PART THREE
Extending John Howard Yoder’s Theology
The chapters of Part Three are not a random collection of items that just
happen to concern John Howard Yoder. Each chapter makes an extension
or application of the view of Yoder’s Christology that was sketched in
chapter 1. In contrast to earlier thinking that would separate the religion of
Jesus from the theology of Paul, in chapter 6 Ted Grimsrud demonstrates
that for Yoder, Paul continued the story of Jesus, and that Paul’s theology
was derived from that narrative. Earl Zimmerman’s chapter 7 displays the
way that for Yoder, living out of the narrative of Jesus produces the visible
church that poses a nonviolent witness to the world. Yoder’s Body Politics,
for example, is an extension of his understanding of sixteenth-century
Anabaptism. In chapter 8, Gerald Mast develops and extends Yoder’s
understanding that patient suffering is indeed a witness that confronts
evil with the power to change it. Glen Stassen develops the activist, even
interventionist dimension of Yoder’s nonviolent ethic in chapter 9. This
element of Yoder’s peace ethic is less Well known, but Stassen’s chapter
reflects the book Yoder was working on at the time of his death. Chapter
10 deals with one of the most important applications of Yoder’s Chris-
tology, namely its potential to change the nature of interfaith dialogue.
J. Denny Weaver and Earl Zimmerman summarize Yoder’s approach to
the Jewish-Christian schism along with the parallel analysis of Jewish
scholar Daniel Boyarin, and then use comments from Yoder’s website to
extend the interfaith discussion to Islam and Hinduism. Chapter 11 by
J. Denny Weaver and Gerald Mast illustrates three ways to appropriate
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Yoder’s approach. First, the authors sketch a theological model that is
a result of going through the doors Yoder opened to developing new
theological imagery in our modern context. Then it displays two other
theological matrices and indicates how Yoder and Yoder-oriented theol-
ogy can enter into these ongoing conversations. What these seemingly
different chapters have in common is their roots in Yoder’s approach to
Christology Following these discussions stimulated by Yoder’s theology
proper, the final two chapters deal with the major dilemma posed by the
fact that Yoder’s hurtful, personal behavior with numerous women was
in sharp contrast to his peace theology In chapter 12, Ted Grimsrud de-
scribes the dilemma, along with a statement of learnings from Yoder and
a suggestion that nothing in Yoder’s theology reflects this misconduct.
In chapter 13, Gerald Mast situates the enigma of Yoder’s conduct vis-
a-vis his peace theology in the context of the expectations for a changed
life that exists in Anabaptist theology from the sixteenth-century to the
present, and suggests that the outrage at Yoder’s behavior actually reflects
the way that Yoder's theology has contributed to this expectation. While
he does not argue that Yoder’s theology allowed for his behavior, Mast
does offer suggestions for further theological development so that trans-
gressions by individuals do not appear to threaten the entire edifice of
Anabaptist theology
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Chapter 6
Jesus to Paul
TED GRIMSRUD
A somewhat overlooked element of John Howard Yoder’s argument
about the normativity of the “politics of Jesus” for present-day
Christians has been his effort to show that, contrary to traditional as-
sumptions, the thought of the Apostle Paul actually reinforces Jesus’
social-ethical message.(1) In fact, Yoder uses quite a bit more space in The
Politics of lesus making the case for Paul’s support for Jesus’ agenda than
he does in outlining the content of that agenda in the Gospels. Earl Zim-
merman’s earlier chapter pointed to the influence of Oscar Cullmann’s
research on Yoder’s theology including his understanding of Paul. This
chapter will sketch Yoder’s argument that Paul supported and extended
the nonviolent social message of Jesus.(2)
As a prelude to seeing Yoder’s rather extensive use of Paul in 771e
Politics of Jesus, we do well to appropriate for the purpose of the pres-
ent chapter Yoder’s comments on Paul’s methodology from chapter 1.
The analysis of that chapter dealt with Yoder’s approach to Christology in
Preface to Theology, a writing that existed in some form before he wrote
____________________
1, An exception is Harink, Paul among the Postliberals.
2. With significant revisions and additions, this chapter draws on material that
appeared in another form in Grimsrud, ‘Against Empire.'
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PART THREE -- EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
The Politics of Jesus. These lectures display Yoder’s clear assumption that
Paul’s thought was an extension and reinforcement of the narrative of
Jesus as gospel.
After pointing to six sermons in Acts as the early church’s first state-
ments about Jesus, Yoder wrote that in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul was using
the same narrative outline. Thus Paul’s theologizing was a continuation
of the theologizing of the early church. Yoder described the concept of
“solidarity,” which lay behind Paul’s linking of Jesus’ resurrection to belief
in a general resurrection and the salvation of believers. And Yoder noted
that Paul assumed the Old Testament story of Israel, with Adam as the
representative of human solidarity. Thus as chapter 1 said, “Yoder was
demonstrating how Paul’s theologizing was extending and developing
additional meanings from the earliest narrative about Jesus.” 'lhe point
that Paul was extending the meaning of Jesus is underscored by Paul’s ar-
gument that one judges the truth of the message of the spirits by whether
or not their message is contrary to Jesus.
From Galatians, Yoder pointed out that Paul used a variety of ways
to make a connection between Jesus and his readers. Paul appealed to
Abraham to demonstrate “grace” prior to the law of Moses. He called
believers sons of Abraham. In Galatians 6 Paul expressed the idea of soli-
darity in terms of the cross of Christ as a stance to the world in which the
believer shares.
In other words, in the Preface lectures, Yoder pointed to multiple
ways that Paul’s writings appealed to or assumed the narrative of Jesus.
Paul linked his thought to Jesus and to the history of Israel that had pro-
duced Jesus and which Jesus was fulfilling. With this material in view
from chapter 1 of the volume in hand, it should not surprise that signifi-
cant parts of The Politics of Jesus can emphasize the continuity of Paul
with the social-ethical message that Yoder found in Jesus.
Yoder makes two central arguments in The Politics of Jesus. The first
is to show that it is possible to read the story of Jesus (in fact, it is the best
reading of this story) to teach that he is “of direct significance for social
ethics.”(3) The second argument is that what Jesus actually said and did in
relation to social ethics remains normative for our present day In making
this second argument, Yoder turns to the writings of the Apostle Paul
since these writings have so often been interpreted in Ways that marginal-
ize Jesus’ own message.
_____________
3. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 11.
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
Rather than seeing Jesus and Paul as representing two more or less
mutually exclusive approaches to ethical life, Yoder suggests that we
should see Paul as a faithful and accurate interpreter of Jesus’ message.
Jesus and Paul are not stage one and stage two of the development of
Christian ethics that leads inevitably to Constantinianism. Rather, what-
ever we understand to be central to Jesus’ message we should also expect
to find in Paul’s message as well.
Yoder spelled out his affirmation of the close link between Jesus and
Paul-and the latter’s central relevance for our appropriation of the mes-
sianic ethic-in a series of chapters in The Politics of Jesus on four key
elements of Paul’s thought. These include discussions of Paul’s portrayal
of the social character of justification, Paul’s challenge to the hegemony of
the Powers, Paul’s call to revolutionary subordination, and Paul’s political
perspective according to Romans 13.
The Social Character of Justification
One central way that the majority Christian tradition has created a ten-
sion between Jesus’ life and Paul’s theology is in its understanding of
Paul’s concept of “justification.”(4) In the tradition, the words and deeds of
Jesus end up on the margins of theological and ethical development as a
result of the belief that Paul had narrowed down the core of the gospel to
justification by faith alone.
In this reading, Paul opposed any approach to salvation that could
be focused in piety, religious practices, or ethical behavior in ways that
would turn the believer’s attention toward human good works rather
than toward salvation as a free gift from God. As Yoder put it in his sum-
mary of the traditional reading, “Does not the insistence that justification
is by faith alone and through grace alone, apart from any correlation with
works of any kind, undercut any radical ethical and social concern by
implication?(5) Even if Jesus himself taught and practiced a countercul-
tural social ethics, it was argued in the mainstream theological tradition,
this part of his message had no long-term relevance. Paul understood
that well and zeroed in on what matters most-justification by faith alone
apart from “works righteousness.”
_____________
4. Ibid., 212.
5. Ibid.,213.
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PART THREE--EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
But according to Yoder, this is not an accurate reading of Paul’s ac-
tual teaching. Yoder asserted that for Paul “justification” has at its heart
ethical, social concerns. According to Yoder, Paul’s central concerns were
with the social character of the messianic community. Depending on a
well-known article by Krister Stendahl,(6) Yoder wrote that for Paul, faith
was not primarily a subjective experience. “Paul was not preoccupied
with his guilt and seeking the assurance of a gracious God.” For Paul,
faith was “not a particular spiritual exercise of moving from self-trust
through despair to confidence in the paradoxical goodness of the judg-
ment of God.” Rather, faith concerned what separated Jewish Christians
from other Jews, namely the belief “that in Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah
had come.” Paul was not really struggling with whether Jewish Christians
had to keep the law, Yoder said. Paul’s concern rather was that Jewish
Christians had failed to recognize that with the Messiah, “the covenant of
God had been broken open to include the Gentiles.” Thus Paul’s concern
was with the social form of the church. And Yoder could ask concerning
this community “Was it to be a new and inexplicable kind of community
of both Jews and Gentiles, or was it going to be a confederation of a Jewish
Christian sect and a Gentile one? Or would all the Gentiles have first to
become Jews according to the conditions of pre-messianic proselytism?”(7)
Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:24 reflects this new social reality
“Gentiles do not need to pass by way of the law, but can be incorporated
directly into the new community” This incorporation of Gentiles into
the community was a recognition of Paul’s own sin. Before he recognized
that the Messiah had come in Jesus, “he had persecuted the church and
fought the opening of God’s covenant to the Gentiles.” Paul was now set-
ting things right. But this setting right was not that “he has overcome
inner resistances” and has come “to trust God for his right status before
God.” Rather, the change is now that “Paul has become the agent of the
action of God for the right cause.” Before meeting Jesus, Paul himself had
violently persecuted followers of Jesus in the name of strict and exclu-
sionary boundary markers that would keep Gentile Christians out. Thus
Paul’s theology of justification by faith in Galatians and Romans emerges
directly from his own experience as the perpetrator of social injustice-
and speaks to how important he now saw it to be that the churches em-
body the new social reality of reconciled enemies that Jesus inaugurated?
______________
6. Stendahl, ‘Apostle Paul.”
7. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 215-16.
8. Ibid., 216-17.
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
When Paul proclaimed the “righteousness” (or justice) of God-the
message of justification--he emphasized that the message goes forth “to
both Jew and Gentile.” That is, the message goes out to both, together,
whether or not they have come by way of the law, with the intent that they
join in one new community devoted to embodying the way of Jesus. This
reconciliation of these former human enemies reflects the reconciliation
that is most central for Paul. He was less concerned with the end of “hos-
tility” between God and human beings (as a good Jew, he understood
God to be merciful) as the end of the hostility between Jew and Gentile.(9)
Paul argued in Galatians (see especially 2:14-21) that Jews and Gen-
tiles must be joined together in one fellowship. “To be ‘justified’ is to be
set right in and for that [new social] relationship.” The term “justification”
in Galatians hence links with the later language in Ephesians about “mak-
ing peace” and “breaking down the wall” that previously alienated Jews
and Gentiles.(10)
Paul’s most detailed theological statement, his letter to the Romans,
also picks up this sense of the social nature of justification, that is, rec-
onciliation of former enemies. Citing another author, Yoder points out,
The issue of the polarity of jew and Gentile is present at majorturning points throughout the argument of the book, as well asin the introduction and conclusion. The foreground meaning ofthe issue of the place of the law was not systematic theologicalspeculation about how human beings are to made acceptableto God.
Yoder thus emphasized that the problem of Romans was not about a sub-
jective experience of becoming acceptable to God, “but rather the very
concrete situation in which Jew and Greek, legalistic Christian and pagan
Christian need to accept one another.”(11)
In his summary of Paul, Yoder emphasized that for Paul, reconcilia-
tion was “a real experience,” (that is, not limited to an inner or subjective
experience), and the message Paul proclaimed was the same message
that Jesus had given early in his ministry. Paul “says that the triumph of
God’s love in his own sustaining of his creation is that he blesses equally
insider and outsider, friend and enemy in such manner that the genuine-
ness (Jesus said, ‘perfection’) of our love is also made real at the point
_________________
9. Ibid., 217, 218-19.
10. Ibid., 220.
11. Ibid., 223-24.
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PART THREE_EXTENDING ]oHN HOWARD YODER’S THEoLoGY
of its application to the enemy, the Gentile, the sinner.” This reconcilia-
tion produces a “new humanity” The demonstration “par excellence” of
this new, reconciled humanity concerns its inclusion of “enmity between
peoples, the extension of neighbor love to the enemy and the renuncia-
tion of violence even in the most righteous cause .... It is the Good News
that my enemy and I are united, through no merit or work of our own,
in a new humanity that forbids henceforth my ever taking his or her life
in my hands.”(12)
Yoder’s discussion of justification by faith showed that for Paul, jus-
tification envisioned a social entity namely the church, in which former
enemies, that is Jews and Gentiles, were reconciled. This social entity of
reconciled former enemies is a continuation of the social ethic of Jesus.
Yoder is thus very clear that no disjuncture exists between Jesus and Paul
on the matter of justification.
Paul`s Social Analysis: The Powers That Be
Another important way that Jesus’ messianic ethic has been marginalized
in the history of Christianity is the assumption that he did not give us a
social philosophy but spoke rather primarily to the personal realm. “One
of the strands in the argument against the normative claims made by or
for Jesus has always been that his radical personalism is not relevant to
problems of power and structure."(13) Even less has Paul been understood
as providing a way of applying Jesus' ethical directives to our social lives.(14)
Yoder suggests, however, that we have in Paul’s writings insights that do
speak directly to social ethics. And these insights help us make sense of
Jesus’ message and strengthen both the link between the social ethics of
Jesus and Paul and between theirs and ours.
Using insights gained from Hendrik Berkhof,(15) Yoder teases out
Paul’s social thought under the rubric of “the Powers.” The language of
________________
12. Ibid., 225-26.
13. Ibid., 134.
14. Ibid.,135-36.
15. See Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, Chapter 7 below also deals with Yoder’s
use of Berkhof. In the years since the publication of The Politics of Jesus in 1972, what
Yoder called “the most thorough review of the theme” of the Powers is the work of
Walter Wink: Wink, Naming Naming the Powers; Wink, Unmasking the Powers; Wink,
Engaging the Powers. Yoder’s description of Wink’s trilogy is Yoder, Politics of Jesus
(1994), 159.
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GRIMSRUD-Jesus to Paul
“the Powers” provides a way to speak of the structures of human life, reali-
ties beyond the activities of individual persons or even beyond simply the
sum of separate individuals. This language speaks metaphorically about
the discrete “personalities” and even “wills” that these structures possess
and exercise. Thus the powers include our institutions, traditions, social
practices, belief systems, organizations, languages, and so on, that impact
human behavior. Examples of this impacting activity might range from
the spirit of a college campus that shapes informal socializing without
written rules, or the atmosphere that turns a gathering of people into a
hostile mob, to the feeling of citizens that if the president calls the nation
to war then war is inevitable and all citizens are obligated to follow. Yo-
der’s method is not to attempt to translate the biblical imagery of powers
directly into a modern setting, but to ask what Paul and other New Testa-
ment writers mean with this vocabulary and how that meaning might
translate to the modern scene.(16) This use of the recent Powers scholarship
is a further application of Yoder’s methodological comments described in
chapter 1 about not translating the specific language of “pre-existence” or
involvement of the Son in creation into our modern language.(17)
The analysis of the six points here reflects Yoder’s description of the
Powers from Pauline writings.
(1) The Powers are part of the good creation. They were brought into being
by God as a “divine gift” that makes human social life possible. When
God created human beings, necessarily elements of human life such as
language, traditions, and ways of ordering community life all came into
existence alongside of and as a part of the normal functioning of indi-
vidual human beings. And like the original human beings, the Powers
were also good.(18)
This aspect of created reality is linked with Jesus Christ himself in
Colossians 1: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all
creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things
visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or pow-
ers--all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is
before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15-17). Here
the “Powers” include “thrones, dominions, rulers” and “the elemental
spirits” in Galatians 4:3, 9. Today Yoder suggests, we may want to say that
_______________
16. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 136, 138.
17. In chapter 1, see the text related to notes 57 and 132.
18. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 140-41, quote 141.
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PART THREE--EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD Y0DER’S THEOLOGY
this “Powers” language metaphorically describes the necessary “regular-
ity, system, and order” that human beings require in order to function
socially. The Bible teaches that God has provided for these needs via the
Powers. The provision is part of the goodness of creation.(19)
(2) The Powers are fallen. They are so closely linked with humanity that
when human beings turned from God-spoken of traditionally as “the
fall” and described in the story of Adam and Eve-so, too, did the Pow-
ers. It is as if the Powers, as part of created reality, turn against human
beings when humans are alienated from God. The fallen Powers then
seek to take God’s place as the center of human devotion, often becoming
idols. Yoder writes,
The Powers are no longer active only as mediators of the savingcreative purpose of God; now we find them seeking to separateus from the love of God (Rom 8:3 8); we find them ruling overthe lives of those who live far from the love of God (Eph 2:2);we find them holding us in servitude to their rules (Col 2:20);we find them holding us under their tutelage (Gal 4:3). Thesestructures which were supposed to be our servants have becomeour masters and our guardians.(20)
(3) The Powers remain necessary. In spite of their fallenness, the Powers
retain their original function. Human beings still require the “regularity,
system, and order” that only the Powers provide. “Even tyranny . . . is still
better than chaos.” Human life still requires ordering; the Powers are still
used by God in the sustenance of human social life. In spite of their fallen
condition, God “is still able to use them for good."(21)
Consequently, the Powers are both a huge part of the problem we
face in living in our fallen world and a necessary part of whatever solu-
tions we might find. The human dilemma in relation to the Powers is that
they are simultaneously a necessary part of our God-ordered existence
and an inevitable force that seeks to corrupt this existence and separate
us from God. “Our lostness and our survival are inseparable, both depen-
dent upon the Powers.”(22)
________________
19. Ibid., 140-41.
20. Ibid., 141
21. Ibid 141 42.
22. Ibid., 142-43, quote 143
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
(4) The Powers must be "put in their place.” Since the Powers are neces-
sary for ordered existence, Yoder said, they cannot simply be abolished or
ignored. With order a necessity for human existence, we must continue
to understand ourselves as subject to the Powers. “Subordination to these
powers is what makes us human, for if they did not exist there would
be no history nor society nor humanity. If then God is going to save his
creatures in their humanity, the Powers cannot simply be destroyed or
set-aside or ignored. Their sovereignty must be broken.”(23)
In other words, the Powers must be “put in their place.” Ultimately,
the Powers have only the power that we give them by our allegiance and
acceptance of their distorted portrayal of reality. We need them but they
should be our servants, on behalf of life, not our masters and idols that
make us become like them. Putting the Powers in their place and reveal-
ing their true character is what Jesus has done.
(5) Jesus conquered the Powers. Paul asserts that Jesus in fact has done
precisely what was needed. He lived, Yoder wrote, “a genuinely free and
human existence. This life brought him, as any genuinely human exis-
tence will bring anyone, to the cross. In his death the Powers-in this case
the most worthy, weighty representatives of Jewish religion and Roman
politics--act in collusion.”(14)
In responding to Jesus by killing him, however, the Powers actually
facilitated their own defeat. Although as a human being he submitted to
them, he rejected their authority. “Morally he broke their rules by refus-
ing to support them in their self-glorification” Thus his death was the
basis of his victory. “Therefore his cross is a victory, the confirmation that
he was free from the rebellious pretensions of the creaturely condition.”
In his submission to death by the Powers, Jesus demonstrated that he
was not a slave to any human institution, whether of “any power, of any
law or custom, community or institution, value or theory." This refusal
to conform to the Powers even to save his own life was Jesus’ exercise of
“authentic humanity.” Yoder thus proclaims that Jesus’ death enables his
victory: “Wherefore God has exalted him highly, and given him the name
which is above every name . . . That every tongue might confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord” (Phil 2:9-11).(25)
______________
23. Ibid., 144.
24. Ibid., 144-45.
25. Ibid., 145.
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PART THREE-EXTENDING John HOWARD YoDER’s THEOLOGY
By submitting to death by the Powers, Jesus brought to light their
true character. Yoder cited Colossians 2:13-15 to encapsulate the work
of Christ. In Yoder’s version, verse 15 contains the threefold action:
“He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example
of them, triumphing over them in him.”(26)
Yoder followed this biblical citation with a long citation from Hen-
drik Berkhof to fill out the actions of disarming, making a public exam-
ple, and triumphing. The Powers all too often are accepted as “the gods of
the world.” Jesus’ faithfulness to the death shows that such an exaltation
of the Powers is based on deception. God’s presence in Jesus reveals that
the Powers that kill Jesus are not God’s servants but rebels against God.
The religious and political leaders of Jesus time served death, not the God
of life. “Obviously, ‘none of the rulers of this age; who let themselves be
worshiped as divinities, understood God’s wisdom, ‘for had they known,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’ (1 Cor 2:8). Now they
are unmasked as false gods by their very encounter with Very God; they
are made a public spectacle.”(27)
Christ’s victory over the Powers, already present in their unmasking
by the cross, becomes even more clear when God raises Jesus from the
dead. In the resurrection, it becomes clear that Jesus’ challenge to the
Powers was endorsed and vindicated by God. In Jesus, God has ventured
into the Powers’ territory, remained true to God’s loving character, and
defeated, that is, disarmed them. They were allowed to defeat themselves
by crucifying Jesus. The Powers' main weapon-deluding people into
giving the Powers loyalty~was taken from them. Christ’s death exposed
their illusion. No Powers can separate us from God’s love unless we let
them. “The cross has disarmed them: wherever it is preached, the un-
masking and the disarming of the Powers takes place.”(28)
(6) The Christian vocation is to live in freedom from idolatry ofthe Powers.
Jesus’ followers are called to proclaim and embody his victory We do so
for the sake of giving a witness to the entire world of the truthfulness of
God’s message of mercy and wholeness. This witness is for the sake of the
nations, and indeed for all of creation.
______________
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., 146.
28. Ibid., 146-47.
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
A crucial part of faithful witness to the Powers, the nations, and all of
creation is the formation of the church, namely communities of liber-
ated people whose life together manifests their freedom from idolatry to
the powers. For Paul, the way messianic communities include reconciled
Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus stands at the heart of the gospel-
reflecting his own transformation from violent zealot to nonviolent ser-
vant of Jesus. This social reconciliation, as we saw above, reflects what
Paul considered justification to be about. Yoder used Berkhof’s Words to
summarize:
The very existence of the church in which Gentiles and Jews,who heretofore walked according to the stoicheia (‘elementalspirits’) of the world, live together in Christ’s fellowship, is itselfa proclamation, a sign, a token to the Powers that their unbrokendominion has come to an end .... All resistance and every attackagainst the gods of this age will be unfruitful, unless the churchherself is resistance and attack, unless she demonstrates in herlife and fellowship how men can life freed from the Powers.(29)
The church that embodies the work of Christ does not attack the
Powers. Christ has already attacked and defeated them. Rather, “the
church concentrates upon not being seduced by them. By existing the
church demonstrates that their rebellion has been vanquished.” In this
demonstration the church is fully involved in the world. It is “a sample
of the kind of humanity within which, for example, economic and racial
differences are surmounted.”(30)
The following chapter considers Yoder’s use of the Powers as a func-
tion of his ecclesiology. In this present chapter, the emphasis has fallen
on demonstrating that for Yoder, the Pauline concept of the Powers con-
stitutes another instance to show that Paul extended and reinforced the
social message of Jesus, and did so in language that is relevant in society
today. As Yoder concluded, when the language of the Powers is made
relevant for the contemporary world,
we have found one more point at which the ethical relevance ofthe stance of Jesus breaks through in a segment of the apostolicliterature with which for generations most Protestants did notknow how to deal. The Powers have been defeated not by somekind of cosmic hocus-pocus but by the concreteness ofthe cross;
___________
29. Ibid., 147-48.
30. Ibid., 150.
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PART THREE--EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
the impact of the cross upon them is not the working of magi-cal words nor the fulfillment of a legal contract calling for theshedding of innocent blood, but the sovereign presence, withinthe structures of creature orderliness, of Jesus the kingly claim-ant and of the church who herself is a structure and a power insociety. Thus the historicity of Jesus retains, in the working ofthe church as it encounters the other power and value structuresof its history, the same kind of relevance that the man Jesus hadfor those whom he served until they killed him.(31)
Revolutionary Subordination: Neither Fight nor Flight
Yoder used the Haustafeln to demonstrate in yet another way both that
Jesus had a social ethic, and that Paul and other New Testament writers
continued that ethic. Frequently identified with the German term Haus-
tafeln, several lists of “household rules” or expectations for interpersonal
relationships are attributed to Paul and other New Testament writers.
Yoder quoted the lists from Colossians 3:18-411, Ephesians 5:21-6:9,
and 1 Peter 2:13-3:7.(32) He showed that the writers’ use of the Haustafeln
was not a borrowing of rules from Stoic or non-Christian sources that re-
inforced the existing social order. Rather, he argued, these lists continue
Jesus’ social message in a way that challenges the social order,
In his analysis of the Haustafeln, Yoder not only stated once again the
social ethic of Jesus. He also used this argument to display in another way
that no chasm existed between Jesus and Paul, and that in fact Paul was
extending the social ethic of Jesus. Yoder argued that these rules, when
read in the broader context of the New Testament, constitute a message of
what he called “revolutionary subordination.”(33) The household rules call
upon Christians to walk with Jesus in their responses to social situations.
Rather than merely endorsing status quo power arrangements, Yoder
said, they call on all parties-both those in the “lower” or subordinate
position and those in the “superior” or dominant position-to challenge
the status quo.
In Yoder’s interpretation, in contrast to their lack of power in the
wider society, Paul addressed those of lower social standing as free “moral
______________
31. Ibid., 158.
32. Ibid., 162-63.
33. Chapter 9 is titled “Revolutionary Subordinationf' in Yoder, Politics of Jesus
(1994).
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
agents.” The wife or other person in this lesser social status is addressed
not as one who merely lives out a predefined role, but as one who is a
“decision maker,” a woman who has “personal moral responsibility.” Yo-
der noted that Paul’s term hypotassesthai does not mean “subjection” or
“submission,” but is better rendered as “subordination.” “Subordination
means the acceptance of an order, as it exists, but with the new meaning
given to it by the fact that one’s acceptance of it is willing and meaning-
fully motivated.”(34) Paul is thus telling the lower status persons that rather
than claiming that their new freedom in Christ called for efforts to over-
throw or rebel against the existing order, they are called to choose to live
within it. In this subordination, their model is the person of Christ, who
subordinated himself to the existing order even when unjustly accused.(35)
Yoder calls this subordination revolutionary for two reasons. In
contrast to the prevailing society, it addresses the lower status person
as a free moral agent, and it calls on these persons to live within rather
than attempt to rebel against the social order.(36) Thus these addressees
have indeed been liberated in Christ and welcomed into membership in
Christ’s assembly. However, quite likely they are not in positions to claim
that liberation fully in the wider society while at the same time remaining
(as they must) wholly committed to Jesus’ path of loving their neighbors.
But revolutionary subordination applies not only to those of lower
status as defined by the wider society. The “dominant partner” in a re-
lationship is also called to a kind of subordination that actually expects
more of the dominant partner than of the lower partner. In the newness
of the messianic community, Paul called on husbands, masters, and par-
ents also to practice subordination to those “below” them. This subordi-
nation is revolutionary. It is anything but an acceptance of roles defined
by the wider society. This subordination “relativize[s]and undercut[s]
this order.” “For a first-century husband to love (agapan) his wife, or for
a first-century father to avoid angering his child, or for a first-century
master to deal with his servant in the awareness that they are both slaves
to a higher master, is to make a more concrete and more sweeping differ-
ence in the way that husband or father or master behaves than the other
____________
34. Ibid., 171, 172; Yoder`s italics.
35. Ibid., 176.
36. Ibid.,171-73.
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PART THREE-EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
imperative of subordination would have made practically in the behavior
of the wife or child or servant.”(37)
As understood by Yoder, subordination does not connote slavish
obedience or submission. Yoder defines it in relation to Jesus, and it can
and even should include active resistance. In an extended note, Yoder
quoted from work by Johannes Hamel, who referred to Philippians 2:5f£
Hamel concludes that when applied to Jesus, hypotassesthai “is in every
situation a free, extremely aggressive way of acting, taking very clear
account of the situation, including feeling and understanding and will,
always including the possibility of a spirit-driven resistance, of an ap-
propriate disavowal and a refusal, ready to accept suffering at this or that
particular point.”(38) Chapter 9 to follow develops this activist dimension
of Yoder’s ethic derived from Jesus’ rejection of violence and subordina-
tion to Roman authorities.
With this interpretation of the Haustafeln in view, Yoder noted that
its ethical structure occurs in other texts of the New Testament as well.
He writes that with such texts, “the Christian is called to view social status
from the perspective of maximizing freedom.” If an opportunity occurs
for more freedom, by all means take that opportunity. “But that freedom
can already be realized within his present status by voluntarily accept-
ing subordination [within the structure of the social order], in view of
the relative unimportance of such social distinctions when seen in the
light of the coming fulfillment of God’s purposes.” Without any specific
linkage to the texts of the Haustafeln, Romans 13 expresses their call for
subordination to the government, which concerns the next section of this
chapter. Different from the Haustafeln structure, however, is that subor-
dination to government is not reciprocal. There is no call for “the king to
conceive of himself as a public servant.”(39)
In his summary of the meaning of voluntary subordination, Yoder
writes: “It is natural to feel Christ’s liberation reaching into every kind
of bondage, and to want to act in obedience with that radical shift. But
precisely because of Christ we shall not impose that shift violently upon
the social order beyond the confines of the church.” Nonetheless, this
new way of living within the church is a missionary witness to the wider
world. When the believing spouse is subordinate to the unbelieving one,
_______________
37. Ibid., 177-78.
38. Ibid., 180 continuation of note 40.
39. Ibid., 182-83.
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GRIMSRUD-Jesus to Paul
“the voluntary subjection of the church is understood as a witness to the
world.” Yoder calls this way of living a “creative transformation” of the
social order from Within. “Since in the resurrection and in Pentecost the
kingdom which was imminent has now in part come into our history the
church can now live out, within the structures of society, the newness of
the life of the kingdom.” The voluntary subordination of believing spouse
to unbelieving one, the mutual subordination of spouses, of parents and
children, and of slaves and masters is a demonstration to the social order
of the new way of freedom that is found in Christ. They can live with
this attitude toward the world’s structures because of the “radicality of
the call of Jesus.” “It is precisely this attitude ward the structures of this
world, this freedom from needing to smash them since they are about
to crumble anyway, which Jesus had been the first to teach and in his
suffering to concretize.”(40)
Yoder’s final point concerning revolutionary subordination con-
cerns the primary point of his chapter, which is also the theme of this
chapter. Paul and other New Testament writers did not borrow the Haus-
tafeln from Stoic sources and use them to conform the early church to the
norms of the social order. Rather, the structure learned from the Haus-
tafeln actually challenged the social order from within, and witnessed to
the freedom in Christ of what Yoder called revolutionary subordination.
This guidance comes, Yoder asserted, not from a betrayal of the ethic of
Jesus by the apostles. On the contrary, revolutionary subordination chal-
lenged the social order with the ethic of Jesus. “Where the New Testament
did offer specific guidance for its own time, that guidance confirmed and
applied the messianic ethic of Jesus.”(41) Thus Yoder’s explanation of the
Haustafeln and his concept of revolutionary subordination provide an-
other example of his argument that Paul continued the ethics of Jesus.
Romans 13: Overturning the Tradition
The discussion thus far leads to Yoder’s treatment of Romans 13. He notes
that the majority Christian tradition has appealed to Romans 13:1-7 as
40. Ibid., 185, 187 Alongside the interpretation here of “revolutionary subordi-
nation” that includes an active challenge to the imbalances and abuses of the status
quo, the suggestion of chapter 13 is also appropriate, namely, that we use less easily
misunderstood terms of reciprocity and power-sharing. (See chapter 13, the context
of note 51.)
____________
41. Ibid., 187.
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PART THREE--EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
the “foundation of a Christian doctrine of the state.” In line with this
view, it is claimed that God has established civil government. The divine
establishment, then, requires Christians to obey it, “not only because
they fear the state’s sanctions but because they conscientiously support
its functions of suppressing evil and encouraging the good.” The imple-
mentation of this obedience means that when the government wields the
sword in war or in policing and capital punishment, these actions are
“exempted from the general prohibition of killing.” There is thus a “moral
obligation” to support the state’s legal killing, even as that is contrary to
the teaching and example of Jesus.(42) It is this assumption of a disjunction
between Jesus and Paul of Romans 13 that Yoder addresses.
Yoder outlined six areas of misinterpretation within the traditional
View Following Yoder’s argument on these points makes clear that in
Romans 13:1-7, Paul actually agrees with and extends Jesus’ rejection of
the sword.
(1) “The New Testament speaks in many ways about the problem of the
state; Romans 13 is not the center of this teaching? In fact, a “strong
strand of Gospel teaching,” such as the account of Jesus and Satan in the
wilderness, puts secular government in “the province of the sovereignty
of Satan.” Romans 13 was written about a pagan government, and it is
matched by the anti-imperial outlook of Revelation 13. Further, as was
sketched earlier in this chapter, the state is frequently seen as one of the
powers over which Christ is victorious.(43)
(2) Romans 1311-7 must be understood in the context of the literary
unity of chapters 12 and 13.
Chapter 12 begins with a call to nonconformity, motivated bythe memory of the mercies of God, and finds the expression ofthis transformed life first in a new quality of relationships withinthe Christian community and, with regard to enemies, in suf-fering. The concept of love then recurs in 13:8-10. Therefore,any interpretation of 1321-7 which is not also an expression ofsuffering and serving love must be a misunderstanding of thetext in its context.(44)
_____________________
42. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 193-94.
43, Ibid., 194-96, quote 194.
44. Ibid., 196.
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GRIMSRUD-Jesus to Paul
(3) The subordination called for “recognizes whatever power exists,”
but “does not affirm, as the tradition has it, a divine act of institution or
ordination of a particular government.”(45) A “positivistic” view that as-
sumes that the existing government is “of God” can result in Adolf Hitler.
The more frequent “normative” view that began with Ulrich Zwingli
and John Calvin and continues into the present, assumes the concept of
“proper government” As long as the government is then “proper” it is to
be obeyed. When it becomes improper or unjust, Christians then have
a duty to “rise up against it.” Yoder counters that no clear criteria exist
for determining when rebellion is appropriate, and more importantly,
Romans 13 says nothing about rebellion. According to Yoder’s interpre-
tation, the true meaning of Romans 13 is God’s ordering of the powers,
telling them “where they belong, what is their place.” The calling of Chris-
tians is then subordination to government. The immediate concern for
the Jewish Christians in Rome was “to call them away from any notion
of revolution or insubordination. The call is to a nonresistant attitude
toward a tyrannical government” In an important footnote, Yoder notes
that he uses “nonresistant” not as a statement of passive “acquiescence” to
evil, but in the sense of refusing “retaliation in kind.” Thus being nonre-
sistant “does not exclude other kinds of opposition to evil.”(46)
(4) Christians in Rome had no voice in administration. “The text cannot
mean that Christians are called to do military or police service” Rome
did not ask subject peoples to perform either military or police service.
These were considered either “hereditary professions or as citizens’ privi-
leges,” while paying taxes and revenue and rendering honor (13:6-7) are
not services. “It is therefore illegitimate to extend the meaning of the text
. . . to other kinds of services which other kinds of governments in other
ages might ask of their citizens.” It is especially illegitimate to extend it to
“conscription” for military service."
(5) “The function of bearing the sword to which Christians are called to
be subject is the judicial and police function; it does not refer to the death
penalty or to war.”(48) Yoder noted that the sword as symbol of judicial
authority was neither an instrument of capital punishment nor of War.
______________
45. Ibid., 198-99.
46. Ibid., 199-202 and note 14.
47. lbid., 203.
48. lbid.
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PART THREE--EXTENDING JOHN HOWARD YODER’S THEOLOGY
It could be used, of course, but “was more a symbol of authority than a
weapon.” This text thus has nothing to do with participation in a justifi-
able war. It deals with the subordination to which Christians are called.”
(6) “The Christian who accepts subjection to government retains moral
independence and judgment .... Whatever government exists is ordered
by God; but the text does not say that whatever the government does or
asks of its citizens is g00d.”5° Since not everything that the government
does is good, Christians are to exercise discrimination in what “honor”
or “fear” is due. The only thing due t0 everyone is “love”(13:8). “Thus the
claims of Caesar are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to
him is part of the obligation of love.” Love is defined in verse 10 as doing
no harm. Thus it “becomes impossible to maintain that the subjection
referred to in verses 1-7 can include a moral obligation under certain cir-
cumstances to do harm to others at the behest of government.” The term
Paul used in Romans 13:1 does not call for “obedience” Rather he was
calling for “subordination,” which has the same root as G0d’s “ordering”
of the powers. “Subordination is significantly different from obedience.
The conscientious objector who refuses to do what government demands,
but still remains under the sovereignty of that government and accepts
the penalties which it imposes . _ . is being subordinate even though not
obeying,”(51)
With these six points, Yoder responded to the traditional View that
Romans 13 obligates Christians to obey government, including “the
obligation to participate in war.” This traditional View presumes that a
contradiction exists between the teaching and life of Jesus as exemplified
by Matthew 5 and Romans 13, with resolution of that contradiction on
the side of the latter since the time of Constantine. ln contrast, Yoder’s
analysis displays clearly that no disjunction exists between Romans 13
and the Sermon on the Mount. Both Romans 12-13 as a unit and Mat-
thew 5-7 “instruct Christians to be nonresistant” in all their relation-
ships, including the social.” Both call on the disciples of Jesus to reject the
____________
49. lbid.,203-4.
50. Ibid., 205.
51. Ibid., 208~9; Y0der’s italics.
52. It is important to underscore that Yoder`s use of “nonresistant” means rejection
of retaliation in kind but does include other kinds of resistance. See the context of
notes 38 and 46 above.
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GRIMSRUD--Jesus to Paul
pursuit of “vengeance.” “Both call Christians to respect and be subject to
the historical process in which the sword continues to be wielded and to
bring about a kind of order under fire, but not to perceive in the wielding
of the sword their own reconciling ministry”” Thus Yoder’s analysis of
Romans 13:1-7 constitutes yet one more instance of his assertion that
Paul continued and reinforced the message of Jesus.
Thus far we have noted the linking of Jesus and Paul in Yoder’s early
writing, namely in Preface to Theology and in The Politics of Jesus. It is
important to note that this theme is underscored strongly in the chapter
“Paul the Judaizer” in Yoder’s posthumously published Jewish-Christian
Schism Revisited. For example, he Writes, “To believe that the messianic
age has begun, and that therefore Jews can share the glories of the Law
as Grace with Gentiles, was for [Paul] ‘the most authentic interpretation
of classical Judaism.’ Far from being the great Hellenizer of an originally
Jewish message, Paul is rather the great Judaizer of Hellenistic culture.”(54)
Yoder noted that the mission to Gentiles had been underway before
Paul came into the picture. Thus what was unique about Paul’s mission
was not the mission itself but what he saw as the unfolding of divine
purpose in the messianic age. “Because this is the messianic age, initiated
by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, therefore the centuries-old
promises of the ingathering of the Gentiles was coming true.”(55) Thus the
missionary power was correlated with the many people who filled the law
without knowing the law. As a result, accommodations were made for
Gentiles to be recognized as “God-fearers,” who could attend the syna-
gogue without following the dietary laws or undergoing circumcision.
To this time, a part of the messianic expectation had been that in the
age to come, those who wanted to know the will of God would learn it
by asking Jews or coming to Jerusalem. Paul simply put this expectation
together with the event of Jesus. “We recognize in Jesus the inbreaking of
the messianic age. It is actually happening on a greater scale than before,
that Gentiles who hear about Jesus come to the messianic synagogues.
Conclusion: the will of God for our age is the active ingathering of Gen-
tiles into a new kind of body.” And thus “what Paul sees happening in
______________
53. Yoder, Politics of Jesus (1994), 210; Yoder’s italics.
54. Yoder, Jewish-Christian Schism, 95.
55. Ibid., 95-96; Yoder’s italics.
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PART THREE-EXTENDING John HOWARD YODER’S THEoLoGY
Christ and in the Christian church _ _ . is the fulfillment and not the aboli-
tion of the meaning of Torah as covenant of grace.”56
On Being Peaceable in a Violent World
This chapter has focused on Yoder’s argument that contrary to traditional
assumptions, no chasm exists between Jesus and Paul. In fact, Paul con-
tinues and reinforces the message of Jesus. Yoder’s intent with that argu-
ment Was to strengthen the case for ethics based in Jesus, namely the
politics of Jesus. As this chapter has discussed the relationship of Paul to
Jesus, it has put that nonviolent ethic on display. It thus prepares the way
for the chapters that follow.
It is the community around Jesus, namely the church, that actual-
izes and exemplifies the ethic of Jesus. Chapter 7 describes further the
character of the church that exemplifies the politics of Jesus and resists
the allure of empire.
The politics of Jesus say “no” to the politics of empire. Yoder rejected
the dynamics of “lording it over” of empire and presented the norm of
servanthood and subordination based on the life of Jesus. Chapter 8 de-
scribes further the way that subordination and submission is a Way to see
the world.
As this chapter briefly stated, Yoder believed that the ethic of Jesus,
the politics of revolutionary subordination, could involve active, non-
violent resistance. Chapter 9 describes Yoder’s View of active, nonviolent
resistance.
_____________
56. lbid., 96, 97.
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