The Politics of Jesus

Rating:
Summary: Was Jesus a Dove?
Review: I am borrowing a term from my youth and the Viet Nam conflct when people were labeled Hawks or Doves by their reaction to war.

Yoder makes a case that Jesus was VERY political. He was not uninterested in world events around him. He was involved, but not in the way that much of the religious right is today. More likely, he made the footsteps that Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Theresa later walked in. This is a book on politics, power, and pacifism. At least that is the way that Yoder sees it.

Many Christians do not agree with Yoder, but he is not easily dismissed. This book is well written and each chapter of this revised edition contains an epilogue that helps to update it with new information since the days of the first edition.

Rating:
Summary: Was Jesus a Pacifist?
Review: The late John Howard Yoder was one of the most influential Mennonite theologians of his time. This book argues the case that Jesus believed in a "Christian Pacifism." This is in contrast to the common view of many Protestants in "Christian Realism." In Yoder's view Jesus' opinions are not to be dismissed and downgraded under the general fact of his atonement for the world's sins. Nor are his views to be (tactfully) dismissed as representing a rustic world-view based on personal relationships which does not really grasp the complex world of institutions and power relationships. Jesus cannot simply be dismissed as someone who did not recognize the necessity of power, nor can his view be that of an apocalyptic enthusiast who believed that the world was fated to end. By examining the Gospel of Luke Yoder argues we can see allusions to the Jubilee and its demands for social justice for the poor. Yoder traces a pattern in the bible in which "God will Fight For Us" after the reign of King David, and he points out successful instances of non-violent resistance to the Romans in Jesus' time.

Such are Yoder's views. However sympathetic one may be to pacifism, Yoder's argument is clearly flawed. His work contains two flaws that are common to books of this type. First, his historical knowledge is limited. Second, he fails to fully appreciate opposing passages in the bibles.

Let's look at the historical problems. (1) Much of Yoder's discussion of Jesus is based on the idea that there was a revolutionary Zealot movement contemporary with him. Therefore, Jesus' view of power can be seen as a principled pacifist rejection of their violent tactics. Unfortunately for Yoder's argument it is clear that there was no such movement. One can see this clearly in volume three of John Meier's A Marginal Jew. The "Zealot" in Simon Zealot is an adjective, the faction per se did not arise for another three decades until the Great Jewish rebellion. (2) Yoder has to defend the "Haustafalen" passages where Saint Paul states "Wives, be subject to your husbands...Children, obey your parents, etc..." This passage has historically been viewed as an apology for misogyny and slavery. In defense Yoder argues that these passages were unprecedented in viewing slaves and women as moral agents, and in counselling husbands to love their wives. Yoder is wrong: slaves were commonly viewed as moral agents (i.e. Seneca) and stoics such as the first century Musonious Rufus supported mutual love between spouses.

Now on to the problem of tendentiousness. (1) Yoder's book concentrates on the Gospel of Luke. There is only cursory discussion of why he uses this Gospel, when it is generally believed that Mark is the earliest one. Yoder completely ignores the whole problem of Jesus scholarship, trying to find out what he said as opposed to what the gospel writers composed four to seven decades after his death. (2) Yoder discusses the Jubilee and power. But what about the demons Jesus cast out, or the miracles he performed? What about the statements in which Jesus said the Kingdom of God is now amongst us, and its final triumph within our lifetimes? (3) In the chapter "God will Fight for Us," Yoder argues for a tradition that after King David, God, not men will fight Israel's battles for her. But what about Jehu's coup against Jezebel, or the execution of Athaliah and Haman, or the struggles of the Maccabees? (4) Yoder consistently ignores or downplays the eschatological view of the early church. Consider his long discussion of Romans, chapter 13, which he argues is not a blank cheque for state power. But he ignores Romans 13:11-12: "...for now is our salvatio nearer than we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand..." How can one build a politics on the bedrock of people who believed the world was going to end? There may be a good case for pacifism and rejecting power. But Yoder does not provide it and it is not clear that it can be based on the New Testament.

Rating:
Summary: The Unashamed Theologian
Review: This book is one of those that you will either completely hate and despise, or one that will completely rock your world. In my case, it was a world-rocker. Yoder was far ahead of much of nonfoundationalist and postliberal theology in his masterful work at simply reading and interpreting the Bible (and particularly the gospels) as if its content mattered for how we understand and perform social ethics.

The first part of the book is a contention that Jesus is not irrelevant for ethics. Yoder sucintly knocks down arguments that would seek to ground the substance of ethics in some norm other than God revealed in Christ.

The largest chapter of the book involves a close reading of the book of Luke, showing that Jesus, far from being apolitical, offers an alternative political possibility to that of Ceasar. Yoder goes on to discuss other biblical and historical issues such as the Jubilee language in the gospel of Luke and its implications, the oft-batted about passage on "the state" in Romans 13 - this section is simply masterful; Yoder is incredibly persuasive about how this passage has been misread out of context by those that seek to make Christian theology underwrite civil government. Yoder also examines the issues of war in the Old Testament, showing lucidly how these passages do not support an ethid of violence. There are also extended treatments on Pauline thought, including the Yoder's controversial (and brilliant) treatment of the Household Codes. There is a final chapter on Revelation is worth the price of the book itself.

This is definately a must-read. Even if you disagree with everything Yoder says, this book is a classic and presents questions that must be thought through by anyone who claims to follow Christ.