Forcing us to think differently

Discipleship as Political Responsibility John Howard Yoder (translated by Timothy Geddert). Herald Press, 2003, 67 pages.

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997), the most influential Anabaptist voice in theology and ethics prior to his death, continues to have impact, in part due to a plethora of posthumous publications, such as this little book, which consists of the translation of two essays given and published in German in 1957. A number of other works that were not published in Yoder’s lifetime have appeared recently, and a number of other such initiatives, including republications of more obscure works, are currently underway.

As might be expected, the quality of these publications is a bit uneven, since it is not clear whether Yoder wanted their release. Nonetheless, the material that is being published, along with the considerable secondary work on Yoder being produced, contributes to a clarified understanding of this important Mennonite church leader.

In his preface to Discipleship as Political Responsibility, Stanley Hauerwas describes Yoder as forcing us to think differently by retraining the way we speak and write. If Hauerwas is right about this, (and I think he is), this book will force us to think differently about what it means for Christians to take up political responsibility. The two essays included here, “The State in the New Testament,” and “Following Christ as a Form of Political Responsibility,” show Yoder working out the material that later became part of his Christian Witness to the State and The Politics of Jesus.

We are often inclined to think of our political involvement as somehow attempting to work within given governmental structures – we try to control who is elected, we attempt to get things done by wielding political power as conventionally understood. Yoder forces us to think about this differently; he argues that the ultimate justification for the mandate of the state is to be found within the mandate of the church. We often see the church as a support system for the state, but Yoder insists that “the Christian faith inverted this relationship and viewed the world-embracing empire as merely a support system, subservient to the real work God is accomplishing in the world.” Put another way, the state is there for the sake of the church. We often have been led to believe that in order to have any effect in this world, we may have to live by standards foreign to the Christian way. Yoder points instead to the priority of the church.

Such a priority does not however lead to withdrawal from society, or from political responsibility. Instead, such a priority is precisely to take responsibility. Despite the state’s violence, Christians are called to be involved – by calling the state to humane actions and policies, and so on. Our involvement could also take the form of refusal to participate in activities where the state oversteps its own boundaries.

Even this brief look at the way Yoder construes the relationship of church and politics shows Hauerwas to be correct in his assessment that to read Yoder is to be forced to retrain the way we often think of Christian discipleship.

Paul Doerksen is a PhD candidate in theological ethics at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.