The ambitious and accessible essays collected in this volume were presented by John Howard Yoder during an extensive visit to South America in 1966. Reflecting and also subverting the acknowledged "faddish" attempt to address the revolutionary nature of Christianity, these lectures provide an illuminating snapshot of Yoder's vibrant initial encounter with Latin American Christianity. In these lectures, he thematically addresses the shape of the free church, the Christian practice of peace,...

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...

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...

Jesus created around himself a voluntary society that was counter to everything his society knew or expected. Jesus gave his members a new way to deal with offenders, with violence, with money, with leadership, with a corrupt society. He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, and an enlarged understanding of what it means to be human.This is the original revolution: the creation of a distinct community with its alternate set of values and its coherent way o...

Tradition has painted a portrait of a Savior aloof from governmental concerns and whose teachings point to an apolitical life for his disciples. How, then, are we to respond today to a world so thoroughly entrenched in national and international affairs? But such a picture of Jesus is far from accurate, argues John Howard Yoder.Using the texts of the New Testament, Yoder critically examines the traditional portrait of Jesus as an apolitical figure and attempts to clarify the true im...

In the historic meeting held in 1527 at Schleitheim, Switzerland, an ad hoc group of Anabaptists worked through fundamental disagreements and emerged with a consensus on seven points of faith that became known as the Schleitheim Confession. Also known as the Brotherly Union, this text constitutes one chapter from The Legacy of Michael Sattler.

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...

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.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers...against spiritual wickedness in high places. —Ephesians 6:12This small but important book by Hendrik Berkhof ushered in a wave of studies on the powers spoken of in the New Testament, profoundly influencing William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, Marva Dawn, Walter Wink, and many others. John Howard Yoder brought it to an English-speaking audience for the first time in this translation, and drew from ...

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...

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.