In A Pacifist Way of Knowing: John Howard Yoder's Nonviolent Epistemology, editors Christian Early and Ted Grimsrud gather the scattered writings of Yoder on the theme of the relationship between gospel, peace, and human ways of knowing. In them, they find the beginnings of a pacifist theology of knowledge that rejects strategies of empire while at the same time avoids a self-defeating relativism.

John Howard Yoder helps answer the age-old question—What would you do if someone was attacking your grandmother, husband, wife, daughter, or son? Yoder provides a variety of responses to this classic question: his own thorough ethical analysis along with the answers given by other writers such as Leo Tolstoy, Dale Brown, and Dale Aukerman and a variety of real-life stories of people who have discovered alternative responses to violence.

Many Christians have become increasingly sensitive to the destructiveness of war. They are recognizing war's limited ability as a public policy instrument. They are acknowleding the social, economic, and spiritual consequences of preparing to wage war. These concerns have begun to revive the conscience of the church in new ways.This text contends that peacemaking is essential to Christian discipleship. It is the vocation of the church as a whole. Moving beyond the traditional debat...

In this volume of essays John Howard Yoder projects a vision of Christian social ethics rooted in historical community and illuminated by scripture. Drawing upon scriptural accounts of the early church, he demonstrates the Christian community's constant need for reform and change. Yoder first examines the scriptural and theoretical foundations of Christian social ethics. While personally committed to the "radical reformation" tradition, he eschews "denominational" categorization and addres...

Readers will discover that it is not possible to disengage John Howard Yoder's practice of ecumenical dialogue from his vision of the church. Yoder's approach to ecumenical dialogue correlates with his conception of the faithfulness of the church. His vision of the church poses challenges for Christians of all communions because he calls both for disciplined dialogue and for faithful servanthood that renders the confession of Jesus Christ's lordship meaningful.This collection of 17...

Big business makes big money selling a phony notion of what we want and need as sexual people. Ads insist that certain products will make us more sexually appealing. But what we really want and need is true intimacy—the knowledge that we matter to another person and are loved for who we are. We all are sexual beings, all of our lives, and relate to each other sexually all the time. God marvelously made us this way. Using the metaphor of sexuality as a good gift from God, this book offers C...

Our purpose is to analyze whether it is truly the case that a Christian pacifist position rooted not in pragmatic or psychological but in Christological considerations is thereby irrelevant to the social order.-John Howard YoderThese words by John Howard Yoder set the course of his pathbreaking treatise, The Christian Witness to the State. Yoder's novel contribution to the debate concerning the church's and the Christian's calling is his starting point. He insists that Chr...

Binding and loosing, baptism, eucharist, multiplicity of gifts, and open meeting; these five New Testament practices were central in the life of the early Christian community. Some of them are still echoed in the practice of the church today. But the full social, ethical, and communal meaning of the original practices has often been covered by centuries of ritual and interpretation.John Howard Yoder, in his inimitably direct and discerning style, uncovers the original meaning of th...

At the center of all John Howard Yoder's thought is the scriptural witness, and at the center of the scriptural witness is Christ, the one who "came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near" (Eph. 2:17). This collection of short, accessible studies of key biblical texts provides a wonderful point of entry into Yoder's more difficult theological writings; it can also serve as a guide for a small group Bible study on the theme of Christian peaceableness.

John Howard Yoder went to Europe after the Second World War as a young volunteer. Yoder worked as an aide in a children's home in Elsace, France and completed his doctorate under Karl Barth in Basel, Switzerland. Because of his incomparably clear and sharp thinking he quickly became one of the most sought after speakers on pacifism at seminars as he worked towards an Anabaptist renewal of the church.In this context Yoder succeeded in reopening the theological debate on Christians a...

Between 1971 and 1996 the late John Howard Yoder (1927-1997) wrote a series of ten essays revisiting the Jewish-Christian schism in which he argued that, properly understood, Jesus did not reject Judaism, Judaism did not reject Jesus, and the Apostle Paul's universal mandate for the salvation of the nations is best understood not as a product of Hellenization, but rather in the context of his Jewish heritage.This posthumous collection of essays is arguably his most ambitious projec...

John Howard Yoder's classic book first published in 1971, includes a treatment of Jewish pacifism, bibliographies, an index, and three new appendixes: Speaking Truth to Power, Quaker Political Witness; The Spectrum of Nonpacifist Postures; and Nonviolent National Defense Alternatives. Yoder points out assumptions, strengths, and shortcomings of each pacifist position. He brings clarity to the many-sided conversations about peace, nonviolence, war, proliferation of arms, and power politics....