THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER'S THEOLOGY

PART ONE

The ORIENTATION OF 

John Howard Yoder’s Theology

Part One develops Yoder’s view of Christology, both classic and contem-

porary, and his methodology for biblical interpretation and historical

critique of Christology. Both content and methodology are important in

this discussion.

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Christology

From the Root

J. DENNY WEAVER

It is axiomatic that the story of the man Jesus was at the heart of John

Howard Yoder’s theology and ethics. As a result, it does not surprise

that Christology the church’s words about Jesus and the meaning of Je-

sus, occupy priority of place--the root--in Yoder’s thought, which makes

him a “radical theologian.” Other elements of his thought, in particular

his advocacy of nonviolence and his development of a voluntary (or be-

lievers church) ecclesiology are derived from Christology. Chapters in

Part Two describe several sources that Yoder drew on for his understand-

ing of Christology and the chapters of Part Three depict its expansion in

such issues as nonviolence, ecclesiology, and interfaith dialogue.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of those discussions, the present chapter

turns to an in depth analysis of how Yoder understood Christology. The

chapter will survey Yoder’s description of the development of Chris-

tology from the earliest statements in the New Testament through the

first Christian centuries to formulation of the well-known formula that

emerged from the Council of Chalcedon.

Fully comprehending Yoder’s multifaceted approach to Christology

begins with an analysis of the seminary lectures that he called Preface to

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Theology: Christology and Theological Method In this title, the indica-

tion of “theological method” has equal importance with the christologi-

cal images themselves. Yoder’s description of these developments is not,

as has been claimed, an “in depth” statement of “the case for the ethi-

cal authority of the life and teachings of Jesus being based in orthodox

Christology." It is rather, as Yoder stated in the memo treated in the

last section of this chapter, “the web” from within which one can discuss

Christology. Yoder’s point is that any theological conversation begins

within a “Web” of understanding. He presented the developments from

the New Testament through Chalcedon as the web within which a discus-

sion of Christology must begin before one can discuss alternative ways

to state Christology in our contemporary context. Preface hints at such

possible new statements, while the essay “But We Do See Jesus” opens

the door wide to them.(3) Seeing the methodology of Yoder’s approach

to Christology will also explain why there has been so much disagree-

ment about his view. He had no fixed Christology It was always open to

restatement in a different context when the narrative of Jesus, understood

as gospel, was taken into new settings and contexts.

Key to Yoder’s understanding of Christology is his focus on the va-

riety of expressions--both in the New Testament and later--and on the

fact or idea of change. Formulations change from one context to another

and from one time period to the next. A one-sentence summary of Yo-

der’s analysis of Christology in Preface is that he traces changes in the dis-

cussion of Christology from the earliest statements in the New Testament

to the fifth-century councils and events that established an official view

identified as “orthodoxy.” His methodology asks, “Why does that thought

follow from this one, and what would the alternatives be?" That process

begins with samples from “a few sections of the New Testament" and

then moves to deal with “post-biblical material along a narrative histori-

cal outline."(5) He chooses to follow discussions of Christology because it

was a major concern of early Christians.

______________

1. Yoder, Preface (1981). These lectures were edited in a posthumous publication

as Yoder, Preface (zooz). Citations will follow the published version of 2002 unless

otherwise indicated.

2. Carter, Politics of the Cross, 246.

3. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist.

4. Yoder, Preface (2002), 38.

5. It is important to recognize in the summary and analysis of Yoder’s methodol-

ogy to follow that Yoder did not intend to provide a comprehensive statement of New

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WEAVER--Christology

In the course of the lectures that became Preface, Yoder said, the stu-

dent will interact with ancient texts, observe “debates between competing

positions,” and develop an understanding of how tradition arises. These

experiences lead to a very important conclusion, namely “that theology

is a process more than it is a finished subject matter,”(6) These references

to “tradition” and to a never-finished “process” signal the possibility of

multiple expressions that will eventually become visible in both the clas-

sic formulations and in the simultaneously opened door to alternatives.

First Statements: Sermons in Acts

Yoder’s sample of what the New Testament says about Jesus begins with

the sermons in the book of Acts. The presentation clearly reflects the class

room, as he establishes a grid with New Testament texts in boxes across

the top and a long list of statements about Jesus running down the sides.(7)

The first column of texts concerned the six sermons about Jesus con-

tained in Acts: 2:14-20; 3:12-26; 4:8-12; 5:29-32; 10:34-43; 13:16-41.

As the texts are read, checks in boxes would indicate which statements

appeared in the sermons. Reading of other texts would then indicate dif-

ferences and changes from these earliest statements in Acts.

Reading the texts and filling in the grid for these sermons reveal that

two themes predominate-that “you killed Jesus” or “Jesus died” and that

“God raised Jesus from the dead.” Almost as prominent are three other

themes-that these events are part of a promised age or constitute fulfill-

ment of Scripture, that the speaker is a witness to the events, and lines

that call hearers to repentance or offer forgiveness via this recitation.

Yoder offered a series of “formal observations” about this outline.

First, “the sermons . . . are just as important for what they do not say as

for what they say." They concern Christology, but they say nothing about

____________________

Testament theology nor even a comprehensive statement of New Testament Christol-

ogy For the New Testament, he called his method “block-gap" in contrast to a “thor-

ough survey” and wrote that he had “picked out from the story of the growth of the

thought of the early Christians those elements best calculated to make a certain point

visible.” Yoder, Preface (2002), 137. For the New Testament, that point was to show

how change and development occurred as expansion of the earliest story of the man

Jesus who was killed and raised from the dead.

6. Yoder, Preface (2002), 39.

7. I was a student in Yoder’s class when he drew the grid on the chalkboard, and

the class read the texts with Yoder as he filled in the grid that brought these points to

the foreground.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’s THEOLOGY

the “internal experiences of believers, . . . nothing about God as such;

whether God exists, . . . is one, . . . is all powerful.” God is mentioned as

an actor, “the one who raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him and

gave him a title.” Further, the material of the sermons is “all narrative . . .

rooted in the Old Testament story. . . . It is about a specific event in the

work of Jesus, namely his resurrection.” Third, “the narrative includes the

speaker” who “claims to be a witness to those events.” Furthermore, the

event of the preaching “includes the listener.” Listeners were participants

in the event of killing Jesus and they are now invited to “be beneficiaries

of the promised redemption” that is conveyed by the narrative. Finally it

is said that this series of events happened “according to the Scriptures.”

This places the event of Jesus in the line of the story from the Old Testa-

ment and in the history of God’s acts for God’s people.” Yoder also noted

two other sermons in Acts, in chapters 14 and 17. His point was that in

contrast to the other six sermons, these later two do begin with general

statements about God--as creator and as controller of providence. Yoder

explains this difference in terms of the context of the listeners. For the

first six sermons, the hearers were Jews or God--fearing gentiles who as-

sumed the Hebrew understanding of God. When the audience shifted

to Gentiles, Paul began with more general statements about the nature

and purpose of God before dealing with the message about Jesus. Yoder

called this move “the first step toward talking about theology as such.”(9)

The reader will observe that already in this very first lesson on New Testa-

ment Christology Yoder notes the impact of context, and he points to

change in theological formulation.

“Primitive” Christology

By “primitive” Christology, Yoder meant the earliest references or de-

scriptions of Jesus before the great theologians of the New Testament

(Paul, the author of Hebrews, John) began more analytical reflection on

Jesus. For this primitive Christology, Yoder described the titles for Jesus

in the Gospels. The most important titles considered were Son of Man,

Messiah or Christ, Son of God, and Lord. In each case, there is a develop-

ment in the use of the term.

_________________

8. Yoder, Preface (2002), 56-57.
 

9. Ibid., 58.

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WEAVER- Christology

Son of Man evolved from a title meaning human being to a form

of address in Ezekiel. In Daniel it still refers to a human being, but not

an ordinary one. Eventually one finds Jesus using it to refer to himself

while carrying over earlier connotations of suffering. Thus it becomes a

messianic title.(10)

In the Old Testament, messiah meant “anointed one” and referred

to the one who would become king, a future authority figure. Translated

into Greek, anointed one becomes Christ, a title eventually applied to

Jesus. In later writers Christ becomes the personal name with which to

refer to Jesus.

Usage of the term “son of God” evolves considerably. In the Old

Testament, it refers to one “whose character is defined in relationship

to God. It does not mean a little God.” In Job, angels and the devil are

called sons of God. In Psalms son of God refers to a righteous person,

sometimes the king. Believers are also identified as “sons of God” (1 John

3:2). The term eventually becomes associated with Jesus. This associa-

tion, however, does not mean “deity in the sense of metaphysically shar-

ing in the nature of God.” Rather, it has the meaning of “closeness to, or

subordination to, God.” Even when the term does come to identify “a

unique, divine status” of Jesus, “the uniqueness of the Son of God is still

a human uniqueness, still something that he has in common with us.”(11)

Finally, Lord is probably the most important designation of Jesus.

On the one hand, it was an ordinary form of address, such as “Sir” or

“Mister,” and implied the human authority of a boss. However, before

Jesus’ time, it was also being applied to Caesar, where it had connota-

tions of deity for the emperor recognized as a god. Thus when the first

Christians referred to Jesus as Lord, “they were using the language of

deity about him.” As shown in the hymn of Philippians 2, in which ev-

ery tongue confesses Jesus as Lord, this title was the “center of the early

Christian confession of faith, [and] was the strongest thing that the early

church could say about Jesus.(12)

Following the survey of titles, Yoder stressed that “the early church

lived without the New Testament.” Much variety of thought and prac-

tice existed among these early believers, a variety that is covered over

by modern efforts to harmonize all New Testament witnesses. “The New

__________________

10. Ibid., 63-67.

11. Ibid., 70-71.

12. Ibid., 72-73.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER'S THEOLOGY

Testament is more diverse, when each text is read for itself than most of

us assume” and is even more true for “the total Christian movement."(13)

Pre-Paul Christology

These earliest christological statements, what Yoder called “primitive

Christology,” appeared in several other forms as well. One of these forms

consisted of early material quoted by later New Testament writers. An

important example treated by Yoder is the hymn text quoted by Paul in

Philippians 2: 5-11.

Philippians 2

Yoder described the most common interpretation of Philippians 2, in

which the “image of God” in verse 6 gives Jesus an equality with God

which he gave up--emptying himself--in order to become human. As

a result of obedience, he was raised from the dead and returned to his

former exalted state.

However, Yoder did not follow the common interpretation. Instead,

he suggested that “image of God” makes Jesus parallel to Adam, who

was created in the image of God. But from that status, Adam tried to

grasp at equality with God. In contrast, Jesus continued as the “model of

what Adam should have done, refusing to seize that which was not his."

This later interpretation keeps in view the full humanity of Jesus, “even

to the point of death.”(14) Jesus is then given the title Lord because of this

complete and perfect obedience. This title, Lord, depicts his status at the

right hand of God where he is Lord of the universe.(15)

Yoder describes the movement from the Acts sermons, which fo-

cused on death and resurrection, to this hymn, where the focus is not on

_______________________

13. Ibid., 77.
 

14. Ibid., 84.
 

15. Yoder adds that “the church is the people who call him Lord,” but that he is

Lord whether or not people recognize that, This distinction matters, Yoder says, “when

we ask whether the Lordship of Christ applies in any way to the rest of the world."

Yoder, Preface (2002), 86. This comment is parallel to Yoder’s well-known statement

that “those who bear crosses are working with the grain of the universe” (“Armaments

and Eschatology,” 58) and that in Jesus we see the kinds of “causation,” “community

building,” and “conflict management” that “go with the grain of the cosmos” (Politics

of Jesus [1994], 246).

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death but on accepting full humanity and then beyond resurrection to

exaltation as Lord. The hymn makes no particular reference to how Jesus’

death might relate to forgiveness. Paul posed this description of Christ

as the basis of church unity. Believers are called to imitate the humility

of Jesus, Yoder said, and that humility becomes the basis for unity. Unity

requires respect for the other person, which is based on following the

example of Christ who humbled himself. The ultimate result will then be

being raised with Christ.”

Other Pre-Paul Traditions

Yoder deals with a number of other texts that he treated as “the thought

that went before Paul.” These texts also point to a “two-phase structure”

such as the “you killed him but God raised him” of the sermons in Acts

or the humiliation and exaltation of Philippians 2. Ephesians 4:8-10

has a two-fold movement, descended and ascended, in order to “fill all

things.” Filling all things refers to the gifts of the Spirit given to the whole

church. Romans 10:6-8 has another spatial displacement, descending

and ascending."

Romans 1: 3-5 has a different duality, that of flesh and spirit. Jesus

is “descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be

Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection

from the dead.” Second Timothy 2:8 has a similar duality in reverse order.

Instead of death and resurrection, 1 Peter 3:18 has a duality of “death in

the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit.” When 1 Timothy 3:16 mentions

“Manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit.” Yoder notes that mention

of justification is the beginning of an atonement concept. Romans 4:25

and “death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” is another

beginning statement of atonement.”

Summary Thus Far

Yoder’s summary of early Christology emphasized diversity around a

prevalent pattern. “Thus We observe, with considerable variety but also

considerable faithfulness, a recurrent pattern of seeing the work of Christ

______________________

16. Yoder, Preface (2002), 87-88.

17. lbid., 88-89.

18. Ibid., 89-90.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

as two-fold, with both its element of humiliation, condescension, becom-

ing flesh, and its element of resurrection, Spirit. It seems that this was an

easy way for the early church to preach, remember, or praise. Therefore,

we can find traces of this two-fold pattern running all the way up and

down the epistles."(9) Yoder thus observes significant diversity of expres-

sion among the New Testaments earliest statements about Jesus.

Theologians: Paul

As a counterpart to the “primitive” Christology of the early church, Yo-

der gives more extended treatment to the three New Testament “theolo-

gians,” Paul, the author of Hebrews, and the author of the Gospel of John.

He notes several things that characterize their writings. They are much

longer than other theological statements, and they make more in depth

arguments. Rather than simply passing on the earliest statements, they

came up with original arguments and added something to or developed

farther the original interpretations. This greater originality is the result of

responding to three challenges. One was a desire to produce a coherent,

consistent statement. Further, there was a desire to communicate, to say

it in a way that is comprehensible in a new context. Finally there was the

desire to argue points, to prove something. Yoder added an important

reminder to this description. The earliest Christians did not read these

theologians. It was only with the passing of time that these theological

writings came to occupy the central place in the New Testament that we

accord them today.(20)

First Corinthians

Yoder used 1 Corinthians 15 to demonstrate the extension of the early

Jesus narrative in an original way. In verses 3- 5 appears the familiar nar-

rative outline from the sermons in Acts. Paul made a point of positing

this narrative as one that he received. It is therefore not original to him.

However, Paul then extended this traditional formulation by appeal-

ing to the narrative to argue a point that it does not mention specifi-

cally. He argues that the resurrection of Jesus requires belief in a general

resurrection of all of humankind. That argument works only with the

__________________

19, Ibid., 90.

20. Ibid., 92-93.

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prior assumption of what Yoder called the “solidarity of Christ with all

human kind.” That solidarity means that what happens to Jesus will also

happen to humankind. On the basis of that assumption, Paul argues that

the resurrection of Jesus requires belief in a general resurrection and that

denial of a general resurrection means denial of the resurrection of Jesus.

That denial has a major impact, because without the resurrection of Jesus,

people remain in their sins.” With these observations, Yoder is taking

pains to show how theological statements begin to develop, and that such

development occurs already within the New Testament.

In addition to the logic of solidarity, Yoder pointed to other ele-

ments of Paul’s theologizing. With the linking of forgiveness of sins to

resurrection, Paul has gone beyond the infrequent mention of death for

sins in the sermon outline from Acts. Here Paul has taken a step in the

direction of a “rudimentary” doctrine of atonement. Yoder also notes

that Paul assumes the Old Testament story. Although Paul does not quote

the Old Testament until the end of the chapter, his reference to Adam as

representative of human solidarity in mortality assumes the Old Testa-

ment. With all these observations, Yoder was demonstrating how Paul’s

theologizing was extending and developing additional meanings from

the earliest narrative about Jesus.”

With 1 Corinthians 12:2-3 Yoder made a point about Paul’s meth-

odology. Paul’s key statement is that “No one speaking by the Spirit of

God says ‘Let Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except

by the Holy Spirit.” As Yoder explained the setting, Paul assumes that

there are spirits working, including heathen spirits, and he also assumes

that Christians expect revelation in Corinth to continue. The problem

is how to determine when it is the Holy Spirit working in an utterance.

Paul’s criterion is that the Holy Spirit will say nothing contrary to Jesus.

“Spirit working is not arbitrary as it is in paganism. It is not self-authen-

ticating. It has a standard .... Paul reckons with the possibility that the

Spirit will speak, lead, reveal. But let it be consistent.” Yoder then points

to 1 Corinthians 14:29 as an application of this process of weighing and

authenticating. “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh

what is said.”(23)

_____________________

21. Ibid., 95-97, quote 96.

22. Ibid., 97-98.

23. Ibid., 100.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Galatians

In Yoder’s analysis, Galatians demonstrates several aspects of Paul’s the-

ologizing. He indicated points already observed, such as Paul’s appeal to

the story they have already heard and received, and Paul’s continuity with

that faith story.

Yoder points to a variety of ways Paul used to make a connection be-

tween Jesus and his readers. For one, he appealed to Abraham (Gal 3:6) to

display the promise of grace prior to the law given by Moses. In another,

an important point of connection between Jesus and humankind is the

gift of “sonship.” Whereas this link was simply assumed in 1 Corinthi-

ans 15, and was depicted in Philippians 2 via Jesus’ willingness to accept

servitude, this time Paul makes the link via Jesus’ birth. He is “born of a

woman . . . so that we might receive adoption as children” of God (Gal

4:4-5). Freedom from the law comes through humankind’s identification

with Jesus, so that via adoption, “we are made sons as he was Son.”(24)

Galatians 6 expresses solidarity of humankind with Jesus in terms of

the cross as a stance to the world. The cross has become more than a past

event. It is not connected to forgiveness of sins; neither is resurrection

mentioned. Rather it has become a stance. “May I never boast of anything

except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been

crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). As Yoder says, “the cross

is the way the world and I have become dead to each other .... It is the

model for the stance of the Christian in the world.”(25)

Yoder’s summary of comments from these major Pauline writings

emphasizes the presence of a wide variety of ways to express and extend

the meaning of Jesus. Paul displays “enormous liberty in finding many

ways to make the connection between Jesus and me.” Texts Yoder se-

lected dealt with cross and resurrection, but a survey of the entire New

Testament “would of course find lines that are drawn to his earthly career

as well." Whatever the question, “somehow, a line can be drawn from

Jesus.” The important learning is, “this is very far from a rigid doctrinal

approach, having only one right way to deal with every question.” Draw-

ing lines from Jesus to humankind “may well be done in different ways

with different kinds of reasoning, but always something of this being

_______________

24. Ibid., 103-4, quote 104.

25. Ibid., 104-5, quote 105.

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involved in the person of Jesus-something of the solidarity of Christ

with all people.”(26)

Pauline Texts: 1 Timothy 3

First Timothy 3 employs a different literary style and imagery from the

writings of Paul considered thus far. Yoder’s interest focuses on the hymn

or poem quoted in verse 16:

The mystery of our religion is great:

He was revealed in flesh,

vindicated in spirit,

seen by angels,

proclaimed among Gentiles,

believed in throughout the world,

taken up in glory.

Yoder pointed out that where earlier confessions used a narrative, this

hymn uses space, a “down and up” movement. The “mystery,” the work-

ing of God in Christ, is now understood in terms of the relationship of

the two realms: “the transcendent and the imminent, the Spirit realm

and the flesh realm.” This is now a picture of the gospel “working in the

Hellenistic world.” Jews had a sense of God working through history, the

God of Abraham also worked through Moses and David and had prom-

ised another prophet. When speaking to Jews, the message was that the

God of those events had now worked in Jesus as “the culmination of their

history” However, the Hellenistic person had a different perception of the

problem of sin, the alienation of humanity. It concerned the alienation of

the upper, spiritual realm from the lower, fleshly realm. The text speaks to

this context when it says that “Christ overcomes the alienation between

these two realms; he manifests the reality of the Spirit and the angels in

glory in the world of the nations and of the flesh. Yet, in spite of this dif-

ference in imagery, Yoder asserts, this statement from 1 Timothy shares

commonality with the other statements. It is still about what happened in

Jesus, and the important point is that “God did it.”(27)

________________

26. lbid., 106.

27. lbid., 107-8.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Second Corinthians 5

Second Corinthians 5 continues a theme found in Romans 6 and 8 and

Colossians 2 and 3. For 2 Corinthians 5:15, Yoder described how Paul

unfolded the solidarity idea with a circular argument between “Christ

in our place and we in his.”  And he died for all, so that those who live

might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised

for them” (2 Cor 5:1 5). As Yoder explains, by identifying with Christ, the

believer shares in both “his dying and his life.” With this statement, Yo-

der explains, Paul is no longer preaching in Jerusalem to Jews who killed

Jesus, and crucifixion is no longer an event in which Jesus was killed.

Nonetheless, Paul has kept the twofold movement of death and resurrec-

tion. “He makes of it a pattern of life and death in which the Christian is

already living.” The Christian shares in both Christ’s death and his resur-

rection, and the solidarity concept “now provides the whole pattern of

Paul’s thought about the way Christ is relevant to us."(28)

Summary of Paul

Yoder selected texts that would illustrate Paul’s methodology, “the way

that he theologizes.” He made several points about Paul. For one, Paul’s

writings do not form a clear or systematic body of doctrine. Instead of

an effort at coherence and consistence, in Paul “we find an enormous

variety, a very creative flexibility.” This flexibility appeared in the way

that Paul could emphasize different aspects of the story of Jesus, mention

cross without resurrection or vice versa, or in how he related cross and

resurrection.”

Paul displayed a number of strategies for linking the story of Jesus to

the present question. One was the use of the logic of solidarity, as in soli-

darity in sin with old Adam and with righteousness with the new Adam,

the Son. Another dimension of solidarity was the logic of “fulfillment” the

fact that the event of Jesus was part of an ongoing history. Paul expressed

this point “by making all kinds of links between the Old Testament and

the present.” He used Old Testament imagery or made use of a specific

text in proof text fashion. He called believers “sons of Abraham." Paul did

__________________

28. Ibid., 108-9.

29. Ibid., 109.

30. Ibid., 110-11

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not follow correct exegesis by our contemporary standards. But what we

need to observe, Yoder concluded, is the many ways that Paul conveyed

continuity between Israel and the Old Testament and Jesus. Paul used the

Old Testament to say that Jesus is the culmination of an ongoing story of

Israel.” Thus in his analysis of theologizing by Paul, Yoder took pains to

emphasize the variety of ways Paul used to express the meaning of Jesus.

And Yoder emphasized that different contexts required different kinds of

statements.

Theologians; Hebrews

Hebrews is written more as a systematic theology than are Paul’s writings.

In other words, Yoder said, Hebrews does not address a particular crisis

or question in the way Paul did with his writings.

Hebrews opens with the book’s theme, namely Christology. “Long

ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the proph-

ets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:1-2). This

opening sentence of Hebrews points to the previously observed theme of

fulfillment, the “awaited age” as God now speaks through a Son. Yoder

indicates that the theme of fullment will become the central topic of the

book of Hebrews.”

Hebrews “affirms the continuity of what God has done in Jesus with

what God was doing before." That continuity, Yoder says, is visible in the

imagery of priesthood and the sacrificial system as well as the expert ex-

egetical use of the Old Testament by the author of Hebrews.”

Along with the ideas of continuity and fulfillment, however, is also

the theme of newness. The new covenant has something added. Some-

thing has happened to bring an end to the practice of daily sacrifices.

Putting Jesus in the image of sacrifice provides continuity with the old

covenant. But there is also novelty in that Jesus is the last sacrifice. The

statement that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”

(Heb 13:8) does not mean absence of change, Yoder says, but that “the

change that took place at the point of incarnation stops the series.” What

__________________

31. Yoder, Preface (2002), 111-12

32. lbid., 1 14-15.

33. lbid., 115.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Hebrews does with “same yet different” in terms of sacrifice is similar to

what Paul did on a number of occasions with the idea of law.(34)

The idea of continuity with change also appears in the use of the title

“Son.” In the Old Testament, the title “son of God” had applied to angels

and the king, and in the New Testament it becomes Messiah. These are

not identified with God by “nature,” but through “dependence upon or

subjection to God.” Then in Hebrews, it is a case of divine Sonship that

is more than and higher than angels. The Son is involved in creation,

bears the “imprint of God’s very being” sustains “all things,” and is called

Son by God the Father (Heb 1:2-7). Thus the Son is above the angels,

and differs from angels through his identification with the Father.(35) This

location above the angels in identification with the Father appears in the

image of the seat at “the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1: 3).

But the Son also differs from the angels in a second way. He is also

lower than the angels; he is identified with humankind. This identity ap-

pears in his “suffering of death.” He shared “flesh and blood” with those

whom God sanctified, “For the one who sanctifies and those who are

sanctified all have one Father” (Heb 2:10).(36)

In Philippians 2 we observed the twofold movement of humiliation

and exaltation. Yoder pointed out that this movement also appears in

Hebrews 2:7 and 2:10, where he is “perfected through suffering.” In the

earliest preaching, the movement was the concrete “you killed him, God

raised" him. With Paul it had become more than this concrete meaning.

Hebrews expands it even farther. Now the victory occurs in the suffer-

ing and death itself. One expression of this victory occurs in his location

sitting “at the right hand of God.” This symbolic location indicates gov-

ernance. The one at the right hand of the sovereign “governs in the name

of the king."(37)

The use in Hebrews of the image of priesthood provides another

expression of fulfillment along with novelty. 'The image of sacrifice for

purity is assumed from the life of Israel. Jesus is depicted as a better priest

and as the last priest. The victim--the one who is sacrificed--has also

changed. It is not an animal but a man, the unique man who is identical

with God. But contrary to the common view of atonement, Jesus is not

___________________

34. Ibid., 116.

35. Ibid., 116-17.

36. Ibid., 1 17.

37. Ibid., 117-18.

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WEAVER--Christology

a better victim because he is a divine victim. He is a better priest and the

last high priest because “he gives himself” He is not making up to God

what was missing by being more pure. “Rather he adds to this priestly

process the gift of self and his total humanity, his identification with hu-

manity.” In his identification with us, with humanity, we participate in his

death and thus in his victory and identification with God.”

The victory seems to come at the point of his obedience. In 2:9 he

is crowned with glory and honor “because of the suffering of death.” In

contrast to the early message of “you killed him, God raised him,” now “it

is the suffering of death that is itself what he did. It is the victory.” Christ’s

victory Yoder says, is not only at the point of resurrection and exaltation.

It is “already part of the quality with which he accepts humiliation.” The

suffering obedience that is his victory comes through his solidarity with

humankind.”

Thus Yoder’s treatment of Hebrews continues his emphasis on

showing multiple ways to express the meaning of the life, death, and res-

urrection of Jesus.

Theologians: John

Yoder has brief comments on the Christology of John, focused primarily

on the term Logos or the Word that appears in the Prologue to the Gospel

of John. The writer of John is at home in the Greek language and imagery.

Logos is the term from Greek philosophy that might be called “reason”

or “the rationality of God that underlies the universe.” The writer of the

Gospel says that the Word was “preexistent” with God, and that it “be-

came flesh."(40)

That the Word became flesh is, Yoder noted, not typical of the way

Greek philosophy talked about divine rationality, nor is it typical of the

Jewish mind, which considered God invisible. But that the Word became

flesh and was therefore visible was important for John. In fact, in 1 John

4:2-3, that the Word was in flesh becomes a test of faith: “Every spirit that

confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every

spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” That the Word came

in the flesh--was seen and touched by the apostles (1 John 1:1-3)--was

______________________

38. Ibid., 118-19.

39. Ibid., 118-zo; Yoder’s italics.

40. Ibid., 120.

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PART 0NE-THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

part of the apostolic witness. The Word in flesh, the incarnation, wrote

Yoder “is a statement on the authority and the message of the church, and

thereby the test whereby you know whether it is correct or not.”(41)

Yoder also briefly identified a principle in John similar to the logic

of solidarity. It is visible in John 15:4, ‘Abide in me as I abide in you.”

This logic also appears in the language of Sonship, which Yoder links

to 1 John 3:1-2.(42) Through abiding in Jesus the Son, believers are also

sons and daughters--children--of God. To see the link Yoder depicts

between Jesus as Son and believers as children of God, one must read

1 John 2:24-25 about abiding in the Son along with 1 John 3:1-2 and the

mention of being children of God.(43)

Summaries

Yoder summarized the theological method of the three theologians Paul,

Hebrews, and John, and then provided a summary of theologizing as a

whole in the New Testament.

The Three Theologians

The three theologians have clear differences, Yoder said. There are “major

differences in style and in logic,” and in the centrality of future eschatol-

ogy or belief in an immediate return of Christ. For the later writings, the

focus shifts away from expectation of an immediate return.”

These writings also share important similarities and themes. They

all share a reference to “the Jesus history, whatever the theme being

talked about.” They all use the “logic of solidarity,” which is expressed

in different images-Sonship, “being in Christ,” or simply expressed as

a solidarity. Further, they all say that “salvation is a unity of status and a

life.” In other words, where later theologians might distinguish between

“being saved and acting saved,” or between “justification and sanctifica-

tion,” the New Testament assumed that “to be in God’s purposes is the

same as to be living in the light.”(45)

___________________

41. Ibid., 121.

42. Ibid.

43. See ibid., 121 n, 3.

44. Ibid., 122-23.

45. Ibid., 123.

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WEAVER--Christology

These theologians all have something of the concept that would

later be called “preexistence” Expressions of this motif came in John’s

use of the eternal Word, Hebrews’ use of 01d Testament quotations to

say that the “Son was working in the Old Testament story,” the reference

in Colossians to the Son’s involvement in creation, and the “equality with

God” of Philippians 2.(46)

Finally, these writers all move away from what later writers called

“adoptionism” namely the idea that Jesus “became the Son,” or was el-

evated to Sonship because of his obedience. This idea is there, but be-

comes increasingly “undergirded” or added to by the various themes of

preexistence. That Jesus began life like all other people “is not enough

to explain what he did,” and from the perspective of monotheism, the

idea of a man “being made God is unacceptable.” The alternative, then,

was that God had acted. God took the initiative and had “become a man

among humans."(47)

New Testament Theologizing

This discussion of the New Testament, Yoder reminds readers, has not

been a summary of Christian thought but rather “theology going on as

thought-theologizing as a process.” This thinking, this theologizing by

the early church involved gathering “around a series of events,” the events

of the Jesus story, and ascribing meaning to those events. This develop-

ing meaning had three expanding circles of reference. The first was the

confession “Christ is Lord,” with focus on the resurrection which testified

to the Lordship of Christ. Second, the story of Jesus is linked to the past

history of Israel and thus links the listeners with Jesus into the future. The

third level of reference involved statements about Sonship, mighty works,

and more.”

Gathering around events indicates that there was “no radical dis-

tinction” between events and the meaning of those events. Where mod-

erns would clearly distinguish the bare description of an event from its

meaning, the New Testament did not. That lack of distinction appears in

the claim that having witnessed the events of Jesus requires a response.

________________

46. Ibid., 124.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid., 125.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

“We are witnesses to these things” indicates to the hearers, “You must

repent.”‘(49)

Further, these events are proclaimed as “the work of Jesus Christ.”

There is no independent discussion of a doctrine of God the Father or of

the Holy Spirit. Statements about God or the Spirit concerned Jesus or

related to Jesus. God was identified as the Father of Jesus and the Spirit

was the Spirit of Jesus.(50)

The life of the early church is a continuation of this story of Jesus.

An apostle was “one who was in continuity with that story” The early

church gathered around the apostles because they were the ones “who

could establish the continuity between the earthly ministry of Jesus and

the resurrection.” A further element of continuity occurred in the collec-

tion of sayings of Jesus. Paul referred to such sayings and eventually they

were formed into the Gospels.” (51)

There were different levels of theological sophistication in the prim-

itive or early church. Contributing to the theology of the early church was

the simple resurrection as the basis of Christ’s Lordship, the testimony that the Old Testament is fulfilled in him, that a judgment is coming, and that we are called to a sober, suffering, and obedient life. This is the theology of the New Testament church, the church of the first century. Only on the shoulders of this church does theology develop that might be called a more “systematic,” a more “self-conscious,” or a more “abstract” theology on the part of Paul, Hebrews, and John.(52)

The language for this theologizing came from the key sermons

whose outline was depicted in Acts. Snippets of hymns and liturgy such

as Philippians 2, also appear, along with oral reports of memories of

Jesus.(53)

Yoder observed that changes occurring in the church required the

development of theology. For one, early Christians faced the danger of

false or improper doctrine. Spirits continued to speak. Thus development

of theology was necessary in order to test whether the speech was of God.

Further, they had a mandate to transmit the memory of the church to

________________________

49. Ibid., 125-26.

50. lbid., 126.

51. Ibid.

52. lbid., 127.

53. lbid.

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WEAVER--Christology

succeeding generations. Memory is what establishes their identity, what

they have in common. Catechism developed to teach the community’s

story, its identity, to newcomers. This memory included the Old Testa-

ment. Acts pictures the early Christians reading this book together.

However, catechism requires more than rote memory. It requires deci-

sions about the priority of teachings and how teachings fit together. This

requirement is the “mandate to think theologically”(54)

Theologizing took place through a variety of forms and offices.

These included apostle, prophet, elder, and elder-teacher. Teaching oc-

curred in worship meetings, in catechism classes, and in public debates.(55)

Another challenge to which theology responded came from pagan-

ism. The pagan religions and pagan worldviews focused on “ontology,”

which was concerned with the “essence” of things. Ontology had answers

to questions about the origin of the world. And these religions contained

mysteries, namely special ceremonies that enabled the worshiper to get

beyond surface appearances in order to experience the essence of the

world. The response of the first Christian preachers was to say that God

is the origin of all things, and that this creator God was made known in

Jesus Christ. “The God who made the earth and gave us a place to live

has now spoken in the Son.” And by the time of the major theological

writings, there is a concept of “preexistence.” Not only is Jesus accredited

as the one whom God raised, but “the Word or the Son is involved in

creation as well.”(56) Thus the response to “ontology” as the invisible es-

sence of the world was to say that God was the origin of all existence, and

“preexistence” was the language for involving Jesus in that origin.

Yoder asks rhetorically whether the words about involvement of

the Word in creation are “a statement about cosmology ,... a piece of

divinely revealed information.” His answer is “no.” This language is rather

the normal way to speak about the meaning of Jesus in a pagan world

that seeks to experience the essence behind what is visible. “Thus, at least

in the immediate sense of the missionary experience of the church, these

affirmations of preexistence and creation are not given as new informa-

tion, revealed for their own sake, but they are the normal, appropriate

missionary way to state the priority of Christ over the preoccupations of

pagan faith.”(57) Yoder’s essay “But We Do See Jesus,” considered in what

_________________________

54. Yoder, Preface (2002), 127-28.

55. Ibid., 128-29.

56, Ibid., 130.

57. lbid.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THE0L0GY

follows, makes this point even more forcefully An application of this

methodology of translating meaning rather than language also appears

in Yoder’s appropriation of the rubric of the Powers for such Pauline

statements as “things visible and invisible” and “thrones or dominions or

rulers”: in Colossians 1:15 and the “elemental spirits” of Galatians 4: 3, 9.

Yoder’s use of the Powers is treated in chapter 6 of this volume.

The strongly monotheist Jewish community constituted the other

side of the church’s missionary context. The Jewish community affirmed

God above creation and the working of God in history “but they denied

the ultimacy of Jesus within this story” In response to efforts to contain

the working of God within the cultural system of Judaism, the theolo-

gians proclaimed Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the law. In his person,

Jesus Christ has made present the working of the one God of monothe-

ism. Thus in addition to the idea of “preexistence,” which places Jesus

above the pagan worship of creation, there was “a doctrine of fulfillment

to place Christ above the Old Testament story,” handled various ways in

Paul, Hebrews, and John.(58)

Yet another challenge to the early church came from Gnosticism,

which glorified philosophical and religious truth. Gnosticism valued the

invisible, spiritual realm over the material world. Ultimate reality con-

cerned the mind. No material events or person could be eternal. Thus

Gnostics had a mystical system through which they hoped to save people

from ignorance and put them in contact with ultimate reality. This view

of reality meant that Gnostics denied the ultimacy of Jesus because he

existed in time, in the flesh, in a particular place.” “The Gnostic depre-

ciation of the material and the temporal is visible all the way through the

New Testament” It is the backdrop for the many affirmations throughout

the New Testament of the coming of Jesus in the flesh and the emphasis

on the visible humanness of Jesus.(60)

Yoder brings these observations together with the assertion that

theologians of the New Testament make “two sweeping affirmations,”

which are identified in contemporary technical language as “preexistence

and incarnation.” The claim that God raised Jesus was extended through

discussion of the history of Jesus and calls for repentance. Eventually the

wider claim

___________________

58. Ibid., 131.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid., 131-32.

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WEAVER--Christology

is extended in the affirmation of preexistence, which places itabove pagan religions; it is extended in the affirmation of ful-fillment, which places it above defensive Jewish religion; andit is extended in the affirmation of incarnation, which breaksthrough the Gnostic idea that it is only worthy of God to beworking outside of matter.(61)

Yoder pointed out three questions not discussed explicitly in the

New Testament. For one, there is no doctrine of atonement beyond the

minimal statement that Jesus is Lord and that he died for sins. Further,

there is no explanation of how the high claims about Jesus-he was

involved in creation and existed with God from the beginning-corre-

spond to Jewish monotheism. And it was not explained how Jesus was

both identified fully with human kind but also more than human. These

questions are all discussed extensively in the centuries following the New

Testament.(62)

Yoder’s description of theologizing in the New Testament focused

on the factors of variety and change and development. He described de-

velopment as “saying more.” That is, writers assumed the original story

which said that Jesus was killed and God raised him. They then extracted

additional meaning from the story and used different images and ad-

ditional concepts to explain the meaning of the story in new contexts and

to develop points not contained explicitly in that story. Together these

developments added up to changes in both methodology and content for

New Testament theologizing.(63) An important aspect of Yoder’s analysis of

these changes is the visibility he gave to multiple ways of expressing the

additional meaning that addressed different contexts.

Yoder stressed that change in and of itself is neither good nor bad.

It can be either a faithful or an unfaithful effort to carry forward the

original story and its meaning. Thus the point is not to oppose change

as the way to guarantee preservation of the original truth; in fact, change

may be the faithful way to carry forward the original truth. And in any

case change is inevitable. But the equally important point is that change

should not always be supported as inherently good; change can also re-

sult in departure from the truth of the original story. Rather, Yoder said,

________________

61. Ibid., 132.

62. Ibid., 132-34. The current chapter focuses on Christology. A discussion of

atonement theology appears in chapter 1 1 of this volume.

63. Ibid., 134~3S.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

because change can be either faithful or unfaithful, faithfulness needs to

be decided on an individual, case by case basis.(64)

In what he called a “Postscript” on Christology Yoder made an im-

portant point for a proper understanding of his approach to Christology

In the postscript, he described a series of steps that led to the writing of

the Gospels, from the collection of memories through to the approxi-

mate written form that we know today The important point concerns

the relationship of the Gospels to the theologians, The theologians wrote

first. With “something like preexistence and cosmic lordship,” they were

unfolding the meaning of the story of “the earthly figure” of Jesus. The

formulation of the Gospels followed later. They were written to fill out

the minimal historical narrative recited by the theologians who had al-

ready made high claims about Jesus. Seeing this relationship undercuts

the claims of an earlier epoch in scholarship in which it was argued that

the Gospels had a simple Christologyg “the religion of Jesus,” which was

then later made more complicated by the theologians with “the religions

about Jesus.” Rather, Yoder indicated, high Christology is not the pre-

rogative of one or the other of the New Testament writings. “The Gospels

were not written to give us a Christology less ambitious than that of the

Epistles; they were rather written to clarify and hold fast the concrete

human content of the faith in Jesus of whom the most exalted things were

already being said.”65 The clear implication of Yoder’s comment is that it

is not necessary to access the later classic creedal formulas to defend a

high Christology.

Historical Development (ca. 50-150 CE)

Yoder continued his emphasis on displaying multiple expressions or an-

swers in the periods after the passing of the New Testament writers. The

first such epoch was that of the Apostolic Fathers, the writers who knew

the apostles.

Relevant for the focus of the current chapter on Yoder’s approach to

Christology are his brief comments on the development of the concept of

Logos or Word. The Apostolic Fathers developed the meaning of Logos

at greater length, and Gnostics used Logos as Well as the churchly writers.

Logos was a kind of divine energy, “not the same as Jesus but behind

___________________

64. Ibid.,135-37.

65. Ibid., 139-40; Yoder’s italics.

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WEAVER--Christology

him and active in creation.” Philosophers conceived of many levels of

intermediaries that stood between God and humanity and transmitted

this divine energy down to the human level. On this ladder, Logos was

the “rationality of creation.” It helped the prophets, and it helped con-

temporary people. It was in Jesus, but also had an “identity behind Jesus.”

There were numbers of ways of conceiving of the impact of the Logos,

including use by the Gnostics.(66) Yoder does not explain further at this

point. However, it is important to have in mind his mention of multiple

ways of referring to the Word when we later observe Yoder’s analysis of

the Jewish-Christian schism in chapter 10 of the book in hand.

The Christology of the Apostles’ Creed

With his comments on the Apostles’ Creed Yoder begins analysis of

theology that has advanced beyond the formulations found in the New

Testament.

The Apostles’ Creed was likely an early baptismal formula. Yoder

observed that the reference to the Father in the first article is little more

than a prologue to the statements about the Son, and that the collection

of phrases in the third article concerning the Holy Spirit have the appear-

ance of an epilogue. Thus the second article, with its filled-out statements

on the Son, is clearly central. Focusing on Christology thus aligns this

creed with the emphasis on Jesus in earlier confessions, including the

narrative character of the second article’s statements on the conception,

birth, death, and ascension of Jesus.(67)

But significant differences also exist between the Apostles’ Creed

and the earliest focus on the narrative of Jesus. For one, “There is no Old

Testament story.” Whereas apostolic preaching as well as John’s Gospel

and Hebrews used the Old Testament, this creed reaches back over that

narrative to creation.”

A second significant change concerned the location of the call to

forgiveness. In the early confessions, forgiveness was connected to hear-

ing the story of Jesus, and it presumed the possibility of a real conver-

sion-change-in one’s way of life. In contrast, in the Apostles’ Creed,

forgiveness is a stand-alone item under the Holy Spirit-simply an entity

_________________

66. Ibid., 154.

67. Ibid., 160.

68. Ibid., 161.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

to believe in. Further, the creed does not mention the life of Jesus, al-

though his birth receives “proportionately more attention than in the

Gospels.” And from birth, it leaps to crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.

'This leap means that there is no mention of anything like “Jesus’ call

to repentance.” Yoder attributes this absence to the fact that the creed

functions during the time when it is assumed that everyone is already a

believer. With the pagan world now coming under control of the church,

the concept of the church as a minority in society “calling people to lis-

ten, repent, believe, and receive forgiveness, does not quite f1t.”(69)

Third, “the ‘fullness of time’ theme is missing.” That is, there is no

mention of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. God the Father as

creator substitutes for the Old Testament story but it also creates a sig-

nificant difference from Paul. Jesus spoke of “the Father” as the one to

whom we pray, and for the early preachers such as Paul, God as Father

was the Father of Jesus who had raised him. Thus, Yoder says, the creed's

designation of the Father as Creator “deviates from the New Testament.”(70)

These comments on the Apostles’ Creed further display Yoder’s

awareness of choices made in theological expression and how they are

reflected in theology

Nicea and Trinitarian Issues

Unresolved at the end of the New Testament was the issue of how to

maintain the Jewish emphasis on monotheism while making high claims

about Jesus. This question occupied much of the discussion of Christol-

ogy into the fourth century which Yoder follows until the formula from

the council of Nicea is accepted as official doctrine. The debates around

the issue involved “the phenomenon of getting off the track and getting

called back.” The idea of positions “off the track” means recognizing “the

phenomenon of heresy-positions and doctrines held to be so wrong that

they need to be explicitly condemned.”(71) Until he discusses the meaning

of these developments, Yoder’s description differs little from the conven-

tional story Thus the account here presents only the briefest summaries

of views as a lead up to his discussion of their meaning.

______________________

69. Ibid., 161-62.

70. Ibid., 162.

71. Ibid., 181.

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WEAVER- Christology

Yoder gave general characteristics of the context for these ongoing

conversations about Christology. For one, there was a gradual shift from

Hebrew to Greek philosophical categories. Greek philosophy became the

medium used to discuss how to retain high vJews of Jesus combined with

monotheism.” In contrast to the earlier view of theologians such as Adolf

von Harnack, Yoder is quite clear that this shift in categories is not intrin-

sically bad. As he said a few pages later, these words were the way that

the Greeks discussed the issues in question. Nonetheless, as is described

below, it was a shift that needs to be recognized.(73)

Yoder began the post New Testament discussion with the Word in

John and its Old Testament parallel, Wisdom. In Proverbs 8, Wisdom

speaks in the first person. In this voice, Wisdom describes roles parallel to

those John depicts for the Word. Both are with God from the beginning

and involved in creation. What John adds is that “The Word became flesh

and lived among us.” Yoder points out that John indicates no apparent

problems in the chain of equations in which “the Logos is equal to God,

and somehow becomes human, and in between is the order of creation."

Thus at this point “Greek and Jewish traditions are nearly parallel."(74) Yo-

der notes that the heritage of this linking of Greek and Hebrew concepts

was observed in his earlier lectures on New Testament texts and appears

in the idea of “preexistence.” What the New Testament does is bring this

act of God in Wisdom and/ or Word to earth. The newness is that “wis-

dom became flesh. Yet by becoming fully human, by living among us, the

Logos did not become any less divine, because John also says the Logos

was ‘with God.”’(75)

The problem this sets up is how to maintain the unity of God in

monotheism while taking seriously that Jesus was fully human. Yoder

identified two lines of thought. “We can say strong things about Jesus,

but then we have a potential threat to monotheism, or we can say strong

things about the Father and then deal with the problems of how real Jesus

could be and how necessary his work can be.” He describes the develop-

ment of doctrine to Nicea and Trinity as a study of the answers to these

questions.(76)

_________________________

72. Yoder, Preface (2002), 183.

73. See ibid., 202.

74. Ibid., 184-85.

75. Ibid., 186.

76. lbid.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION 0F JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Yoder called this “an intellectual problem,” a problem we have be-

cause of words. However, very significantly, he cautioned that merely us-

ing different words than those employed by the church of the second and

third century will not resolve the problem. Even if we use different words,

the problem still exists and must be faced.(77)

The answers Yoder described are well known in the history of doc-

trine. Since the important issue for this chapter is how Yoder evaluates

the end result, brief summaries of positions here will suffice. He described

two kinds of “Monarchianism,” that is vJews that focus on preserving the

unity of God. Ebionites preserved the unity of God by emphasizing the

humanity of Jesus and denying his preexistence. Moving in the other

direction was patripassianism. This likely pejorative name comes from

words for “suffering” and “father,” and stresses the unity of God in Jesus

to the detriment of a true humanity of Jesus. Thus it has similarities with

the various forms of Docetism. By the second and third centuries, docetic

stress on the unity of God leads to the idea that distinctions in the way

God acts, as in the Old Testament and in Jesus, are only appearances and

do not reflect God in God’s inner being. Thus in these docetic depictions

of God and Jesus, Jesus' work is God’s work and in Jesus God is really

suffering. Yoder affirmed that none of these monarchian positions “fits

the New Testament witness."(78)

Yoder described a new stage with Tertullian in the development of

language. Tertullian was working at a system that keeps unity and dis-

tinction together-the unity of God together with the capacity of God in

the Word to act differently Within God’s being are both the potential for

incarnation and the actual incarnation. As part of this system, Tertullian

started to talk of the Son rather than the Logos. This replacement is part

of the desire to maintain unity within distinctness. From this effort, Ter-

tullian may have been the first to use a threeness term, what later became

Trinity as a way to affirm distinctions within God that preserve the unity

of God.”

In Yoder’s description, Origen said that if it was good for God to

have a Son, then God was always, forever having a Son and the Son was

always being generated. However, this argument would also apply to cre-

ation of the world, which would then produce an eternal world along

_______________________

77. lbid.

78. Ibid., 187-88.

79. Ibid., 189-91.

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WEAVER--Christology

with eternal God and Son. Thus Origen’s view proved problematic.” Even

more problematic was Sabellius. His view retained the oneness of God

but considered the various ways in which God worked in the world as

“modes,” hence the name modalism. However, in Sabellius’ understand-

ing of the “mode” of a man, Jesus had only the appearance of a man and

was not fully human.(81)

The discussion of Christology that has most impacted the church

until the present time began in the fourth century with the response to

Arius, a priest in the North African city of Alexandria. Arius came from

the side of defending the uniqueness of God. In order to distinguish God

from the Son, Arius purportedly said that there was a time when the Son

was not; that is, God existed before time, and the Son was created in time.

He also considered God to be the first cause, that God then created the

Son, and then together they created the universe. In this way, Jesus was

divine and similar to but not the same as God. Such vJews subordinated

the Son to the Father. They produced a fire storm of reaction.(82)

In order to bring some unity to the theological situation within the

church, Emperor Constantine called a council to attempt a resolution.

This council met at Nicea in 325 CE. The solution that emerged from

the council is well known. It used a statement like the Apostles’ Creed,

but expanded statements about the relationship of the Father and the

Son. Father and Son are described with the same terms, with equality of

being defined in terms of ousia or “substance.” The phrase that symbol-

izes this equality is homoousios, which is translated “same substance” or

“same being.” It rejects the position of Arius, who would have accepted

homoiousios or “of similar substance.” The text that emerged from Nicea

has become known as the Nicene Creed.(83)

The decision of Nicea was not immediately accepted as final. De-

bates on these issues continued for another half century In 381 CE, the

council of Constantinople restated the decision from Nicea. The form of

the Nicene Creed still in use today follows the version that emerged from

Constantinople. It finally attained ofhcial status after being cited by the

council of Ephesus in 431 CE.(84)

_________________

80. Ibid., 191

81. Ibid., 192-

82. Ibid., 195

83. Ibid., 197

84. Ibid., 198

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

To this point, Yoder’s description of the development of the Nicene

Creed resembles the standard or conventional history of doctrine. His

analysis becomes more interesting when he discusses the character and

authority of this creed.

Yoder stated that doctrines, in particular one such as emerged from

Nicea, are “basically a set of assumptions about how we should use words

and rules about what certain words ought and ought not to be used to

mean.” He aligned the Greek, Latin, and English equivalents for the terms

used to identity essence or substance of God and the Son, and the term

prosopon or person to identify the different means of expression within

the Godhead. In this case, Yoder explained, the discussion concerned the

proper words to employ when naming the unity of God and in identify-

ing its separate manifestations. “The doctrine of the Trinity,” Yoder said,

“in a very simple sense is just a set of rules about which of those words

you use for what,” that is, which word to use to assert the oneness of God

and which word to use for the three distinct manifestations.(85)

The new answer, and the one still in use today was developed in

the late fourth century by the three Cappadocians, Gregory of Nyssa,

Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea. It is from them that the con-

vention developed to use what is translated in English as one “essence” or

“substance” to speak of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as

one, and to use the term “person” when designating the three distinctions

or faces within the Godhead.(86) This usage then produces the familiar

trinitarian formula, “One God in three Persons.”

Yoder calls this a “merely verbal formality,” but emphasizes that

it also meets a need. “It safeguards the New Testament content with at

least a degree of success in a quite different thought world.” The specific

New Testament content it protects is that “Jesus, the Word in Jesus, is

genuinely of the character of deity and genuinely human, and that his is

the work of God and yet the work of a man.” Where the New Testament

writers made these affirmations in a narrative, the theologians at Nicea

said it in “ontological and philosophical language.”(87)

Although Yoder called it “only” a verbal solution to a problem posed

by the New Testament, he quickly adds that “only verbal” is not grounds

for reproach. “Words are the only tools [we] have to deal with truth. The

________________________

85. Ibid., 199-200.

86. Ibid., 200-201.

87. Ibid., 201-2.

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WEAVER--Christology

problem was verbal in the first place.” Yoder also defended this formula-

tion of the doctrine of the Trinity against the charge that it does not talk

about God as love. Since Nicea affirms that God is actually present not

only in the distant God of Arius but also in God’s Son and in God’s Spirit,

“this is the way to say ‘love’ in the language of ontology."(88)

But following this defense, Yoder offered another qualification. Al-

though these definitions are defending biblical ideas, it is equally clear

“that in form we are moving farther and farther away from the Gospel

story. The form of the confession is still used, but it has been so padded

out with statements about the essence of Christ that one recognizes no

narrative any more.” The absence of narrative is significant, Yoder indi-

cated. This statement without the narrative does not lead one to think

that an action of God among humans at a distinct time and place is im-

portant.(89) In other words, focus on essences apart from narrative says

nothing about ethics based on Jesus.

________________

88. Ibid., 202. Much later, in an item on his website dated 1996, Yoder wrote that

“there are good reasons _ _ . for favoring the special intellectual articulations we call

‘trinitarian.’ I have sought to give the trinitarian heritage a friendly interpretation, but

it is an argument that needs to be made.” His reference to “friendly interpretation”

was to chapter 8 of Preface. He adds that “neither the imperial rubber stamp . . . nor

liturgical repetition of the ‘Nicene Creed’ over the centuries can give those formula-

tions more authority than what their intrinsic logic merits.” Yoder, “Confessing Jesus

in Mission." 2.

89. Yoder, Preface (2002), 202; Yoder’s italics. A parallel statement, emphasizing

obedience, appears in an essay rewritten from a 1964 lecture. Yoder wrote, “The con-

cept of Incarnation, God’s assuming manhood, has often made us direct our thought

to metaphysics, asking how it can be that the human nature and the divine nature

can be present together in one person .... But when, in the New Testament, we find

the affirmation of the unity of Jesus with the Father, this is not discussed in terms of

substance, but of will and deed. It is visible in Jesus’ perfect obedience to the will of

the Father. It is evident in Jesus that God takes the side of the poor. It is evident in

Jesus that when God comes to be King He rejects the sword and the throne, taking

up instead the whip of cords and the cross.” Yoder, Original Revolution, 136, Yoder’s

italics; reprinted in Yoder, Royal Priesthood, 185.

Parler chastises me for neglecting a link in the fifth century between ontology and

ethics and Chalcedon’s link to Christian discipleship. See Parler, Things Hold Together,

95. In any such comment that I have made, I am thinking of a statement from Yoder

such as the one just quoted, as well as comments from a number of scholars I have

cited in other writings who also point to the absence of narrative and specifics of Jesus

in the classic statements. And while Chalcedon should underscore Christian disciple-

ship, as Yoder noted, history seems to demonstrate quite clearly that it has not, at least

not the nonviolent discipleship that I have learned from Yoder. For a description of

activity around Chalcedon not motivated by nonviolent discipleship, see Jenkins, Jesus

Wars.

Page 55

As Nicea moved away from the narrative form, Yoder observed,

the subject matter also changed. The focus shifted away from resurrec-

tion and came to concern the eternal status of the one resurrected. And

continuing cultural changes would require still more shifts. Earlier Yoder

had pointed to the shifts that occurred when the New Testament theo-

logians built upon the original narrative of Jesus. Each movement built

upon another and “required a more involved inquiry to decide whether

the new form expressed the same faith as the old.” With that observation

in mind, it becomes clear that “with Nicea we are still moving away from

the biblical center in mode, in style, in content.”(90)

___________________

90. Yoder, Prfjace (2002), 202. In their introduction to Preface, Hauerwas and Sider

object to Yoder’s description of differences in vocabulary and worldview between the

New Testament and the classic formulas. In their view, in some of his efforts to draw

contrasts, Yoder does not acknowledge the “extent that the Judaism of first-century

Palestine had already been shaped by Hellenism.” And thus Yoder’s suggestion “that

the fathers attempted to solve with the doctrine of the Trinity a problem created by

the encounter between the gospel-bearing culture and the Greek philosophical tradi-

tion fails sufficiently to credit those Greek fathers’ struggle with Scripture itself” They

also suggest that scholarship of the “last fifteen or twenty years” displays in a way

that Yoder did not know “the increasing realization that the ante- and post-Nicene

fathers not only considered scripture their primary imaginative resource, but were also

theologically motivated in the first place to produce coherent readings of Scripture, as

opposed to coherent comprehensive worldviews." They suggested, however, that even

where Yoder “gets it wrong,” it is appropriate to publish this edition because it teaches

students to reflect critically, and Yoder himself welcomed correction. Yoder, Preface

(2002), 23, 25-26. Their comments reveal that Hauerwas and Sider actually agree with

at least a part of my analysis of Yoder’s relativizing of the classic formulas, but dispute

Yoder’s analysis. Further, their comment does not negate the fact that there was a shift

in worldview from the assumption of narrative to the ontological, and that as the pre-

sentation of Yoder’s thought in this chapter shows, he was careful to say specifically

that the classic formulas were dealing with material from Scripture in the language of

ontology. On this point see also the comment from Yoder in note 88. And finally, other

recent scholarship on the politics of the early church would strengthen Yoder’s argu-

ment that the classic formulas reflect a particular context but different than that of the

New Testament. For examples, see Philip Jenkins’ description of how political forces

determined the assertion of orthodoxy; Virginia Burrus’ argument that the Nicene

formula supported patriarchy and raised the male above female, and that the idea of

the Council of Nicea as the unified bulwark against Arius was a product of Athanasius’

literary work more than two decades after the council; and Michel Barnes' conclusions

that in the immediate aftermath of the council, the Nicene formula was suspected of

being modalistic, and that “a careful reading of Athanasius’ works reveals that it took

him almost twenty years to come to [a normativeJ understanding of the significance

of Nicaea, while he took almost another ten years to fasten upon homoousios as the

sine qua non of Nicene theology” Jenkins, jesus Wars; Burrus, ‘Begotten Not Made”,

ch. 1; Barnes, “Fourth Century” quote 5 3. It appears that the critique of Hauerwas and

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WEAVER- Christology

A further development that Yoder labeled a “deformation” concerns

the meaning of the term “person” in the doctrine of the Trinity In mod-

ern usage, “person” has come to mean “center of consciousness, a will

distinct from other wills.” That meaning would visualize three distinct

personalities and seats of consciousness in the Trinity Yoder rejects that

development as “a new import into the doctrine of the Trinity.” In Yoder’s

understanding, the earlier, proper understanding of “person” would be

on the order of “three roles, three modes, three ways of acting.” In this

case, “mode” is not the shell that God moves in and out of for Sabellius,

but rather a “way of being."(91)

In light of the recognition of Trinity as official doctrine, Yoder in-

dicates another “point of deformation,” namely to think that threeness

in and of itself constitutes salvific knowledge. This deformation “arises

if We think that God’s self-revelation of threeness-in-oneness is itself

something that saves us” An extreme form of this deformation appears,

according to Yoder, in the medieval teaching that God existing in three

persons “can only be known by revelation,” that it is “a piece of informa-

tion about deity” that we know “because it was given us by special super-

natural revelation. As a matter of fact,” he said, “it was not given us by

revelation.”(92) Popular versions of Yoder’s concern might be the common

practice of finding threeness in nature to bolster trinitarianism (such as

the sun, its rays, its heat) and the claim that threeness is the unique at-

tribute of the Christian View of God.

Yoder rejected the idea that threeness itself was a product of revela-

tion. That there are three hypostases or persons and one ousia or essence

“cannot be given by revelation. It is something the Cappadocians figured

out in the fourth century” The Bible tells us, he said, that there is God the

Father and the Son and the Spirit and that they are the same. However,

how we relate them to each other while keeping in mind the differences

“Was worked out later. The doctrine of the Trinity is the solution to an

intellectual difficulty that arises if we accept the statements of the Bible.

It is not itself a revealed truth, but the solution” to the word problem

_______________

Sider is shaped in significant measure by their desire to protect the classic formulas

as unquestioned givens, a givenness that is called into question by Yoder’s relativizing

of the classic creeds and formulas. For Yoder’s own description of his methodology as

“relativizing,” see the discussion referenced by note 8 in the Introduction.

91. Yoder, Prqface (2002), 202-3.

92. Ibid., 201, 203-4

93. Yoder's original version said “a solution,” which became “the solution” in the

edited version. For the original, see Yoder, Preface (1981), 140.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

we get into when we accept revelation in Jesus, the continuance of that

revelation in the Holy Spirit, and hold to monotheism at the same time.”(94)

Yoder raised the question whether the doctrine of the Trinity is

“valid in other cultures.” He suggests that it may be possible not to use

the “ancient Greek literary forms.” However, merely avoiding those forms

does not solve the problem. If Christians are to be Christian, they still

have to deal with the problem that Trinity was trying to resolve, namely

“the normativity of Jesus as he relates to the uniqueness of God.” This

doctrine is a test whether one’s “commitments to Jesus and to God are

biblical enough that you have the problem the doctrine of the Trinity

solves. It may be that there will be other solutions, words, phrasings or

ways to avoid tripping over the problem the way the Greeks didf’ But

unless those solutions reflect a commitment to the man Jesus and to the

unique God of Jesus, “we shall have left the Christian family””

In an important point, whose significance will be developed later

in chapter 10, Yoder wrote that the history of the ideas depicted in the

post-New Testament period was complex and “enormously varied and

enormously scattered.” That means that the logical development of posi-

tions he described ought not be taken “as an actual description of what

Went on.”(96)

Describing the doctrine of the Trinity as an intellectual problem

brings Yoder to the question of the authority of the Nicene Creed. His

statement reflects the two-fold comments on the doctrine of the Trinity.

________________

94. Yoder, Preface (2002), 204.

95. Ibid. That Yoder could reject “threeness-in-oneness" as saving doctrine and

as a product of revelation, and also raise the possibility that different language might

be used in another culture, indicates why, in my view, it is inappropriate for Branson

Parler to brand Yoder's approach to culture “trinitarian.” Note the subtitle of Parler,

Things Hold Together: John Howard Yoders Trinitarian Theology of Culture, as well as

his entire argument. Parler is of course correct that Yoder’s theology affirmed both

the presence of God in the work of Jesus and the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

which Yoder said was the intent behind the traditional doctrine. And the designa-

tion of trinitarian is certainly attractive to the creedal-oriented audience that Parler

is most interested in addressing. Nonetheless, since Yoder indicated that threeness

was not itself an intrinsic characteristic of God in Christ, and since Yoder implied

that other language was appropriate, and since as is stated later in this essay Yoder

mentioned giving a favorable analysis of the classic formulations “without being tied

to the adequacy of these formulations in all other times and places,” the designation

“trinitarian” is a misleading descriptor of Yoder’s theology It is not a designation that

he would have applied to himself

96. Yoder, Pr#ace (2002), 205.

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WEAVER--Christology

On the one hand, he notes that it is “understandable” that the “high

church tradition” would affirm Nicea and also later creeds “because the

king was finally on that side." This political authority gives the Nicene

Creed a “hermeneutical authority” that is “not theoretically above the Bi-

ble but practically above it in application.”(97) But beyond this high church

tradition, Yoder notes that many Christian groups and theologians, “who

in principle refuse to grant the Catholic church any right to set up a nor-

mative interpretation of the Bible ..., still give the Nicene Creed and its

trinitarian statements equal authority with the Bible."(98)

Yoder listed two arguments that make it “dubious” to give this creed

any authority. One argument concerns the politics between 325 and 431

from which the creed emerged, the motives and methods of the theo-

logians involved, and “the personal quality of Constantine.” The second

argument against granting authority concerns the way that “Hellenistic

thought forms” are “foreign” to the biblical way of thinking, and fit “nei-

ther the Hebrew mind nor, for that matter, with the modern mind."(99)

Thus Yoder rejects any authoritative claim for the creed based on

the belief that it is “supernatural truth, supernaturally communicated for

its information value.” He rejects the idea that it might be “learning [thatJ

the Holy Spirit gave to the Council Fathers at Nicea because there were

bishops assembled from the whole world at the invitation from the Ro-

man Emperor.” Apart from adherents to a high church tradition, the “only

claim” that fits with “the Believers’ Church tradition, and for modern

reading of the story” is that “it seems to have provided the best answer to

an intellectual problem.” The doctrine of Nicea “is not authoritative, but

the claims of Jesus who creates the problem are." Nicea “is valid because it

reflects the serious struggle of people, within their language and culture,

with their commitment to an absolute God and to a normative Jesus."(100)

As further comments from Yoder and analysis of his writing will reveal,

that is not an endorsement of the Nicene Creed as a universal statement

and it is certainly not the establishment of Nicene doctrine as the basis of

Yoder’s further theologizing and his ethics.(101)

_________________

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid., 204.

99. lbid.

100. Ibid., 205.

101. See note 146, which discusses the claim that Yoder built on Nicea in the con-

text of the analysis that displays his essay “But We Do See Jesus” as a continuation of

his discussion from Preface.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION ON JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

Chalcedon and the Humanity of Jesus

Yoder began his discussion of the emergence of the formula of Chalcedon

with the declaration that the more seriously one takes the deity of Jesus,

as asserted by Nicea, the more acute become the questions concerning

the human and divine natures of Jesus. “The more the doctrine of the

Son as divine hypostasis is settled, the more difficult the relationship that

he has to the man Jesus becomes.”(102) Again, the general outline of these

developments is well-known in the history of doctrine, and I supply only

the briefest sketch for reference purposes.

The positions emerged from the differing emphases of the theologi-

cal schools at Alexandria and Antioch. Alexandria was most concerned

to preserve the unity of Jesus’ person. In discussion of the incarnation,

the Alexandrians used the language of the Word becoming flesh. The

school of Antioch focused on the particular humanity of Jesus as a man.

For them, the discussion of incarnation meant that Jesus became a man.

As Yoder told the story both schools intended to be trinitarian and

to affirm the statements from Nicea. However, their varying emphases

lead to different concerns or fears. The Alexandrians feared Ebionitism,

the idea that Jesus was a righteous man on whom deity may have de-

scended. In contrast, the Antiochians were concerned to reject modal-

ism, the idea that the visible form of a man was only a shell in which deity

dwelled and not true humanity

The most Well-known deviant position in the Alexandrian line was

articulated by Apollinarus. His effort at preserving both humanity and

deity in a unified person produced the idea of a “divine mind,” namely the

“Logos of God,” resident in Jesus’ human body Apollinarus’ view thus is

“docetic,” a view in which Jesus is not fully human. He lacked a human

mind. It “did not grow, did not make decisions, because it was the mind

of God.”(103)

The major controversy which continued for several decades, con-

cerned the supposed teaching of Nestorius, a member of the Antiochian

school who became the patriarch of Constantinople in 428. In the fol-

lowing years he preached sermons against patripassianism and docetism,

vJews that did not take Jesus’ humanity seriously As a part of his argu-

ment, Nestorius objected to the term Theotokos, or “mother of God.”

_________________

102. Yoder, Prqface (2002), 212.

103. Ibid., 214.

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Because Jesus was the Son of God, Nestorius could accept the term, but

he preferred the term “mother of Christ.” With this term he sought to

avoid the appearance of worshipping the mother as well as the Son. In

order to embarrass the Antioch school, Cyril the bishop of Alexandria

then accused Nestorius of teaching that Jesus was actually both a human

son and a divine Son inhabiting one body. Politics had a great deal to

do with the course of the argument, which went on for more than two

decades. The details need not concern us here.

A council was called that met at Chalcedon in 451. The formula

adopted by the council affirmed Nicea’s declaration that Father and Son

were of the same substance. Then it applied that language to Jesus and

humanity as well. Mary was called Theotokos. And the person of Jesus

was described in “two natures, without confusion, without change, with-

out division, without separation.” This answer presumed to speak to the

concerns of both Alexandria and Antioch as it affirmed the unity of Jesus’

person while also acknowledging both human and divine natures. Yoder

called it a statement “of the distinctness of the natures in their unity.” It

was Nestorius’ position, but he lost out in the politics and he was con-

demned personally.(104)

Yoder suggested several points for evaluation of the Chalcedonian

formula. First and perhaps most important, it puts on display that the

church took the declaration of Nicea seriously. There would have been no

debate about the relationship of Jesus’ humanity or human nature to his

divine nature if there were not first a strong affirmation of Jesus’ deity and

unity with God the Father.(105)

Further Yoder raised some questions about the formula. He noted

that a number of modern critics call it “verbal baloney,”(106) requiring

Christians to accept “a bunch of verbal definitions that do not have to be

accepted.” Yoder does not deny this sharp critique, but nonetheless points

out that the problem posed by the New Testament writing would still

be there in a different culture and world View The Chalcedonians “were

solving a problem that came out of the encounter of different frames of

reference and sets of definitions. 'They tried to safeguard what a Christian

has to say to be faithful to Jesus and still say it in the terms of the cul-

  ________________

104. Ibid., 217. On the politics around the condemnation of Nestorius, see Jenkins,

Jesus Wars, 131~226.

105. Yoder, Preface (2002), 218.

106. Outside of conservative theological circles, it is not difficult at all to find skep-

tics, both Christian and non-Christian, who would echo Yoder’s language.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

ture in which they were speaking and as answering the questions that it

raised.” Even if we say that the Chalcedonian arguments were raising the

wrong questions, Yoder said, it is not clear that we are raising the right

questions.‘(107) Yoder’s comments seem to acknowledge all the problems

that modern scholars can raise, but nonetheless retain the idea that the

Chalcedonians were struggling with a real problem even if we dislike

their answer. These comments point to the particular context of the Chal-

cedonian formula and allow for the possibility of a different statement in

another context.

Yoder noted that the meaning of Jesus’ humanity “varies enor-

mously from one theological scheme to another.” For the Alexandrians,

birth mattered most-salvation came through God’s presence on earth.

In contrast, the Roman tradition “sees Jesus Christ as exalted Lord and

coming judge.” For Protestants generally and Yoder adds, “for the New

Testament,” the humanity of Jesus matters. “Humanity is in the image

of God” and God has chosen to deal with humanity “in person.” “The

humanity of Jesus is the necessary prerequisite to whatever God wants to

do with us.” This focus on Jesus as a man is the place to see “the obedi-

ence that God wants of us.”(108) Chalcedon is one way then, to guard that

humanity.

Yoder ended the discussion of Christology per se with a final com-

ment onthe authority of the classic creeds. It varies, he said. For Catholic

tradition, “The creeds are the history of the church.” This tradition holds

______________

107. Yoder, Preface (2002), 219.

108. Ibid., 220. Yoder’s best-known book, The Politics of Jesus (first published in

1972), expanded at length on the idea that the man Jesus reveals the will of God for

the conduct of followers of Jesus. In an often quoted text from that book, Yoder wrote

that “the view of Jesus being proposed here is more radically Nicene and Chalcedo-

nian than other vJews. I do not here advocate an unheard-of modern understanding

of Jesus. I ask rather that the implications of what the church has always said about

Jesus as Word of the Father, as true God and true Human, be taken more seriously

as relevant to our social problems, than ever before” (Politics of Jesus [1994J, 102). As

was indicated in note 49 of the Introduction, this text has been cited as evidence that

Yoder’s ethics depended on the classic Christology See for example, Carter, Politics

of the Cross, 133; Nation, “Politics of Yoder,” 39; Parler, Things Hold Together, 77. This

statement by Yoder demonstrates, as the chapter in hand has shown, that Yoder could

make use of classic Christology and considered it a possible way of guarding and re-

stating an important point from the New Testament. However, this quote is hardly

a statement that demonstrates Yoder's dependence on the classic Christology as the

basis of his ethics. It is rather a corrective, an explanation of why a different emphasis

is needed and why it was insufficient to attempt to base ethics for Christians on the

classic statements.

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that the Holy Spirit has led the church to speak in Christ’s name. 'Thus

“when the church states dogma in a creedal document, it is authoritative,"(109)

The classic Protestantism of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin has an am-

biguous stance. The Protestant movement began with a debate about the

authority of Scripture and proclaimed only the Scripture to be authorita-

tive. Yet these reformers were products of the medieval church, and they

assumed that the creed was “a handy summary of the Bible."(110)

Radical reformers--Servetus and Socinus--considered the Protes-

tant view a problem. Since these radicals were biblicists, and since the

doctrine of the Trinity and Chalcedon’s form of two natures are not in the

Bible, their stance was that such vJews cannot be required.(111)

Yoder depicted a position for Anabaptists between these radicals

and the Reformation leaders. Anabaptists “assumed the Apostolic Creed,

. . . But they did not give it any final authority.” Anabaptists could accept

this creed as a part of the tradition, “but they gave the creed no dogmatic

quality. They gave no special importance to the fact that the church had

made decisions about phrasing in the fourth or fifth century."(112)

Yoder used this description of an Anabaptist attitude to pose the

question for the contemporary church, whether the Mennonite peace

church or others, a question equally applicable to all who stand outside

of the Catholic tradition:

In what sense are we bound to doctrinal definitions of the fourth

century, or the fifth, or the sixteenth? Is it only in the sense that

they are useful documents of how the church struggled to keep

the centrality of Jesus straight in the language of their time? Or

do we, without thinking, take over from fundamentalism, which

took it over without thinking from Calvinist Orthodoxy, which

took it over without thinking from the Middle Ages, the idea

that there is a certain amount of post-biblical dogmatic sub-

stance that all Christians have to believe?(113)

Yoder supplied the beginning of an answer to his question. “Prob-

ably, if we were to be fully honest, we would need to challenge more

clearly the Catholic axiom that assumed the authority of the councils and

__________________

109. Yoder, Preface (2002), 222.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Ibid., 222-23.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

therefore of the creeds.” This challenge would mean refusing to grant the

creeds “automatic authority, while being still quite interested in listen-

ing to that history, learning from it, sympathizing deeply with what it

tried to say.” At their best, the creeds “define the nature of the problem

with which we are struggling. They are helpful as a fence, but not as a

faith.” Since they are helpful as a fence, Yoder suggests that partisans of a

“radical Anabaptist faith” should probably not focus on fighting for the

creeds. But yet even less should these Anabaptists fight against the creeds.

These creeds are part of a “confused history” that includes “a lot of dirty

politics§"‘4 “but this is the history with which God has chosen to lead

a confused people toward at least a degree of understanding of certain

dangers and things not to say if we are to remain faithful.”(115)

This journey through the development of Christology in Preface to

Theology has covered a great deal of territory, both biblical and historical.

Yoder identified the earliest narrative about Jesus in the New Testament.

It was contained in the sermon outlines in the book of Acts. Then in

earlier and later theological writings in the New Testament, he pointed

to numerous ways that that story was expanded, and how new and addi-

tional meanings were extracted from it or based upon it. New Testament

theologians emphasized different aspects of the story to address a variety

of issues and concerns and expresses the meaning of the story in new

contexts.

The New Testament theologians also left some questions unan-

swered. Most specifically, these unanswered questions concerned how

their high claims about Jesus were to be reconciled with a firm commit-

ment to Jewish monotheism, and how the high claims about Jesus could

be held together with his life as a genuine human being. These were the

questions that most concerned the theologians of the centuries after the

first Christian century. In following the development of these arguments,

Yoder showed the development of the classic positions in a context dif-

ferent from the New Testament, and also indicated positions that were

unacceptable.

Yoder’s last comments on Christology dealt with the authority of

the classic creeds. As depicted, he wrote that they are the only history

that the church has. On the other hand, he also questioned attributing

________________

114. Yoder`s language is more than justified by the description of these politics in

Jenkins, Jesus Wars.

115. Yoder, Preface (2002), 223.

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WEAVER--Christology

unlimited authority to these creedal statements. The clear implication of

granting less than ultimate authority to the classic creeds is that there

could be other ways of dealing with the unanswered questions from the

New Testament. The caveat for those alternatives, Yoder emphasized, is

that they must take as seriously the New Testament observations on high

Christology and on the humanity of Jesus as did the debates that pro-

duced the classic statements.

That Yoder could affirm Nicene and trinitarian formulas as correct

when answering the christological question within their frame of refer-

ence, but at the same time hold open the possibility of other answers

in a different context ought not surprise. In terms of methodology, his

discussion of post-New Testament Christology continues the approach

he displayed for the New Testament. For the New Testament writers, he

described multiple ways to express the truth of the narrative of Jesus,

multiple ways to extend the meaning of that story, and theological state-

ments that emphasized different aspects of the story and its meaning. His

analysis of Nicea, Cappadocian trinitarian doctrines, and then Chalce-

don follow that same pattern. Since he pointed to different worldviews

in the New Testament, which required different answers, it ought not

surprise that he both indicates the worldview of the classic statements

and then holds open the possibility of other theological statements in

other worldviews.(116)

Yoder carried his observations further and made even more explicit

the possibility of alternative christological statements in his published es-

say “But We Do See Jesus."(117) It can be considered an example or even a

culmination of the developments described in Preface.

____________________

116. Those who want to align Yoder's view with Nicene orthodoxy adopt several

strategies-minimizing Yoder’s view that these statements reflect a particular context,

or using rather selective quoting, or stating that today he would make corrections.

In some cases, Yoder’s clearest statements are ignored. For specific conversation with

those who would align Yoder with classic orthodoxy, see notes 90, 95, 108, 146, and

151.

117. Yoder, “But We Do,” Foundations, reprinted as Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly;

Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacyist. Citations provide page numbers from both Priestb/ King-

dom and Pacwst Way of Knowing.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

“But We Do See Jesus”

An earlier version of this essay was Yoder’s keynote address to a Believ-

ers Church conference at Bluffton College (now Bluffton University) in

October 1980. As noted in the Introduction to the book in hand, the

conference asked the question, Is there a believers church Christology? I

was the primary organizer of the conference, and the conference question

was a direct outgrowth of my use of learnings from Yoder’s lectures that

were eventually published as Preface to Theology. In the lectures, as just

described, Yoder opened the door to ways of discussing Christology that

were true to the intent of the classic formulations but did not use their

language or imagery He had also posed an understanding of ecclesiology

that emerged from following the narrative of Jesus and that differed from

the ecclesiology of Christendom.” It was thus a logical step to organize

the conference to ask whether this ecclesiology truly could pose a Chris-

tology that differed from the classic statements.

Yoder began his keynote address to the 1980 conference by com-

mending the planners for posing the question whether an identifiable

________________

118. One primary characteristic of this alternative or “believers church” was adult

membership, which is characterized by adult baptism. Adult versus infant baptism

then distinguishes the point at which the faith journey begins within the church.

This difference was extremely important in the sixteenth-century Reformation, when

Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and chose baptism again as adult believers. This

act of baptism, which signaled the formation of a voluntary church, was a rejection

of the state or established church that encompassed all of society and thus required

baptism of infants. This rejection earned martyrdom for several thousand Anabaptists.

The believers church continues the concept of a church of adult believers. A series

of conferences beginning in the late 1960s worked at clarifying the concept of the

believers church. Along with Donald Durnbaugh, John Howard Yoder was a prime

mover of this series of conferences. Chapter 7 to follow has an extensive discussion

of Yoder’s ecclesiology in this tradition. The papers from the first believers church

conference were published as Garrett, Concept of Believers’ Church. For a history of be-

lievers church denominations, see Durnbaugh, Believers’ Church. The idea of a church

of voluntary membership in and of itself has little meaning in North America, where

there is no established church. However, an important distinction still exists between

the believers church as understood by Yoder, in which the church is distinct from the

social order, and the idea of many Americans that the United States is a “Christian na-

tionf’ This latter designation implies that Christian faith encompasses and shapes the

social order. This difference between believers church and the assumption of Christian

America requires conversation and clarification of particulars-some denominations

that began as believers churches have embraced and now support the idea of a Chris-

tian nation, while some parts of denominations that began as established churches

have now become more critical of the fusion of faith and social order.

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WEAVER--Christology

ecclesiology could produce an identifiable Christology. He then specified

that in his remarks he would not be working with “Christology as such.”

Rather than working with “hypostaseis and physeis, personae, and ousiaef’

he would be dealing with “their socio-historical Sitz im Leben.”(119) In the

published version of the address, which the analysis here will follow Yo-

der moved directly to that context.

The context Yoder sought to address is the apparent relativity of

truth in the modern world. As a beginning point, he used the statement

from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing that ‘Accidental truths of history can

never become the proof of necessary truths of reason .... That . . . is the

ugly, broad ditch which I cannot get across.”(120) Yoder notes that the situ-

ation described by Lessing can be summarized as “pluralism/relativismf’

and that it poses a challenge “to a specifically Christian witness.”(121) This

then is the problem that he addresses in the essay namely how to witness

to the truth of Jesus Christ when there is no universally recognizable and

accessible foundation from which to prove the truth of Jesus. In answer-

ing that question, Yoder also speaks to the question of a Christology spe-

cific to the believers church concept, or a Christology that does not use

the classic formulas.

Yoder described several efforts to jump over Lessing’s ditch or to

find that firm, unmoveable foundation. What all of these efforts have

in common, Yoder wrote, is the belief that truth resides in “the mean-

ing system of the world claiming to be wider” than the one in which

the observer is standing. But that wider world, Yoder argues, is still only

one particular place. ‘Any given wider world is still just one more place.”

The mistake made “by the person emerging from the smaller world is

thinking that the wider society is itself the universe,” when in fact it is

just one more particular place even if slightly wider or more prestigious.

Thus Yoder states the question, “How can particular truths be proclaimed

publicly?” In this case, the truth to be proclaimed is the particular truth

of the gospel of Jesus.

Yoder began his answer with material from the New Testament,

namely five different christological images. The material is easily recog-

nizable as coming from the lectures that became Preface to Theology.(122)

____________________

119. Yoder, “That Household We Are," 1.

120. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 46; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifst, 22.

121. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 46, 47; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 23, 24.

122. When Yoder drafted the keynote address for the conference in October 1980,

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

He cited the logos Christology of John 1, which was written against a

Gnostic background. John identified Jesus with both the Word that was

with God and described Jesus becoming flesh as a human being. Next

came Hebrews, which pictured a hierarchy of angels and priests that me-

diated between God and humankind on earth. Against this backdrop,

Jesus the Son was placed with God above the angels, but also depicted

as a human being who was both priest and human victim. Colossians

was written against the background of the network of heavenly powers

and principalities that hold the world together. The writer situates Jesus

as creator and lord of these powers but also able to be crushed by them.

Since Jesus is risen, however, their power over him is broken. Yoder’s

fourth text was the image of the slain lamb in Revelation 4. Being able to

open the scroll represented the Lamb as the key to the meaning of his-

tory, while having been slain qualifies the Lamb for the world’s judgment

and salvation. The final image is the new Adam from Philippians 2, who

in contrast to the old Adam did not try to grab equality with God. Rather,

Jesus accepted identification with humanity and remained obedient unto

death, which qualified him for exaltation to the right hand of God.”(123)

These texts contain five different christological images-logos, cre-

ator, high priest, lord of history new Adam. Yoder explained that each

image was the result of an apostolic writer confronting the challenge of

explaining the meaning of Jesus in a new context, in “a previously formed

cosmic vision.” But in creating these different images, the five writers all

made the same moves, which indicates “a syndrome or deep structure.”(124)

Yoder identified six characteristics of this deep structure: 1) The

writer is “at home in the new linguistic world, using its structure and fac-

ing its questions.” 2) “Instead of fitting the Jesus message into the slots the

cosmic vision has ready for it, the writer places Jesus above the cosmos,

in charge of it.” 3) In each case, there is strong emphasis on Jesus “be-

ing rejected and suffering in human form,” which validates his lordship.

4) Instead of understanding salvation in terms defined by the host cosmos,

“What we are called to enter into is the self-emptying and the death~and

only by that path, and by grace, the resurrection-of the Son.” 5) “Behind

the cosmic victory, enabling it, there is affirmed (without parallel in the

______________

that was also approximately the time that he would have edited his lectures into form

for their informal publication as Yoder, Preface (1981).

123. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 50-52; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pac#ist, 27-29.

124. Yoder, “But We Do,” Pfi€Sfb/, 5 3; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacyist, 29.

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WEAVER--Christology

synoptic Gospels) what later confession called preexistence, co-essential-

ity with the Father, possession of the image of God, and the participation

of the Son in creation and providence.” 6) “The writer and the readers of

these messages share by faith in all that that victory means.”(125)

Yoder described what the writers accomplished with the images that

reflect this deep structure. For one, they challenged “the contemporary

pagan mind, and they did it in terms familiar to that mind, from within

its linguistic community.” Further, they proclaimed their message from

within Judaism. Rather than leaving it behind or requesting space for it as

one view among many in the ‘Athenian marketplace of ideas’ they made

the claim that “the Hebrew story had widened out to include everyone;

that, with the inbreaking of the messianic era, the Jewish hope in process

of fulfillment was wide enough to receive all the nations and their riches.”

To accomplish this move, they took the categories of the majority cul-

tures, “hammered them into other shapes, and turned the cosmology on

its head, with Jesus both at the bottom, crucified as a common criminal,

and at the top, preexistent Son and creator, and the church his instru-

ment in today’s battle.” In other words, the categories of the world were

not allowed to define the questions. Rather, it was the Rule of God that

defined truth.

The rebellious but already (in principle) defeated cosmos isbeing brought to its knees by the Lamb. The development of ahigh Christology is the natural cultural ricochet of a missionaryecclesiology when it collides as it must with whatever cosmol-ogy explains and governs the world it invades.(126) 

This message about Jesus is good news. It is news about the way that

the particular story of Jesus the Jewish messiah relates to the entire world.

This message cannot remain in its small ghetto precisely because it is a

message of good news for the world. And “because this news is only such

when received as good, it can never be communicated coercively; nor can

the message-bearer ever positively be assured that it will be receivedf"(127)

Although Yoder does not emphasize it here, the good news is intrinsi-

cally nonviolent, and there is no universally accessible point of appeal

by which to coerce belief. But although the message is good news for the

____________

125. Yoder, “But We Do,” PTi€Sfb/, 5 3; Yoder, “But We Dol’ Pacifist, 29-30.

126. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 54; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacyist, 31.

127. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 55, Yoder’s italics; Yoder, “But We Dol’ Pacifist,

31.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

hearers, the challenge of this good news “does not prove that people . . . in

that other world View are bad. It simply brings them news."(128)

Clearly Yoder’s description of the “deep structure” aligns itself with

the classic christological categories.” That comment is particularly true

for point six, which affirms “what later confession called preexistence,

co-essentiality with the Father, possession of the image of God, and the

participation of the Son in creation and providence.” And in a point that

needs to be emphasized, Yoder took pains to point out that the images,

which expressed this deep structure, each used the language of the par-

ticular world view into which the narrative of Jesus was carried. Being

aware of Yoder’s stress on use of the local language and images is im-

portant for understanding his next step, which occurs in a section titled

“How Not to Say It."(130)

Yoder writes that for the early Christians, it would have been the

wrong question to ask if Jews should enter the Hellenistic world and

adapt to its concepts, or if Paul should use Greek. Of course they should.

Rather, the proper question is the strategy they should use in that new

culture. It was “how to be there: how in the transition to render anew

the genuine pertinence of the proclamation of Christ’s Lordship, even

in a context (particularly in a context) where even the notion of such

sovereignty is questionable."(131)

Yoder then suggests that “we,” that is, contemporary Christians,

should follow the same strategy which is to carry the good news of the

story of Jesus into our context. That context is the “pluralism/relativism”

identified at the beginning of his essay as Lessing’s ditch. “We are now

called to renew in the language world of pluralism/ relativism an analogue

to what those first transcultural recconceptualizers did; not to translate

their results but to emulate their exercise.” Thus, in a continuation of his

__________________

128. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 54-55; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist, 31.

129. Point made by Hauerwas and Sider in their introduction to Yoder, Preface

(2002), 17- 18. At the same time, it bears pointing out that with high Christology pres-

ent already in the New Testament, including in the earliest statements about Jesus, the

classic formulas are not intrinsically necessary as the guardians of high Christology.

Yoder would say that that guardianship role is fulfilled by the New Testament state-

ments of high Christology

130. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 56- 59; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacgist, 32- 3 6.

131. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 56, Yoder’s italics; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist,

32.

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WEAVER--Christology

comment from Preface quoted earlier concerning the concepts of “preex-

istence” and “participation in creation” Yoder continues,

The last thing we should ask, then, would be whether we cantranslate into our time from theirs the notion of preexistenceor of the participation of the Son in creation. That would beto contrast the rules of two language worlds instead of findinga message to express within both. That would be like askingwhether with the bases loaded you should try for a field goal oruse a number three iron. What we need to find is the interworldtransformational grammar to help us to discern what will needto happen if the collision of the message of Jesus with our plural-ist/ relativist world is to lead to a reconception of the shape of theworld, instead of rendering Jesus optional or innocuous.”(132)

Since our context is that of pluralism/relativism, Yoder says, of

course we should speak in those terms. Rather than asking whether to

speak in those terms, the proper question is “What shall we say?” Yoder

hastens to add that the answer is, “Jesus is Messiah and Lordf’ and our

task is to figure out how to say that in pluralist/relativist language.(133)

Yoder gives further indications on how not to do Christology in this

pluralist/relativist, contemporary context. For one, we should not attempt

to claim that “Christianity or Jesus, or anything, is absolute or unique or

universal in some way that could be supported, kept dry above the ways

of relatiVityf’13“ In other words, we should not argue for a universal abso-

lute that transcends relativity because, in fact, there is no such universally

accessible and recognizable place from which to argue.

________________

132. Yoder, “But We Do," Priestly, 56; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist, 33. In

his assertion that Yoder “repeatedly emphasizes the biblical support for the

. . . preexistence of the Son,” Parler has missed or (ignored) the statement quoted here

as well as the earlier quotation from Preface about not attempting to translate that

language in our pluralist/relativist context. (See also Priestly Kingdom, 62, and Pacifist

Way of Knowing, 38.) Of course Yoder noted the biblical view, but he also said that

we should not try to translate that particular concept from a different worldview into

our worldview. Thus Parler misuses what Yoder had said. But make no mistake at this

point-Yoder does not need the language of preexistence to preserve his “high Chris-

tology” and the belief that the work of Jesus is the work of God. A high Christology

was already vouchsafed in Yoder’s frequently quoted statement that “a high Christol-

ogy is the natural cultural ricochet of a missionary ecclesiology when it collides as it

must with whatever cosmology explains and governs the world it invades." The high

Christology of this statement is New Testament Christology.

133. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 56; Yoder, “But We Do.” Pacifist, 33.

134. Yoder, Preface (2002), 56-57.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER)S THEOLOGY

Further, we should not adopt relativism/pluralism as a true world-

view under the assumption that it is “wider” than the previous one, any

more than the other wider views noted above were accorded priority

Rather we are seeking an “evangelical alternative,” that is a witness about

the truth of Jesus as Lord, which would follow the strategies of the New

Testament Writers in “the practical affirmation that the present world, the

wider and the widest worlds of our day, is the arena with which it speaks;

but one which would claim to have something more to say than to con-

cede the sovereignty or the adequacy of the ideas currently dominating

that wider arena."(135) In the first centuries, all the parties to the conversa-

tion “lived in cosmologies with the top open for transcendent validation.”

Obviously we no longer live in such a cosmology. Yoder described our

context as “pluralism/relativism.”(136) Our task, then, is to translate the

meaning of “Christ is Lord” into our meaning frame of pluralism/relativ-

ism “in some continuity with what it meant in the first-century context."(137)

Witnessing to the claim that “Christ is Lord” in the pluralist/relativ-

ist context can have more than one answer, Yoder asserts. Answers might

be fragmentary with partially overlapping meaning frames, but the frag-

ments together might be the “functional equivalent of a proclamation of

lordship.” Since Jesus participated in datable, local history it might be

possible to make reference to Jesus at a point of partial overlap between

such frames of meaning. For example, Jesus intervened in liberation from

violence and in identifying with the poor and in constructing forgiving

communities. Such actions might be the basis of conversation between

other frames of meaning.(138) Of course these actions of Jesus are not

________________

135. Ibid., 57.

136. Yoder, “But We Do," Priestly, 57; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacyist, 34. I would add

a descriptor beyond Yoder’s. The pluralist/relativist ethos he described occurs within a

cosmology of an infinitely expanding universe consisting of finite pieces and objects. It

poses a marked contrast to the cosmology he described as “top open for transcendent

validation.” It is also important to add that our current cosmology is also the particular

View of our time; and in the long view, it is as subject to revision as the outmoded one

Yoder described. For an example of the use of the “top open" cosmology, see com-

ments throughout the Paradiso section of Dante, Divine Comedy. A description of the

nine circles of heaven with heaven beyond as the location of God appears in Canto

XXVIII of Paradiso.

137. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 57; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist, 34.

138. In a lecture delivered in 1980, Yoder made a similar observation. After stating

that we need to know what “Scripture and tradition” say on a given problem, he Writes

that we also need to know what other disciplines say “about human nature and the

shape of society. We cannot discuss theology without interlocking with the human

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WEAVER--Christology

unique and are “only relatively true,” Yoder adds with a seeming wink. We

are not seeking to overwhelm the sea of pluralism/ relativism, but rather

seeking “a way to stay within our bark, barely afloat and sometimes awash

amidst those waves, yet neither dissolving into them nor being carried

only where they want to push itf"(139)

Returning to his introductory reference to Lessing’s ditch, Yoder

writes that we no longer need to build a bridge or figure out how to leap

the ditch. In his analysis of relativism/ pluralism, Yoder has explained that

ground on the other side of the ditch is just as narrow and provincial.

“Reality always was pluralistic and relativistic, that is, historical. The

idea that it could be otherwise was itself an illusion laid on us by Greek

ontology language, Roman sovereignty language, and other borrowings.”

Nonetheless, we still have a witness to make that Jesus is Lord. “Yet within

this relativity and in the style of noncoerciveness, we can and must still

proclaim a Lord and invite to repentance. We report an event that oc-

curred in our listeners’ own world and ask them to respond to it. What

could be more universal than that?"(140)

This statement brings Yoder to a conclusion. His discussion has

concerned context rather than message. The message remains “Jesus is

Lordf’ The discussion has concerned the changing context in which that

message is proclaimed.

In making a restatement of the meaning of Jesus, Yoder says, just as

did the New Testament writers we should recognize that our context is

a place to make peace and to witness. As they took the message of Jesus

into a world not their own, we can as well. And we should even recognize

that our pluralist/relativist world today, through a sequence of historical

transformations, is the current product of their first venture of taking the

gospel into a foreign worldview.

_________________

sciences that study the same phenomena from other perspectives. The believer says

that faith in Jesus Christ makes love of the enemy imperative and possible. Could not

a psychologist describe and measure this? If love leads one to go out and make peace

with one’s adversary, could not a sociologist describe this event? When a preacher

claims ‘Violence is self-defeating” is that not a claim that a historian could verify or

refute? As we flesh out the realism of the message of reconciliation, it is therefore ap-

propriate, even imperative, that We attend to those other disciplines.” Yoder, War of the

Lamb, 125. For an example of the intersection of theology and psychology at the point

of forgiveness, see Weaver, “Forgiveness and (Non)Violencef’

139. Yoder, “But We Do." Priestly, 57-58; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 34.

140. Yoder, “But We Do." Priestly, 59; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 36.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

With their venture into a foreign worldview, the New Testament

writers of the messianic Jewish witness placed their Messiah both above

and within the culture of the foreign worlds they entered. It was an affir-

mation that under the lordship of Jesus, the “cosmos will find its true co-

herence and meaning.” Yoder supplied examples from Colossians, John,

Hebrews, Philippians, and Revelation. It is this “evangelical Christology,”

which proclaims “Christ above the powers,” that enables believers to live

as though creation is being redeemed even before it is made whole in the

second coming.”(141)

This faith statement about the place of Jesus as Lord does not prove

with historical certainty that the gospel about Jesus is true. It does not

prove that creation is being redeemed by the work of God in Christ. “We

still have not found a bridge or a way to leap from historical uncertainty

to some other more solid basis that would oblige people to believe or

make our own believing sure.” However, certainty does not come from

observing the world but from looking at the risen Christ. Yoder states

this in words from Hebrews 2:8-9: ‘As it is, we do not see everything

in subjection to him. But we do see Jesus, revealing the grace of God by

tasting death for everyone.”(142)

Although it may not be visible except to eyes of faith, this view of

Jesus enables us to begin talking about God in our language, or as Yoder

said, “to begin reconstructing God-language on this side of the ditch.”

Since this language works within our world, seeing Jesus in this way en-

ables a number of tactical alliances, as long as the believer’s true identity

is remembered and retained. That is, we can make tactical allies as long

as we do not allow the reference frame of the ally to become a new truth

foundation. Yoder supplied a number of contemporary suggestions of

such alliances. For example, there can be tactical alliances with those who

critique the earlier "too-close identification of church and dominion.”

Another tactical alliance is one with the “pluralist/relativist deconstruc-

tion of deceptive orthodox claims to logically coercive certainty” as long

as relativism is not allowed to become a “new monism” or unquestioned

given. Other alliances include working with those who would “dismantle

the alliance of church with privilege” but without allowing the promises

of revolution to become a new ultimate. We might form “tactical alliances

_____________

141. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 61; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 37- 38.

142. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 61, Yoder’s italics; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist,

38.

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WEAVER--Christology

with the Enlightenment, as did Quakers and Baptists in the century after

their expulsion from the Puritan colonies, or with the Gandhian vision,

as did Martin Luther King, Jr."(143)

For Yoder, it is the humanness of Jesus that is the basis for under-

standing his lordship. “For our world it will be in his ordinariness as

villager, as rabbi, as king on a donkey, and as liberator on a cross that

we shall be able to express the claims which the apostolic proclaimers to

Hellenism expressed in the language of preexistence and condescension.”

This approach is in no way a “lowering of sights” about the significance

of Jesus, Yoder asserts. It is rather “to renew the description of Christ

crucified as the wisdom and the power of God. This is the low road to

general validity." This low road that begins with Jesus working in the

world is actually the result of a tactical alliance with relativism/ pluralism.

This alliance has “freed us, by suspecting all the remaining claims of any

wider worlds, however accredited, to have the authority to pass judgment

on the Lord." This low road “frees us to use any language, to enter any

world in which people eat bread and pursue debtors, hope for power and

execute subversives. The ordinariness of the humanness of Jesus is the

warrant for the generalizability of his reconciliation."(144)

The universal meaning of Jesus in our relativist/pluralist world be-

gins with his particularity. “The particularity of incarnation is the uni-

versality of the good." The only road is the low road. “The truth has come

to our side of the ditch." It is the particular story of the man Jesus. Thus

Yoder concludes, “The real issue is not whether Jesus can make sense in a

world far from Galilee, but whether-when he meets us in our World, as

he does in fact-we want to follow him. We don’t have to, as they didn’t

then. That we don’t have to is the profoundest proof of his condescension,

and thereby of his glory."(145) In other words, in a pluralist/relativist world

with no universally recognizable and accessible source of authority by

which to coerce belief, we demonstrate our belief in the universal truth

of the gospel about Jesus by living in his story when it is not required

and even when it is costly. And with this conclusion, Yoder has stated

the meaning of Jesus and how it is to be appropriated in our relativist/

pluralist world, following the pattern set by the New Testament authors,

__________________

143. Yoder, “But We Do," Priestly, 61-62; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 38.

144. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 62; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 38.

145. Yoder, “But We Do," Priestly, 62; Yoder, “But We Do," Pacifist, 39.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER"S THEOLOGY

who restated the meaning of Jesus in the worldviews visible behind Co-

lossians, John, Hebrews, Philippians, and Revelation.

Analysis and Comment

Just as Yoder promised, the lectures in Preface to Theology dealt with both

content and methodology. The theological content consisted of Yoder’s

recitation of the development of Christology from the earliest statements

in the New Testament through several centuries to the emergence of the

classic formulas of Nicea, the Cappadocian definition of Trinity and

Chalcedon. That content follows the usual outline.

Equally important as content was Yoder’s discussion--actually, a

demonstration--of methodology, both that of the New Testament writ-

ers and his own that follows them. His analysis of the New Testament

writers put on display their methodology The earliest statements about

Jesus recounted the narrative of his life as a man and expected a response

from the hearers. Yoder then described the way that later writers-the

theologians-drew additional meanings from the story or restated it with

different emphases to extend the meaning of the story in new directions.

In his description of the New Testament writers, Yoder made visible the

fact that there were multiple ways to tell the story and multiple ways to

extract meaning from it with varying emphases and in different contexts.

This description of multiple expressions continued in Yoder’s analysis of

the post-New Testament materials. The new part of the discussion for this

period was taking notice that there were now also dead ends and incor-

rect efforts to develop meaning from the story of Jesus. And parallel to the

way that he had pointed to different contexts and world vJews in which

the New Testament writers took the story of Jesus, he also described the

worldview in which the classic statements developed and showed how it

differed from the worldviews visible in the New Testament.

With this brief summary of Yoder’s treatment of Christology in

Preface to Theology, it should be evident that the essay “But We Do See

Jesus” was by no means a mere statement of standard orthodoxy in post-

modern language. It stands as a kind of culmination--or perhaps better

stated, a demonstration--of the methodology on display throughout

Yoder’s Preface to Theology. He pointed to different contexts and world-

views throughout Preface. Now in this essay he continued that methodol-

ogy by pointing to five different worldviews in the New Testament and

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five different christological images produced within those worldviews.

He cautioned that our task today was not to attempt to reproduce the

answers produced within those worldviews, which are clearly not our

worldviews. Rather than replicating those answers, we should identify

our own worldview, which Yoder characterized as relativism/pluralism,

and then figure out how to express the meaning of Jesus within that

worldview in a way that both uses its language but places Jesus over it

as Lord. The way to do that, Yoder suggested, was to work with the hu-

manness of Jesus, and to make tactical alliances with others at the point

where their concerns intersected with those visible in the story of the

man Jesus. And it is by choosing to live in this story of Jesus, when it is

not required and in the face of the challenge of relativism and its compet-

ing ideologies, that Christians today witness to the ultimate claims and

the universal meaning of the story of Jesus as Lord.“(146)

________________

146. Those interpreters who argue that John Howard Yoder’s thought was based

on Nicene orthodoxy have either misunderstood the essay “But We Do See Jesus" or

have ignored it. Mark Thiessen Nation wrote that Yoder connected his approach “to

classic orthodox theology” In his description of “But We Do See Jesus.” Nation does

note that Yoder was asserting that the “canonical Jesus” was normative. But about

the essay Nation writes, “By the early 19808, Yoder was at times strategically employ-

ing post-modern terminology,” which Nation then illustrates with Yoder’s statement

that “reality is always pluralistic and relativistic, that is, historical.” However, Nation

ignores entirely Yoder’s comments about not translating notions of preexistence or

the Son’s participation in creation. Thus Nation also apparently missed the fact that

Yoder’s use of "postmodern terminology” was not a statement about Christology per

se, but was a description of our contemporary context as distinguished from the early

church context, which necessitates a new statement of the meaning of Jesus is Lord

in this new context. See Nation, John Howard Yoder, 56-60, and Nation, “Politics of

Yoderf’ 39-41, quote 39, 40. A similar mistreatment appears in the introduction by

Hauerwas and Sider to the published edition of Preface to Theology. They speak of

Yoder’s “reclaiming of the dogmatic tradition” and their supposed proof, referring

to the unpublished, keynote version of the essay, is to cite Yoder’s description of

the “deep syndrome” and his statement that culminates with the assertion that “the

development of a high Christology is the natural cultural ricochet of a missionary

ecclesiology.” However, Hauerwas and Sider fail to recognize that the specific high

Christology to which Yoder was referring was not Nicea but the high Christology of

the New Testament images, which is then recognized in the deep structure that Yoder

described. And since they chose to quote from Yoder's unpublished paper rather than

the version revised for publication as “But We Do See Jesus.” Hauerwas and Sider then

miss or ignore the statement Yoder added about “How not to say it,” and thus misread

his concluding assertion that proclaiming the risen Lord was the way to assert high

Christology in the context of relativism/pluralism, and was not simply a reassertion

of the dogmatic tradition. See Yoder, Preface (2002), 17-19. In his own book, I. Alex

Sider followed a similar strategy He wrote that “one searches Yoder’s texts in vain

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

As far as the question of the conference for which Yoder wrote

the essay published as “But We Do See Jesus,” Yoder did not explicitly

identify any Christology past or present as a Christology specific to the

believers church. What he did was to sketch a methodology for thinking

about how to develop Christologies that would reflect believers church

ecclesiology. Thus he implied strongly that the answer to the question of

the conference was yes, there could be a believers church Christology,

and even more than one. In the conclusion to the conference address,

he noted that since the demise in the nineteenth-century of orthodoxy

as self-evidently true, rather than fitting the Gospel under one of the

prevailing Powers, we have again the possibility of “a renewal of the mis-

sionary arrogance (arrogance need not be a pejorative term) that dares

to claim that Jesus, proclaimed as Messiah and Kyrios, transcends rather

than being transcended by each new cosmos as well. When that happens,

there is again a believers’ church Christology."(147)

In his 1964 publication The Christian Witness to the State, Yoder

suggested using “middle axioms” as a means of translating the impact

of the reign of God into terms that the state could apprehend. Middle

axioms “will translate into meaningful and concrete terms the general

_________________

for a decisive contemporary non-Constantinian refutation of pro-Nicene theologyf’

but does acknowledge three ways that Yoder “did attempt to decenter Nicaea in the

contemporary imagination.” Sider, To See History Daxologically, quotes 107, 116. How-

ever, Sider does not acknowledge the ways that Yoder opened the door, particularly in

“But We Do See Jesus,” for expressions of Christology that bypass Nicea. In his book

on Yoder’s theology Craig Carter uses Preface to Theology extensively, but quite selec-

tively. In defending Yoder against a charge that he did not accept orthodox Christol-

ogy Carter asserts that Yoder’s writing lacked an adequate balance, that is, “he did not

emphasize orthodox Christology (or the work of the Holy Spirit or the resurrection

of Christ) enough in his best-known writings.” Nonetheless, Carter argues, “There is

solid textual evidence in Yoder’s writings for interpreting Yoder himself as holding to

a solidly orthodox Christology.” which is the foundation for “a constructive Christian

theological ethics.” Carter takes Yoder’s statements that demonstrate how the classic

categories reflected New Testament theology as Yoder’s assertion of orthodoxy while

neglecting Yoder’s statements that show the possibility of alternative formulations.

Further, although Carter deals extensively with Christology he has only one, incon-

sequential reference to “But We Do See Jesus.” Carter, Politics of the Cross, 116-36,

quotes 135; see also 23 2, 233, 236, 239, and 246, where Carter says, “the case for the

ethical authority of the life and teachings of Jesus being based in orthodox Christology

is made in depth in Preface, which deals extensively with the relationship between the

New Testament Christology and developments in the first five centuries.” The analysis

of the present book has demonstrated the error of Carter’s description of Preface.

147. Yoder, “That Household We Are,” 7.

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relevance of the lordship of Christ for a given social ethical issue."(148) Ex-

amples were to use language available to governmental officials to oppose

capital punishment, and to use just war logic to lessen violence or op-

pose war. Not long after the publication of this book, Yoder abandoned

use of the term “middle axiom.” However, he continued the practice in

wide-ranging fashion of using the frame of reference of his interlocutor

to move the conversation in the direction of the kingdom of God. He

was demonstrating that practice already in the New Testament when he

noted that the writers expressed the meaning of the narrative of Jesus in

terms of the cosmology or worldview they were entering. It is visible in

his willingness to appeal to the classic christological terminology (as in

his statement that his view “is more radically Nicene and Chalcedonian

than other vJews”)(149) while also opening the door to bypassing the clas-

sic language. In the memo considered in the next section, he described

this methodology as embracing of cross-cultural communication “in the

other guy’s terms." The point to emphasize here is that this methodology

presupposes and depends on the christological commitment displayed in

Preface and the essay “But We Do See Jesus.”(150)

__________________

148. Yoder, Christian Witness, 32. This book was reprinted as Yoder, Christian Wit-

ness (2002).

149. See note 108.

150. It is important to stress that the original need for middle axioms and then

Yoder’s continuation of the practice without so labeling it assumes the christological

foundation described in this chapter. Thus I dispute the conclusion of Paul Martens

that Yoder’s “body politics” was in essence a substitution of the formula “church as

paradigm" for the early “middle axioms,” and results in a secular ethic and the designa-

tion of Yoder as “heterodox” According to Martens’ analysis, when Yoder describes

the practices of the church as a model for the world, Yoder has simply turned the lord-

ship of Christ into “a form of secular social ethics,” and faith into “just another idea” or

“another form of ethics” in the line of theologians such as “Kant, Harnack, Ritschl, and

Rauschenbusch.” In Martens’ view, these moves were related to Yoder’s critical view of

the classic doctrine of Christ. But this critique of the classic doctrines is insufficient

of itself to earn the characterization of “heterodox,” Martens said. That charge comes

from a consideration of “the larger movements in Yoder’s thought” that produced what

Martens called secular ethics and which led to Yoder’s “idiosyncratic assessment of the

creeds.” Since Yoder did not reject the creeds outright, he could not be called a heretic,

but failure to embrace them eliminated orthodox as a descriptor-hence the designa-

tions “idiosyncratic” and “heterodox.” See Martens, Heterodox, 26-27, 141-47, quotes

142, 144, 145, 146. The strong and clear christological foundation that is described

in this chapter and is expressed in Yoder’s ecclesiology reveals the misperceptions of

Martens’ conclusion. Chapter 7 to follow has an extensive discussion of Yoder’s “body

politics.” While Yoder did relativize Nicea, “heterodox” does not properly identify

him. This designation defines Yoder in terms of what he was not, namely beholden to

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

A major contributor to misreading Yoder’s Christology stems from

failure to recognize sufficiently this multifaceted approach. On the one

hand, Yoder defended the orthodox formulations to the extent that he

demonstrated how they developed as true answers within their context

to questions posed by the New Testament. But on the other hand, he also

pointed to the context of the classic formulas and the aspects that limited

their ethical applicability, and explained how other expressions could be

valid in different contexts. Thus he opened the door wide to formulas

and answers that could bypass the classic formulas but would nonetheless

be compatible with their concerns. The possibility of developing other

formulations emerged from his demonstration of the variety of theologi-

cal expressions visible already in the New Testament. Seeing this range of

developments in the New Testament thus shows the way to using other

language to convey the meaning of Jesus in contexts different from those

of the classic formulas. The chapter in hand examines this multifaceted

approach.(151)

Thus the implications are clear for one of the current points of dis-

cussion in the literature about the basis of Yoder’s theology Those who

have argued that Yoder’s theology is compatible with Nicene orthodoxy

____________________

standard orthodoxy and it says little about what Yoder was actually attempting to do,

which was to develop theology and ethics “specific to Jesus.”

151. Those who would argue for Yoder’s dependency on classic orthodoxy have

used selective quotes or have failed to recognize or acknowledge the multiple facets

of Yoder’s methodology under the assumption that all of Yoder’s christological state-

ments could be fused into a single, orthodox view. They cannot. The analysis here

displays the error of these efforts. Yoder has a consistent methodology of starting with

Jesus, but statements made in different contexts and worldviews as expressions of that

methodology cannot be synthesized into a single Christology.
 

Branson Parler makes a most recent effort to achieve such a synthesis. Parler even

makes brief oblique reference to the opening Yoder made to other formulations.

However, his summary of Yoder’s approach to the classic creeds lists five critiques

Yoder made and five positive statements. Parler concludes that “in the end, [the posi-

tivesJ outweigh the negatives.” Without labeling Yoder “orthodox,” Parler consistently

stresses the compatibility of Yoder’s theology with these creedal statements. As previ-

ously indicated, this view is correct as far as it goes, but it ignores the door Yoder

opened to other expressions. Parler’s approach also contains an ambiguity One is left

to conclude that Yoder’s compatibility with the classic creeds is the same as “depends

on” or “extends” In my view, neither of those is a correct designation of Yoder. Since

for Yoder every theological analysis is to begin anew with the Jesus of the New Testa-

ment, Yoder’s own theology would not depend on or extend the classic creeds. Parler,

Things Hold Together, 89-99; for “oblique” see 91, 99.

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are partially correct.(152) Yoder did argue that Nicea and Chalcedon reflect-

ed genuine problems posed by the New Testament, and in their context

were the best answers to those questions. However, the analysis here of

Yoder’s methodology shows why these attempts to define Yoder as ortho-

dox Nicene are only partially correct. For one thing, when Yoder said that

his view was more true to Nicea and Chalcedon than the Nicenes and

Chalcedonians,(153) he was offering a corrective. His corrective was that

he was saying more than Chalcedon. Chalcedon's affirmation of the full

humanity of Jesus should include the particulars of his life as a human

being, which would make his rejection of violence an integral dimension

of afhrmations about Jesus as fully God and fully human. The corrective

is thus a suggestion on reforming the standard view from within rather

than naming it as a foundation.

Thus those who have argued that Yoder did not stand on Nicene-

Chalcedonian orthodoxy are also partially correct,(154) but defining Yoder

in that negative way--what he did not espouse--is thus an inadequate

and misleading designation as well. It neglects to understand Yoder in

terms of what he did affirm, namely the priority of the New Testaments

narrative of Jesus and the normativeness of the human Jesus for ethics

and theology.

The analysis here addresses yet a third rather wide-spread conclu-

sion on Yoder, namely that his ethics were ad hoc and that he was one

postmodern thinker to be put in conversation with other postmodern

philosophers and theologians. Again, as with the previous two disputed

conclusions, there is partial truth in this one as well. He did discuss ethics

on a wide range of topics and his anti-foundationalist stance does locate

him in a postmodern mode. However, neither the ad hoc nor the post-

modern descriptors fully account for the priority that he gave to the nar-

rative of Jesus. His statements of ethics were wide-ranging, but they all

reflect the priority of Jesus, sometimes expressed directly and sometimes

in terms of the “other guy’s” frame of reference. And the priority Yoder

gave to the narrative of the Gospel identifies a beginning assumption not

visible in the designation “postmodern."

_____________

152. See note 146.

153. See note 108 above.

154. For references, see note 150 above, as well as note 27 in the Introduction.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

A Validating Memo

Yoder described his methodology in a memo written in late 1991, more

than a decade after the completion of the primary sources analyzed above.

He put the memo together from earlier sessions of “brainstorming” on

the subject. It contains thirteen paragraphs that discuss methodology.(155)

Comments from the memo support the description of Yoder’s methodol-

ogy and theologizing presented above.

The first and primary point of Yoder’s memo, restated several ways,

is that he rejects any foundationalism that would “impose on others the

right language or the right place to start.” He described his approach as

“taking on issues in the categories of others, unfolding the critique of the

other’s View from their own structure rather than beginning with my own

‘correct’ position.” His position is stronger, he wrote, “if/as/because it is

not my own, not stated on the grounds of a basis I first lay out.” “A foun-

dationalist beginning is by definition sectarian. The only place to start a

conversation is within the web.” “I eschew foundationalism because it is

a power move which seeks to win the game by decreeing the rules before

the game, beginning somewhere else than in the midst of the story/web.”

But on occasion it is still necessary to discuss where to start. In that

case, Yoder says, since the only place to start is within the web, his pro-

cedure is “to discuss how and why one starts within the web, and then

to lay out descriptively the shape of the web.” The example given for this

procedure is Preface to Theology. In other words, he applied his method-

ology of using “the other guy’s language” in theology as well as in ethics.

His description of the historical developments of Christology from the

New Testament through several centuries to the emergence of the Chal-

cedonian formula was not the development of his supposed standard or

orthodox christological foundation nor his establishment of this tradi-

tion as normative for all theology It was rather his description of the

web, the network within which theologizing can begin. As an example of

this non-foundational approach, he wrote that in Preface he “can recount

_________________

155. The analysis in this chapter was written before the memo came into my hands.

Thus Yoder’s statements in the memo are truly a validation of this chapter’s conclu-

sions. The memo was addressed to Mark Thiessen Nation and finished on December

17, 1991. It is ir1 Nations Yoder Collection at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrison-

burg, Virginia. I obtained a copy of the memo from Earl Zimmerman, who discussed

it in Zimmerman, Practicing the Politics, 180-82. In the following treatment of the

memo, quotations not attributed to another source come from this memo. Typos in

quotes from the memo are silently corrected.

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supportively the development of early Christian dogma without being

tied to the adequacy of those formulations in all other times and places.”

He wrote that “teaching of theology should be descriptive before it is nor-

mative. We watch it being done before it makes sense to discuss whether

or why it can be done." As example, Yoder again referred to Preface. “The

early history comes first; analyzing the place of the discipline arises out

of seeing it going on."

The essay “But We Do See Jesus” occupied a prominent role in the

earlier analysis of this chapter. Yoder refers to this essay twice in his 1991

memo. Once it was an example of what used to be called “induction,” “the

process of founding a generalization on a number of parallel observa-

tions.” The second occurrence was one of his examples in a section in

which he stated his appreciation for “symmetry [and] formal ‘elegance,”’

but only when the basis for it was clear.

This memo allows reinforcement of conclusions stated above. It is

correct to see Preface to Theology as a central element of Yoder’s theologi-

cal writing. In the memo cited here, he referred to it five times, more than

any other of his writings. He cited “But We Do See Jesus” twice, again

indicating that it was important in his mind.” These references reveal

that he considered them central to his thought, and they show clearly that

he respected the historic Nicene and Chalcedonian Christology, but that

he also specifically intended to keep the door open to alternative state-

ments. It is clear that “But We Do See Jesus” was not a merely a strategic

use of post-modern terminology to restate orthodoxy and this essay is

certainly much more than the basis for identifying Yoder as a postmod-

ern thinker who could be put in conversation with other postmodern

thinkers. It is rather an example of how to have a supportive view of the

development of early Christology but without being tied to its adequacy

in all other times and places. That example should be clear in his descrip-

tion of the deep “syndrome” that identified Jesus with both God at the top

of the hierarchy and humanity at the bottom, and in his conclusion that

the “high Christology” of the New Testament was the “cultural ricochet”

that resulted when the missionary ecclesiology of the New Testament

theologians was taken into another cosmology.” Naming and identify-

______________

156. The only other of his writings cited more than once in this memo was “Sacra-

ment as Social Practice,” which he mentioned three times. Yoder, “Sacrament as Social

Process,” reprinted as Yoder, “Sacrament as Social Process,” Royal. In revised and ex-

panded form, this article became Yoder, Body Politics, which is discussed in chapter 7.

157. Yoder, “But We Do,” Priestly, 53, 54; Yoder, “But We Do,” Pacifist, 29-30, 31.

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PART ONE--THE ORIENTATION OF JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY

ing “high Christology,” visible already in the New Testament, addresses

the concerns of Nicea (and Chalcedon) but, as he said, is not tied to the

adequacy of their terminology. Thus “But We Do See Jesus” is an example

of his understanding of how the story of Jesus can be made to address any

context, using language of that context, while being true to the New Tes-

tament’s views, which are expressed in other ways by the classic creedal

statements. Although one should never claim to know fully the mind of

John Howard Yoder, it does appear that comments from his memo of

1991 support the description of Yoder’s approach to Christology as out-

lined in this chapter.

One other noteworthy comment in the 1991 memo addresses

christological issues. Yoder stated, “I do affirm the priority of the gospel

but do not do it in dichotomized exclusive terms.” As he understood his

interlocutors, they heard his claims about affirming the gospel as a rejec-

tion of influence in the world, as an “against culture” stance. But Yoder

claims that his stance is actually one of involvement in the world. He gave

several examples--his belief that Christ transformed culture, his claim

that Jesus was relevant to the real world, his embrace of the missionary

task of cross-cultural communication “in the other guy’s terms.” It seems

that this priority of the gospel and its application is reflected in Yoder’s

analysis of the story in the sermons in Acts, and the development of the

meaning of that story in the five images of high Christology in “But We

Do See Jesus.”(158) This priority of the gospel means to be continually in

a mode of asking what the gospel means and what it looks like in new

contexts. This statement of priority recalls another statement of method-

ology. In the chapter, “The Authority of Tradition” in Priestly Kingdom,

Yoder wrote of being always in the process of “looping back” or “reaching

back” to the origins and the earliest memories.(159)

In other words, discussion of Christology always looks two ways.

On the one hand, it has its orientation point in the story of Jesus in the

New Testament. On the other hand, there is an understanding of the cur-

rent context so as to carry the story into that context in a meaningful and

transformative way. In this contemporary restatement, one can and will

________________

158. In an article published in 1992 in Faith and Philosophy, Yoder again discussed

taking the gospel into other cultures and using the language of those cultures to ex-

press the universal truth of the story of Jesus. He cited the five christological texts from

“But We Do See Jesus” as examples. For a reprint of this article, see Yoder, “On Not

Being Ashamed.”

159. Yoder, ‘Authority of Traditionf’ 69-71.

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learn from conversation with the received tradition but “without being

tied to the adequacy of those formulations in all other times and places.”

The following two parts of this book expand understandings of Yod-

er’s christological orientation. Part Two explores sources that contributed

to it. Part Three describes its most complete expression in the church, its

expansion to include nonviolent engagement with the world, interfaith

dialogue, and extension in additional theologizing.

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