The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited

NOTE: In troubling contrast to his work, we know that John Howard Yoder’s life was seriously flawed by acts of sexual violence against many women. Although his writings on nonviolence continue to be influential, we acknowledge that Yoder was, ironically and tragically, perpetuating violence, over many decades, in his private life. No reading or interpretation of Yoder can be done faithfully without understanding the extensive harmful legacy he has also left.

For more information, see Rachel Waltner Goossen’s research, published in Mennonite Quarterly Review, entitled “Defanging the Beast”.

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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 project and displays Yoder’s original thesis that the Jewish-Christian schism “did not have to be.”