ‘thought’ in the abstract.”[9] Yoder was very suspicious when theologizing preceded the exposition of the narrative of God relating to His people. For Yoder this was a possible sign that one was attempting to fill in the gaps of an already extant theological system, because to question abstractly indicated that one is attempting to answer abstractly, and this is something theologians must not do. In an article found in “Theology Today,” Yoder claims that the Gospel (the “good news”) “says something particular that would not be known and could not be believed, were it not said.”[10] The object of theology is particular for Yoder and even carries a particular message. The challenge of theology is the right exegesis and practice of that message. Yoder held such views largely due to a “methodology,” (though he would not use that term) which he acquired under the influences of the Mennonite Church and Karl Barth.

The Mennonite Church – Discipleship

While attending Goshen College during a period of academic reform under the supervision of Harold S. Bender, Yoder received a “Mennonite” training, which consisted of a “Mennonite emphasis” and a “biblical emphasis.” Bender supplemented a truncated systematics course with two years of Church history claiming, “Mennonites do not emphasize creeds and theology,”[11] but in a pamphlet he authored on Anabaptism, Bender proposed some “identifying marks” of Anabaptism that many held as core values for Mennonites. In the pamphlet Bender wrote that the “Anabaptist vision included three major points of emphasis; first, a new conception of the essence of Christianity as discipleship; second, a new conception of the church as a brotherhood; and third, a new ethic of love and nonresistance.”[12]

Bender thought positively of these signatures and their benefit to the Mennonite Church, but Yoder criticized him for his systematic analysis of the Anabaptists, by which he pigeonholed a vast portion of Anabaptists who did not fit into Bender’s monolithic categories. Yoder agreed that there was something valuable to be recovered from the Anabaptists, but Yoder could not allow Bender to eclipse that something in his attempted annexation of their “identifying marks.” Yoder argued that in the Anabaptist movement, and particularly beginning with Michael Sattler, there was an eternally reformative note that focused on the person of Christ in a way that emphasized the humility of personal encounter and discipleship with the Lord of the cosmos.

It was in Sattler that Yoder began to see a theology that was truly dialectic. It pleaded for correction in humility and sought to resolve differences at any cost.[13] Sattler also echoes Yoder (and the Mennonite Church with him) in his firm stance on the voluntary nature of Church participation, and more importantly the voluntary nature of service to God. In the chapter entitled “On Two Kinds of Obedience” Sattler differentiates between servile and filial obedience.[14] This is an important parallel in Yoder’s theology as it is a direct connection to Yoder’s concept of submission and non-resistance. For Yoder, coercion and violence remove the possibility for filial service, making it into a counterfeit form of faith, which cannot constitute the community that is the Church.

The aspect of Anabaptist theology that Bender neglected by framing it into the generalized typologies was its constantly reformative and simultaneously submissive nature. It was reformative because it sought Christ in a way that could never be fully expressed in a systematic or methodological way, but in spite of its critical and dogmatic approach it remained submissive and non-resistant both politically and theologically. Bender’s assessment crystallized the values of an instant but failed to regard the fluid “striving” of the Anabaptists that Yoder captured.

Karl Barth – Humility

When Yoder was studying at Basil under Karl Barth, he discovered a remarkable congruence between his Mennonite heritage and Barth’s Christo-centric theology. Barth’s emphasis of the Word of God faithfully heard, placed a mediated “encounter” with the life changing Christ as the prolegomena to theology. This mediation is the degree to which Barth allows for human reason. To begin with human reason, questioning God and theology is inappropriate for Barth, because it seeks to place God within its own a priori theological/philosophical grid rather than letting the word speak on its own terms. Barth held, that “theology is not called in any way to interpret, explain, and elucidate God and his Word,” rather it “can only consist in confirming and announcing the Word as something spoken and heard prior to all interpretation.”[15] For this reason Barth claims “theology must begin with Jesus Christ and not with general principles.”[16] Few Barthians have taken to task Barth’s theological revisions as faithfully as Yoder. He sought, as Barth did, to escape the methodologism and systematics of theology, believing it to be unfaithful to and an unjust treatment of the person of Christ, but where Barth rejected all forms of systems or formulas as an “alien standard,” Yoder deems them as merely the wrong starting point.[17]

It is clear, then, that like Bender, Barth held that, whether or not they serve the Church, Creeds and theologies certainly do not define it, and that ecclesiology always precedes theology. Barth also held that theological enquiry always begins in submission. Barth expressly describes the surrender of theology in terms of humility and pertinence. A posture of humility is necessary for Barth in that it is not by any feat of the theologian that allows God’s Word to be miraculously mediated to the church, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hauerwas writes in the introduction to Yoder’s book Preface to Theology, “Of course everything Yoder ever wrote, as might be expected from one shaped by Barth, is determined by his Christological focus.”[18] Within this radical Christo-centrism, Yoder found a way to relate Barth to Sattler and the Anabaptists who would not define themselves under any criteria except that of being disciples of Christ. In the acquisition of Barth, Yoder found language that was capable of embodying that “fluid” and “dynamic” faith of the Anabaptists, but also found the means by which to criticize that phenomenon that became central to all of Yoder’s theology; namely Constantinianism.

Methodological Non-Constantinianism

Yoder believed that the changes from the Early Church to the Constantinian Church were substantial ones, which can be identified as the “sources of western social ethics.”[19] This identification, for Yoder, is a severe criticism. Yoder held “western social ethics” to be a form of thought that was “necessitated” by Jesus’ inapplicability to social orders. Yoder, however, held political and social ethics to be at the root of Jesus’ life and teaching, and posited that “the church had ceased to see Jesus as an ethical norm,” and that “the church‘s acquiescence to or espousal of the sword in contrast to the teaching and life of Jesus constituted the most visible symbol of the shift in norms.”[20] The taking up of the “sword” constituted the most significant problem that Yoder had with the Constantinian church. The Church’s willingness to take recourse to violence showed their misunderstanding of the meaning of Christ; namely that of “subservient rule.”

Furthermore, when the Church ceased to be the exception and began to be the status quo, “the basis for belonging switched from faith in Jesus Christ, which made the church clearly a voluntary structure, to conforming to the society under the emperor’s jurisdiction, which meant that people were born into the church.”[21] This was problematic under the same basic rubric as the problem of the “sword.” It failed to be submissive after the model of Christ in that it: a) enacted violence upon others physically, through the rule and polemics of the Empire, and b) enacted violence upon its members ideologically, in coercing or compelling them in a way that eliminated the church’s voluntary membership. Even in concepts like that of the Trinity, the Constantinian church did violence to the free and non-coercive nature of humanity in Christ. Yoder posits that“[the Trinity] meant rather that language must be found and definitions created so that Christians, who believe in only one God, can affirm that that God is most adequately and bindingly known in Jesus.”[22] In phrasing the Trinitarian creed this way, Yoder takes away the Constantinian temptation to begin with creeds and theologies rather than with Christ himself.

This approach to theology is what Chris Huebner calls “methodological non-Constantinianism.”[23] This method assumes that the truth about God is not something that can be possessed or secured through some kind of ex ante theory of justification,” but “can only be witnessed, which is to say vulnerability given and received as a contingent gift.”[24] According To Huebner, this is the reason for Yoder’s hesitation to either “start from scratch” or offer any kind of “final reading.” Huebner points out that “the temptation to start from scratch and the rhetoric of finality can be seen as a kind of epistemological violence in the same sense that they constitute a retreat from vulnerability.” Huebner states poignantly that “just as Yoder’s reading of the politics of Jesus involves the renunciation of the temptation that it is up to us to ensure that history come out right, so his understanding of epistemology rejects the pursuit of effectiveness in terms of ex ante theoretical dualisms or abstract principles which can be read as attempts to secure guarantees.”[25] To put it another way, “Yoder argues that there is no single method, epistemology, or idiom to which the church must be committed.”[26]

Part Two – Yoder’s Theology as Response

Social Responsibility

During a time in America’s history when the Niebuhrs were criticizing the pacifist agenda for not loving other’s enough to justify an unfortunate but necessary use of violence in order to preserve some measure of order and peace in the world, Yoder offered a new – or at least refreshed – vantage point concerning the place of the Church in the world. The social gospelers and the Christian ethicists shared a basic assumption that Yoder did not and that was that they assumed that it was God’s will that they, at least attempt to, redeem the world in the loving shalom of the Father. The pragmatic approach of liberal theology did not accept violence and coercive rule because they thought it was good, they accepted it as a “step towards” an end unknown.

Yoder has no reason to follow pragmatically since he holds that everything one needs to know about being a disciple of Christ can be found in faithful examination of the life he lead. Typically, and perhaps pragmatically, Jesus’ actions have been marginalized because of their ineffectiveness and irresponsibility, but where the Niebuhrs and Troeltsch left Christ’s antiquated ways behind in search for better methods, Yoder interprets Jesus to be saying something radical about our views of effectiveness and our role as his disciples in society.

“The most basic issue facing Christians is not that of war, but rather the social assumptions that lead Christians to assume the necessity of war.”[27] Yoder argues that no Christian believes in the intrinsic value of war and violence, but “because they assume that the church is called to run society in collaboration with the state.”[28] In his book “The Politics of Jesus,” Yoder argues extensively about whether the Church is called to “save” the world and to what extent God is truly in control and ultimately responsible where we are powerless anyway. "The point is not that one can attain all of one's legitimate ends without using violent means," (as if one could eliminate war by becoming a pacifist), "it is rather that our readiness to renounce our legitimate ends whenever they cannot be attained by legitimate means itself constitutes our participation in the triumphantly suffering Lamb.”[29] In “The Politics of Jesus” Yoder writes, "the triumph of the right, although it is assured, is sure because of the power of the resurrection and not because of any calculation of causes and effects, nor because of the inherently greater strength of the good guys."[30] Perhaps Hauerwas is right in his assessment that Christians “should be more relaxed and less compulsive about running the world.”[31] Perhaps “the assumption that people have the capacity to make the world come out right or that an insightful minority could make the world good by coercively outlawing war through the technique of minority control was not faithful to the Gospel.”[32]

Pluralistic Responsibility

Another accusation that Niebuhr and the liberal school use on Yoder is that he is sectarian or absolute in his claims. Yoder does not appear to offer something “all-encompassing” or “ontological” in nature that can unite the differing ways of interpreting Jesus. To the degree that one call Yoder a sectarian because he believes in a Church that is a reversal of the Constantinian values that are normative in humanity. Yoder even speaks “affirmatively ‘sectarian’ character of the church and its ‘irresponsibility’ vis-à-vis the world.”[33] More recently Yoder has been careful to communicate that the “methodological non-Constantinianism” of his theology, though it is distinct from the world, it is not withdrawn from the world.[34] If Yoder can be label sectarian it must be “ideological” and “axiological” and never “sociological.”

Part Three – Reflections on Yoder

Yoder does not object to systematics in principle, but on the grounds that western philosophy has consistently used them improperly. The ascribing of limits to an object is an important psychological faculty. It allows us to conceptualize and make large amounts of data manageable so that they can be related to larger paradigms of thought, or other conceptualized objects. Western philosophy goes wrong when it takes these categories to be the essence of the object rather than a means of conceptualizing and communicating it. Believing an object to be limited in nature by the concepts that describe it creates a dualism that is not “realistic” but “idealistic.” It can be appropriate and helpful to “conceptualize” or systematize Yoder’s thought to bring out a fuller sense of its nuance and depth, as long as it remains open to the inevitable and appropriate criticism of its finitude and limitedness.

Yoder’s theology reveals a thoroughgoing intimacy between love and freedom. The two appear to exist for the sake of each other. The truest love is one freely entered into; in fact love is not truly love except in freedom. Freedom seems to be an aspect of love, perhaps even the capacity or grounds for love. If freedom is an aspect of our nature given solely fro the purpose of loving, then freedom becomes just as important as love because love cannot exist without it.

Our king is a servant to us, and in dying for us, grants us the capacity to die for Him, even at the hands of those who are not in him. Yoder therefore like his master Jesus values Freedom and Love as the greatest values for worship. This would indeed fit into an understanding of the world that does not “take responsibility” for it. This is not meant pejoratively, but simply as a way of saying, “Thy will be done, and not mine; and in Thy own time.”

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[1] Perhaps I overstate this, but I want to draw a connection to his own ideas about effectiveness in the world, which we will treat later.

[2] Stanley Hauerwas, “When the Politics of Jesus Makes a Difference,” The Christian Century 110:28 (13 October 1993): 982.

[3] Stanley Hauerwas, “When the Politics of Jesus Makes a Difference,” The Christian Century 110:28 (13 October 1993): 982.

[4] Gerald J. Biesecker-Mast, “The Word Made Flesh: The Skin of History in Yoderian Historiography,” Fides et Historia 36:1 (Winter 2004): 53.

[5] John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method, ed. by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), 9.

[6] John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method, ed. by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), 14.

[7] Alain Epp Weaver, “After Politics: John Howard Yoder, Body Politics, and the Witnessing Church,” The Review of Politics 61:4 (Fall 1999): 637.

[8] Alain Epp Weaver, “After Politics: John Howard Yoder, Body Politics, and the Witnessing Church,” The Review of Politics 61:4 (Fall 1999): 637.

[9] John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method, ed. by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), 11.

[10] John Howard Yoder, “Sacrament as Social Process: Christ the Transformer of Culture,” Theology Today, 48:1 (April 1991): 33.

[11] John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method, ed. by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), 12.

[12] Harold S. Bender, “The Anabaptist Vision,” The Mennonite Quarterly Review (1944). Available at http://www.mcusa-archives.org/library/anabaptistvision/anabaptistvision.html (Accessed 31 May 2006).

[13] John Howard Yoder, trans. and ed., The Legacy of Michael Sattler, (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973), 19.

[14] John Howard Yoder, trans. and ed., The Legacy of Michael Sattler, (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973), 121.

[15] Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, (Grand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963), 18.

[16] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: II/2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1957), 4.

[17] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: I/1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956), 2.

[18] John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology: Christology and Theological Method, ed. by Stanley Hauerwas and Alex Sider (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), 15.

[19] John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 135-47.

[20] J. Denny Weaver, “Renewing Theology: The Way of John Howard Yoder: Musings from Nicea to September 11,” Fides et Historia 35:2 (Summer 2003): 85.

[21] J. Denny Weaver, “Renewing Theology: The Way of John Howard Yoder: Musings from Nicea to September 11,” Fides et Historia 35:2 (Summer 2003): 85.

[22] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972), 99.

[23] Chris K. Huebner, “How To Read Yoder: An Exercise in Pacifist Epistemology,” Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World – International Consultation of Historic Peace Churches, Bienenberg, Switzerland, 25 June 2001.

[24] Chris K. Huebner, “How To Read Yoder: An Exercise in Pacifist Epistemology,” Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World – International Consultation of Historic Peace Churches, Bienenberg, Switzerland, 25 June 2001.

[25] Chris K. Huebner, “How To Read Yoder: An Exercise in Pacifist Epistemology,” Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World – International Consultation of Historic Peace Churches, Bienenberg, Switzerland, 25 June 2001.

[26] Chris K. Huebner, “How To Read Yoder: An Exercise in Pacifist Epistemology,” Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World – International Consultation of Historic Peace Churches, Bienenberg, Switzerland, 25 June 2001.

[27] Stanley Hauerwas, “Democratic Time: Lessons Learned From Yoder and Wolin,” Cross Currents, 55:4 (Winter 2006): 534.

[28] Stanley Hauerwas, “Democratic Time: Lessons Learned From Yoder and Wolin,” Cross Currents, 55:4 (Winter 2006): 534, quoting from John Howard Yoder, “The Unique Role of the Historic Peace Churches,” Bretheren Life and Thought 14 (Summer 1969): 136.

[29] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972), 237.

[30] John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2^nd Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972), 238.

[31] Stanley Hauerwas, “Democratic Time: Lessons Learned From Yoder and Wolin,” Cross Currents, 55:4 (Winter 2006): 534, quoting from John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 158.

[32] Stanley Hauerwas, “Democratic Time: Lessons Learned From Yoder and Wolin,” Cross Currents, 55:4 (Winter 2006): 534.

[33] Alain Epp Weaver, “After Politics: John Howard Yoder, Body Politics, and the Witnessing Church,” The Review of Politics, 61:4 (Fall 1999): 637. Referencing and earlier article by Yoder entitled “The Anabaptist Dissent.”

[34] Alain Epp Weaver, “After Politics: John Howard Yoder, Body Politics, and the Witnessing Church,” The Review of Politics, 61:4 (Fall 1999): 637.