Yoder's Theological Ethic and Voting

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STUDENT I.D.: 10014453

UNIT: CT330 – Christian Ethics

QUESTION: Outline and critically evaluate the theological

ethic of John Howard Yoder.

ESSAY NUMBER: FIVE

WORD COUNT: 3298

DATE DUE: 7th October 2009

DATE SUBMITTED: 11th October 2009

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John Howard Yoder’s Theological Ethic and Voting within a Representative Democracy

SYNOPSIS

The theological ethic of John Howard Yoder applies a corrective to

Christian ethics by arguing that Jesus is both relevant and normative

to social ethics. Jesus is relevant because in his life an teaching we

can see a social ethic. And normative because Jesus establishes what

it is to be truly human. This essay outlines Yoder’s theological ethic as

presented in The Politics of Jesus and considers it systematically with

the tri-foci of Christology, eschatology and ecclesiology. Finally a case

study of Yoder’s ethic is done concerning the issue of Christian

participation in the voting process within a representative democracy.

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Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried

in this world of sin and woe. […] Indeed, it has been said that

democracy is the worst form of government except all those

other forms that have been tried from time to time.1

According to John Howard Yoder, ethicists have failed to notice that

Jesus is ‘a model of radical political action’ and have assumed that he

is ‘not relevant in any immediate sense to the questions of social

ethics.’2 In response to this Yoder unashamedly builds a case for

seeing Jesus as ‘not only relevant but also normative for a

contemporary Christian social ethic.’3 On this basis Yoder calls

Christians to ‘“be like Jesus” as he went to the Cross’ as this becomes

the basis upon which God will bring about radical renewal through the

presence of the Christian community in the world.4 Initially this essay

will outline Yoder’s seminal work, The Politics of Jesus. This essay will

then follow Craig A. Carter’s classifications in order to systematically

outline Yoder’s theological ethic by observing Christology as its

source, eschatology as its context, and ecclesiology as its shape.5 This

essay will then consider the particular issue of voting within

representative democracies as a case study to further explore Yoder’s

1 Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. 206–07.2 John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 2; 5.3 Yoder, Politics, 11.4 Yoder, Politics, 131.5 Craig A. Carter, The Politics of the Cross: The Theology and Social Ethics of John Howard Yoder (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2001), 27-28.

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concept of Christian pacifism and how the Christian and the church

are to relate to the powers. From this vantage point an evaluation will

be made of Yoder’s theological ethic.

THE POLITICS OF JESUS

The most obvious place to begin an assessment of the theological

ethic of Yoder is with The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, his

magnum opus. Yoder begins with the problem that Jesus has been

ignored in studies of Christian ethics because of a disjunction

between the disciplines of the ethics and biblical studies. According to

Yoder, the result of this disconnection is that “mainstream” Christian

ethics has lost its distinctiveness. Christian ethics was forced to look

elsewhere for guidance and effectively slid into ‘the theology of the

natural’.6 In response to this, Yoder seeks to demonstrate through

careful exegesis that ‘Jesus is not only relevant to, but also normative

for, Christian social ethics and contemporary, and mainstream biblical

scholarship supports this claim.’7

Politics engages in a detailed reading of Luke’s Gospel and concludes

it is impossible to ‘avoid his call to an ethic marked by the cross, a

cross identified as the punishment of a man who threatens society by

creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of

6 Yoder, Politics, 8-9.7 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 243.

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life.’8 This ethic is fundamentally socio-political, renounces the use of

violence, re-establishes the jubilee, and establishes a new

community. Yoder argues that all these implications would ‘have been

understood by Jesus and his contemporaries’.9

Yoder then shifts from Luke’s Gospel to the Epistles of Paul in order to

show that at ‘only at one point, only on one subject […] is Jesus given

as our example: in his cross.’10 Yoder then argues that ‘the model of

Jesus as a politically relevant ethical example is carried consistently

throughout the rest of the New Testament’ and that it affirms ‘Jesus

as the model for a life given in faithfulness to God.’11 In order flesh out

his thesis Yoder anticipates a number of exegetical and theological

problems concerning powers, subordination, Romans 13, justification

by grace through faith, and the meaning and direction of history.

Yoder’s final conclusion is that ‘a social style characterized by the

creation of a new community and the rejection of violence of any kind

is the theme of the New Testament’s proclamation from beginning to

end, from right to left.’12

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL SOURCE

8 Yoder, Politics, 53.9 Yoder, Politics, 32; 46; 53; Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (London: T&T Clark, 1996), 242.10 Yoder, Politics, 95.11 Hays, Moral Vision, 243. 12 Yoder, Politics, 242.

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According to Yoder, ‘God broke through the borders of our standard

definition of what it is to be human and gave a new, formative

definition in Jesus.’13 Because of this Yoder, following the way of

Barth, affirms that Jesus reveals the ‘true nature and vocation of

human beings.’14 It is from this point that Jesus, his life, his teaching,

and most significantly his Cross, become the source of Yoder’s

theological ethic. As we have observed already, according to Yoder

Jesus is relevant and normative to social ethics. Hays notes that the

cross is not just relevant for ethics but for Yoder it is ‘the focal image

through which the entire canonical story must be read.’15 But as we

look to the social ethic forged by Jesus through the Cross, what do we

see? According to Carter, Yoder demonstrates that ‘Jesus offers a new

way of living, but the implication of accepting his offer is a cross.’16

According to Yoder’s portrayal of Jesus and the writings of the

Apostles, ‘there is no general concept of living like Jesus in the New

Testament’ except ‘at the point of the concrete social meaning of the

cross in its relation to enmity and power.’17

It is on the centrality of the Cross and its inherently political nature,

that Yoder bases his particular kind of pacifism which is central to his

Christian social ethic. In the Cross, ‘servanthood replaces dominion,

13 Yoder, Politics, 99.14 Hays, Moral Vision, 243.15 Hays, Moral Vision, 248.16 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 105. 17 Yoder, Politics, 130-31.

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forgiveness absorbs hostility. Thus – and only thus – are we bound by

the New Testament to “be like Jesus.”’18 Following the way of the

Cross is ‘no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or

tension the bearing of which is demanded. The believer’s cross is, like

that of Jesus, the price of social nonconformity.’19 It is on this point

that Yoder is emphatic,

Jesus was not just a moralist whose teachings had some political

implications; he was not primarily a teacher of spirituality whose

public ministry unfortunately was seen in a political light; he was

not just a sacrificial lamb preparing for his immolation, or a God-

Man whose divine status calls us to disregard his humanity. Jesus

was, […] the bearer of a new possibility of human social, and

therefore political relationships. His baptism is the inauguration

and his cross is the culmination of that new regime in which his

disciples are called to share.20

It is by imitation of the Cross, that not only the Christian, but the

whole Christian community reflects the politics of Jesus.21 It is here

that Yoder’s ethic finds its eschatological context. When the Christian

or the Christian community established by Jesus are tempted to take

matters into their own hands, by means of coercion and violence,

they should remember that ‘Jesus demonstrated that doing so is not

18 Yoder, Politics, 131.19 Yoder, Politics, 96.20 Yoder, Politics, 52.21 Hays, Moral Vision, 244.

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necessary for the one who trusts in the sovereignty of God over

history.’22 They are to live in the way of the Cross as ‘the Cross of

Christ is the model of Christian social efficacy, the power of God for

those who believe.’23 This is because ‘the cross is not a detour or a

hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the

kingdom; it is the kingdom come.’24

THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CONTEXT

According to Carter, Yoder ‘develops his social ethics on the basis of

an eschatological concept of Jesus, which […] is relevant to the

church conceived as an eschatological community.’25 Yoder’s

christocentric eschatology uses ‘his Barthian method of relating all

doctrinal statements to their true centre – Jesus Christ as he is

attested in scripture’.26 It is within this eschatological context that we

see Yoder’s Christology and ecclesiology combining in the formulation

of his social ethics.

Jesus’ announcement of and bringing forth of the Kingdom of God was

a real ‘social order and not a hidden one.’27 Yoder argues that this is

not an immediate or future ‘universal catastrophe’ but the ‘concrete

jubilary obedience, in pardon and repentance’ that opened up ‘the

22 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 98.23 Yoder, Politics, 242.24 Yoder, Politics, 51.25 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 139.26 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 140.27 Yoder, Politics, 105.

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real accessibility of a new order in which grace and justice are linked,

which people only have to accept.’28 This new order is triumphantly

affirmed by the New Testament which asserts that by proclaiming

that ‘Jesus Christ by His cross, resurrection, ascension, and the

pouring out of His Spirit, has triumphed over the powers.’29 However

this present period ‘is characterized by the coexistence of two ages or

aeons.’30 Yoder explains this tension by referring to 1 Corinthians

15:20-28 and Carter likens it ‘to the period of World War II between D-

Day and V-E Day.’31 The Cross introduces this ‘eschatological tension

of “already-not yet” that is embodied in an eschatological community

of disciples who both reject violence and live in tension with the old

social order, just as Jesus did.’32

THE ECCLESIOLOGICAL SHAPE

It is within that eschatological tension of “already-not yet” that Yoder

perceives the context for his social ethics. Its shape within this

context is fundamentally ecclesiological. As the church works in this

context it may take the form of a ‘pilot project, and podium,

pedagogical base and sometimes a power base.’33 That is, the church

28 Yoder, Politics, 105.29 John Howard Yoder, The Christian Witness to the State (Institute of Mennonite Studies Series, no. 3. Newton, Kan.: Faith and Life Press, 1964), 9. It is important to note here Yoder’s understands the powers to be the fallen structures and forces that order society. See Yoder, Politics, 141-43.30 Yoder, Christian Witness, 9.31 Yoder, Christian Witness, 9; Carter, Politics of the Cross, 145. 32 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 139.33 John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Gran Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 126.

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is a representation of the new reality of reconciliation brought about

by Jesus, it is the place where Jesus is honoured and his will made

known. The church is also the base from which the wider society is

taught about Jesus and occasionally becomes a power base as it

declares and alternative community to that of the powers.

According to Carter Yoder views ‘the church as an eschatological

community of disciples who follow Jesus in rejecting violence and the

glorification of wealth and power and embracing love and

servanthood.’34 The church acts as a preview of what is to come.

‘Yoder’s vision of the Christian community as an alternative polis, a

new society in which God’s future intentions for human society in

general can be discerned.’35 That being said, ‘The church’s calling is

[also] to be the conscience and the servant within human society.’36 It

is a social structure through which ‘the gospel works to change other

structures’.37 The way this will be achieved, according to Yoder, is by

an attitude of “otherness” that is ‘rooted in strength and not in

weakness’ and ‘consists of being a herald of liberation and not a

community of slaves.’38 Here we see that Yoder’s social ethic with

have a distinctively ecclesiological shape.

34 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 181.35 Carter, Politics of the Cross, 181.36 Yoder, Politics, 157. 37 Yoder, Politics, 154.38 Yoder, Politics, 148.

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CASE STUDY: VOTING WITHIN A REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Yoder’s theological ethic leads to interesting insights as we

considering the Christian’s approach to voting within a representative

democracy. To begin with Yoder reminds us that the government

makes up part of the powers that structure, rule and order the earth.39

According to Paul in Acts 17 these powers were created by God, have

rebelled and are fallen, and ‘despite their fallen condition the Powers

cannot fully escape the providential sovereignty of God who is still

able to use them for good.’40 As creatures we find ourselves in the

situation where we ‘cannot live without them’ as they are ‘a part of a

good creation’ but also ‘we cannot live with them’ as they harm and

enslave us.41

However Christ, through his ‘genuinely free and human existence’

leading to his death at the hand of the powers, made a public

example of them, triumphed over them, and disarmed them.42 This

victory over the powers is, firstly the means by which the church is

liberated, secondly the message for the church to proclaim, and

thirdly it provides the freedom for the church to establish an

alternative community. According to Yoder, the church and the

Christian must follow Jesus’ example by refusing to exercise certain

types of power without necessarily withdrawing from society. The

39 Yoder, Politics, 141.40 Yoder, Politics, 142.41 Yoder, Politics, 142.42 Yoder, Politics, 144-45.

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church is to proclaim to the wider society ‘that Christ is Lord, a

proclamation [that] is nonetheless a social, political, structural, fact

which constitutes a challenge to the Powers.’43 However this

proclamation is pessimistic about the possibility of the church itself

bringing about the redemption of the powers as this is solely the work

of God achieved in Christ’s victory on the Cross.

This places the Christian in an interesting position when drawn into

the processes of government through the electoral system. The

Christian is inescapably part of the system but yet participates in a

rival and alternative social reality.44 Yoder attempts to achieve a

balance for the Christian as they relate to the powers. On the one

hand Christians are to embrace the Gospel as a genuinely political

reality that brings about and ‘constitutes an unavoidable challenge to

the powers that be and the beginning of a new set of social

alternatives.’45 On the other hand as the Christian follows the way of

the Cross, they will imitate Jesus’ social non-conformity while still

renouncing non-involvement.46 Yoder synthesises his thoughts with

‘Paul calls for […] subordination. […] Subordination is significantly

different to obedience. The contentious objector who refuses to do

43 Yoder, Politics, 157.44 This is particularly the case within Australia where voting is compulsory.45 Yoder, Politics, 39.46 Yoder, Politics, 186.

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what government demands, but still remains under the sovereignty of

that government accepts the penalties which it imposes’.47

The Christian is then require to work how they might interact with the

political system in a way that expresses Jesus’ refusal ‘to concede

that those in power represent an ideal, a logically proper, or even and

empirically acceptable definition of what it means to be political.’48

This will occur by being Jesus’ voice declaring to the powers that ‘your

definition of polis, of the social, of the wholeness of being human is

socially perverted.’49 The Christian ought to attempt to do this whilst

also finding themselves being subject to government and the

electoral process. This is because ‘we subject ourselves to

government because it was in doing so that Jesus revealed and

achieved God’s victory.’50

DEMOCRACY IN PERSPECTIVE

When it comes to representative democracy, Yoder calls the Christian

to think rightly about the reality of democracy. ‘It is argued that the

advent of popular franchise has transferred integrally to “the people”

the attributes of the former king-by-divine-right. It is now said of the

populus, as it had been said of the king […] that his voice is the voice

47 Yoder, Politics, 209.48 Yoder, Politics, 107.49 Yoder, Politics, 209.50 Yoder, Politics, 209.

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of God.’51 But in reality, ‘for two centuries they have been telling us

that we, the people, were governing ourselves, and we have been

believing it.’52 Yoder puts this more strongly in The Christian Witness

to the State, ‘It is still the fact that some men exercise power over

others, with a view partly to personal benefit and partly to selfish

purposes.’53 This is because Yoder brings his scepticism of the powers

and experience of democracy to observe that ‘the exercise of

government is by nature oligarchical and domineering. Democracy

does not differ from other forms of government fundamentally, but

only in shading.’54 Thus, ‘the vote does not mean we are governing

ourselves.’55 Voters are so far removed from the actual making of

government decisions that they have a ‘less morally blameworthy

involvement in executing those decisions’.56 Therefore, by voting a

Christian is not participating in the powers or exercising rule within

the secular political realm.

COMMUNICATION BY VOTE

51 John Howard Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual: Biblical Realism and the Elections’. Sojourners. October (1976): 29-30.52 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 29.53 Yoder, Christian Witness, 26.54 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 29.55 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 30.56 Yoder, Christian Witness, 27.

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Upon adopting Yoder’s realistic approach to democracy, the Christian

is now free to see voting as an opportunity to communicate to the

powers that rule over them. For the Christian community this forms

part of their proclamation. Yoder laments that typically, ‘for most

Christians the decision about how to vote is not the expression of any

careful evaluation of what needs to be said to the authorities’.57 For

Yoder, voting ‘is one way, one of the weaker and vaguer ways, to

speak truth to power.’58 This shift in thinking from ‘ruling-by-vote’ to

‘communicating-by-vote’ will change the way that Christian’s think

about and approach the act of voting.

Within these thus lowered expectations as to real control, we can

be less tense about which side to take, for the criteria which

guide us may be more varied. We need not longer assume that as

little Constantines we must always decide on “The Right.” Other

things being equal, we may vote for the weaker side in order to

counteract the winners margin of self-righteousness. […] We may

ask to be counted against the system by abstention or by a throw

away vote, supporting a hopeless cause like Prohibition or Dr.

Spock.59

57 Yoder, Christian Witness, 27.58 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 30.59 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 30.

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As well as a form of communication with the powers, Yoder

surprisingly encourages participation on the grounds of a retrieval

ethic with the goal seeming to be ‘to retrieve as much good as one

can in the situation and limit as much harm as is possible.’60 Yoder

concedes, ‘A system in which the subjects are consulted, and in which

the oligarchy can be changed non-violently, is better than other

systems, so we shall participate gratefully with low expectations’.61

60 Michael Hill, The How and Why of Love: An Introduction to Evangelical Ethics (Kingsford, N.S.W.: Matthias Media, 2002), 133.61 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 30.

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Yoder does not conclude one way or the other about whether a

Christian should vote or abstain. For Yoder it is to be decided on a

case-by-case basis depending upon what needs to be communicated

to those who are ruling. However, Yoder does consider that voting

may be a good thing for the Christian to do as a way of “speaking”

and also as a way of supporting a system that, although far from

perfect, allows the changing of “rulers” in a non-violent way.62 When it

comes to how a Christian should vote, ‘there would ideally need to be

common deliberation and common action if the Christian witness is

not to be a testimony more to confusion than to truth.’63 For Yoder,

the deliberation and organisation of a Christian vote is done with the

purpose of communication and not simply to favour one particular

party of candidate for which he criticises the Roman Catholic

Church.64 However ‘too often, Yoder claims, Christians vote in secular

elections to “become politically powerful and to use that power in the

interest in ones own goals.” Such a strategy is “hardly reconcilable

with that of the New Testament church.”’65

62 Yoder, ‘The Natural Ritual,’ 30.63 Yoder, Christian Witness, 27-28.64 Yoder, Christian Witness, 27-28.65 Andy Alexis-Baker, ‘When There is Nothing to Vote For: Liberalism, John Howard Yoder, and the Church,’ pages 10-22 in Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting (eds. Ted Lewis; Eugene, Ore: Cascade Books, 2008), 21; Yoder, Christian Witness, 27.

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EVALUATION

When it comes to evaluating the theological ethics of Yoder there is

much of his work that must be praised. Yoder displays a deep

commitment to the Bible as the means by which a theological ethic

should be determined and sets about this task with serious exegesis

and rigorous engagement with biblical scholarship. Hays, although

not convinced by Yoder at every exegetical turn, acknowledges that

‘he is working seriously and deeply at the exegetical task, presenting

his findings for all to see and inviting challenges to his exegesis of

particular texts.’66

This being said, Yoder’s exegetical work of the Jubilee appears to over

state its place in the person and work of Jesus. Another frustration is

that despite choosing the Gospel of Luke as the main basis for his

analysis of Jesus’ social ethic, Yoder devotes very little time to Acts.

Given the prevailing scholarly consensus of the unity of Luke-Acts, it

seems that a study of Acts would have been a natural place to go to

follow the Christian communities enactment of the ethics of Jesus.67

Another omission in Yoder’s use of scripture is that despite the fact

that he ‘never denies that the specific rules found in scripture are

66 Hays, Moral Vision, 240.67 Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘Luke-Acts, Book of’ Pages 403-20 in vol. 4 of The Anchor Bible Dictionary (eds. David Noel Freedman; 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992), 404.

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binding on the Christian community, he places little emphasis on

them.’68

It also could be stated that Yoder’s ethic is insufficiently shaped by

the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection for Yoder can appear to be

merely the vindication of Jesus going the way of the Cross. If the

resurrection played a more central role in his ethics there may be the

scope for the Christian to speak with more clarity about the future of

history. The resurrection also confirms God’s approval of the creation

and is the first fruits of his work to bring about its redemption. The

Christian may then, trusting in God, work for the renewal and

restoration of the world around them because of the future hope for

creation secured in the resurrection.

Yoder’s call for Christians to entrust the future to God, just as Jesus

and the ancient Israelites did, is an admirable. However it may not

necessarily mean that they do not participate in social action within

wider society as Yoder argues. Is it possible that a Christian, fully

trusting in God to determine the future, is active in pursuing social

and political change within the powers that exist? It may be argued

that reliance upon God and active participation are not mutually

exclusive as Yoder presents.

68 Hays, Moral Vision, 248.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexis-Baker, Andy. ‘When There is Nothing to Vote For: Liberalism,

John Howard Yoder, and the Church.’ Pages 10-22 in Electing

Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting.

Edited by Ted Lewis. Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2008.

Carter, Craig A. The Politics of the Cross: The Theology and Social

Ethics of John Howard Yoder. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos

Press, 2001

Churchill, Winston. The Official Report, House of Commons (5th

Series), vol. 444, pages 206–07; 11 November 1947.

Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community,

Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New

Testament Ethics. London: T&T Clark, 1996.

Hill, Michael. The How and Why of Love: An Introduction to

Evangelical Ethics. Kingsford, N.S.W.: Matthias Media, 2002.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. ‘Luke-Acts, Book of’. Pages 403-20 in Vol. 4 of

The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6

vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

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Yoder, John Howard. The Christian witness to the state. Institute of

Mennonite Studies Series, no. 3. Newton, Kan.: Faith and Life

Press, 1964.

_____. ‘The Natural Ritual: Biblical Realism and the Elections’.

Sojourners. October (1976): 29-30.

_____. The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster. Grand Rapids, Mich.:

Eerdmans, 1972.

_____. The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical

(Gran Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994)

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Yoder's Theological Ethic and Voting