JesusRadicals.com has undergone a huge overhaul! Among other new things, it now includes free material (including video footage) by a variety of radical Christian thinkers include Dorothy Day and John Howard Yoder. The Yoder clip alone is worth checking it out! Enjoy.

It is often stated that The Politics of Jesus is one of Christianity Today’s most influential books of the past century. I agree. Yoder’s work is frequently sited and often provides the basis for other writer’s arguments.

The book served as an introduction to Anabaptism for me. I had two assumptions about Anabaptism beforehand: that nonviolence, or pacifism, equaled withdrawal, and that salvation was rooted in the resurrection, not the cross.

Yoder, an Anabaptist, places emphasis on the cross. He writes, “The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come.” This startled me! But as Yoder goes on to discuss suffering, servanthood and subordination it made all the more sense.

Further along, Yoder discusses our relationship to authorities. Here, nonviolence potentially becomes most tangible. Yoder quotes Berkhof: “All resistance and every attack against the gods of this age will be unfruitful, unless the church herself is resistance and attack, unless she demonstrates in her life and fellowship how men can live freed from the Powers.” Yoder’s argument provides another nonviolence perspective. One that engages the world; the ostracized and powerful.

As I previously posted, one the required texts for Stassen's class I am taking at Fuller was John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus. I read this book about six years ago and it effected me in huge ways! Things were so busy this week that I had very little time to re-read the book for class. But I had to have it read by tonight. If you're familiar with the book, you'll appreciate the undertaking. It is a dense book! But still an immensely formative book for me and one that I love! So, below is my brief synopsis of the scope of the book (How do you do this in 300 words or less, really?!) and it's application to our class conversation. Please offer your thoughts!

Jesus’ politics are in short, submission to the authority of God–as understood primarily through the lens of the Old Testament–in all realms of life, most significantly in how we organize ourselves as the Church. The politics that Jesus embodied evoke the supremacy of God. In our service to the Creator, we seek to be the servant to all of creation. The politics of Jesus therefore require the community of those that follow him to seek equity, justice and a wholeness that lacks any semblance of violence.

I do believe that Yoder succeeds in displaying the political nature of Jesus’ life and teaching. The Politics of Jesus offers a thorough analysis of the Gospel of Luke to prove his point. As well, Yoder surveys Old Testament texts to display Jesus’ political motivations. And he examines Pauline material to defend his argument that the Early Church was animated by Jesus’ politics as well. These, along with his explanation of the contexts within which each segment of Scripture was written make his argument convincing.

It is also must be stated that Yoder provides a convincing argument for the application of Jesus’ politics today. In regards to pacifism, he shares it’s nonviolent ethic, but he does not encourage the kind of passive, social withdrawal that it is often associated with it. Rather, he advocates a rigorous social engagement. This is most evident when Yoder sites Berkhoff’s, Christ and the Powers. But it is a social engagement that “plays by it’s own rules” rather than being subject to the Powers that be. In this way, Yoder argues Jesus’ ethic to be most similar a just peacemaking theory since just peacemaking at least assumes an alternative to violence is possible, whereas just war theory does not give much regard to nonviolent options.