To hear the Word: Second Edition

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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"Of very few people can it be legitimately said that their work fundamentally reconfigured the landscape of two theological disciplines. But if there is anyone in recent memory who would be worthy of such an accolade, it is John Howard Yoder. The two disciplines are, of course, theological ethics and biblical studies—though Yoder would cringe at their separation, and his work was both explicitly and implicitly a prolonged exercise in maintaining their indissoluble union. For him, to hear the word rightly was to do the word publicly. . . . [Yoder] guides us toward a truly ecclesial yet missional reading of Scripture, with a profoundly Anabaptist yet ecumenical and catholic spirit, in historically astute and literarily sensitive ways that are nonetheless "straightforward" and pastoral. Or, as he would himself say, he guides us toward a reading of Scripture that proceeds from and focuses on Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, Eum Sequamur; 'Our Lamb has conquered; let us follow him.'" —from the foreword by Michael J. Gorman