John Howard Yoder

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John Howard Yoder

John Howard Yoder (born December 29, 1927 in Smithville , Ohio , † December 30, 1997 in South Bend , Indiana ) was an American Evangelical- Mennontic theologian and pacifist . He was one of the most influential Christian ethicists of the 20th century and probably the most important Mennonite theologian of all.

Life

Childhood and youth

John Howard Yoder was born on December 29, 1927 to Howard C. Yoder and Ethel Good near Smithville, Ohio. His ancestors had been influential Mennonites for generations, and so he grew up in Oak Grove Mennonite Church . In 1933 the family moved to the nearby town of Wooster . After the Second World War , 1945 to 1949, he studied at the Mennonite Goshen College in Indiana.

Work in France

In 1949, Yoder initially worked as a representative of the international Mennonite Central Committee in France, where he participated in a program for orphaned war children. In France he married Anne Marie Guth from Alsace in 1952 , with whom he had seven children. In 1955 he organized an aid project for Algeria, which was marked by an earthquake . He played a key role in the ecumenical peace talks of the Protestant churches in Western Europe, the Puidoux Theological Conferences , which took place in various places in Europe.

Studied in Basel

Since 1950 as a guest and from 1954 on he studied the Old Testament with Walter Baumgartner and Walther Eichrodt , the New Testament with Oscar Cullmann , dogmatics with Karl Barth and philosophy with Karl Jaspers at the University of Basel . Yoder received his doctorate in 1962 under Ernst Staehelin on the subject of Anabaptism and the Reformation in Switzerland. The conversations between Anabaptists and Reformers 1523-1538 with cum laude. In 1968 an investigation into the history of dogma followed An Anabaptism and Reformation in conversation . Yoder held a theological discussion with Karl Barth on the question of war , on which he published the work Karl Barth and the Problem of War in 1970 . In the following years the theology and practice of the Anabaptist movement became a special focus .

Professor in Goshen and South Bend

In 1957, Yoder returned with his family to the USA and initially worked in the vegetable growing of his parents' family. From 1958 to 1959 he taught as a representative at the Mennonite Theological Seminary in Goshen in the USA. From 1959 he worked as an administrative assistant for the overseas mission at the Mennonite Board of Missions (MBM) in Elkhart , Indiana. He sought connections with evangelical church leaders organized in the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Council of Churches . At the same time, Yoder worked in various positions with the World Council of Churches . From 1965 to 1984 Yoder worked as a professor and as a councilor at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, Indiana, of which he was also director from 1970 to 1973. As early as 1967 he had a teaching position for peace studies at the Catholic University of Notre Dame in South Bend , so that he could only do a part-time teaching position in Elkhart. In 1984 he was appointed professor at the University of South Bend, where he was able to teach and work until his death.

Since the 1970s, Yoder has held visiting professorships in Argentina (1970/71), France (1974/75) and Jerusalem (1975/76). He has been to more than twenty countries for lecture tours and has taught short intensive courses at three academic institutions in three countries. His fluency in French, German and Spanish helped him with this.

Teaching

His best-known work today is Die Politik Jesu - der Weg des Kreuz ( Politics of Jesus ) from 1972. The magazine Christianity Today counted it among the 10 most important theological books of the 20th century at the turn of the millennium. In it, Yoder discusses the relevance of God's incarnation in Christ for the current social positioning of the Christian churches , based on an exegesis of the Gospel of Luke and the Letter to the Romans . Redemption through Jesus Christ is profoundly social and political. Yoder derives a radical pacifism, which should be common to all Christian denominations.

Act

In addition to his academic and peace policy work, Yoder played a major role in the dialogues between the major European churches and the traditional peace churches . Yoder can be considered the most influential Mennonite theologian of the 20th century. Yoder was a member of the Christian Peace Conference (CFK), in whose advisory committee he was elected in 1961 at the 1st All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague .

Yoder's Abuse of Women and Its Consequences

Yoder was intellectually energetic, curious, and demanding, but also shy and deeply lonely. He had come to the particular view that there are different sexual dimensions, one family and one genital, that can be lived. He called the former "non-erotic sexual intimacy" (English: non-erotic sexual intimacy ). Jesus' dealings with women were exemplary, which also included touch. Since 1975 there have been repeated allegations against Yoder of sexual assault on young women, especially on some of his female students. It was not until 1979 that Marlin Miller, president of Goshen Bible Seminary, took the first steps towards discipline; later other institutions followed. In 1986 his church, Prairie Street Mennonite Church , responded , and in 1992 the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference practiced discipline and suspended him from church service on 13 cases of unlawful conduct against women . He was urged to seek counseling and to pay damages to the injured women. However, there was never a judicial charge or conviction. In 1996 the suspension was lifted again; just days before his death in 1997, he and his wife Annie were readmitted to their church.

The extent of Yoder's attacks only became clear after his death, when more than 50 women gradually made their allegations public. The president of the AMB seminar, Sara Wenger Shenk, set up a working group after 2010 and commissioned the Mennonite historian Rachel Waltner Goossen to come to terms with what happened. It assumes that over 100 people are affected. As of 2013, MennoMedia had a statement printed on all of Yoder's publications at Herald Press, stating that readers should know that Yoder had abused numerous women. In 2014, the Mennonite Church USA commissioned a working group to re-evaluate Yoder's actions, and in 2015 various articles were published in the Mennonite Quarterly Review . In the same year, at the AMB seminar in Elkhart, there was a litigation, (guilt) confession and commitment service, where complicity in the seminar and its leadership was admitted.

Works

Yoder wrote several hundred essays in five languages ​​and 17 books. His most famous book, The Politics of Jesus , has been translated into twelve languages, and over 100,000 copies have been sold. It also inspired many educated people and opinion leaders like Stanley Hauerwas and Jim Wallis .

The following works by John Howard Yoder have been published in German:

  • The politics of the body of Christ. Live as a symbolic community. Neufeld Verlag , Schwarzenfeld, September 2011. ISBN 978-3-86256-016-5 .
  • The politics of Jesus. Neufeld Verlag , Schwarzenfeld, September 2012. ISBN 978-3-937896-09-0 .
  • Imitation of Christ as a figure of political responsibility , Weisenheim am Berg 2000.
  • What would you do? Analyzes and texts on a standard question to pacifists and conscientious objectors , Weisenheim am Berg 1985 (Ed.).
  • Anabaptism and Reformation in conversation. Dogma-historical investigation of the early conversations between Swiss Anabaptists and Reformers , Zurich 1968.
  • Anabaptism and Reformation in Switzerland I. The Talks between Anabaptists and Reformers 1523-1538 , Karlsruhe 1962.

literature

Web links

swell

  1. a b c d Yoder, John Howard in MennLex V, accessed March 16, 2017.
  2. ^ Stanley Hauerwas: Hannah's Child - A Theologian's Memoir , Eerdmans, Grand Rapids / Cambridge 2010 and 2012, ISBN 978-0-8028-6739-1 , pages 242-247
  3. David Cramer, Jenny Howell, Jonathan Tran, Paul Martens: Scandalizing John Howard Yoder . In: The Other Journal , Seattle July 7, 2014.
  4. ^ Mark Oppenheimer: A Theologian's Influence, and Stained Past, Live On . In: The New York Times , October 11, 2013  .; see also The case of John Howard Yoder. Theology and Misconduct in: The Christian Century , August 20, 2014, pp. 20-23
  5. Rachel Waltner Goossen: The failure to bind and loose: Responses to Yoder's sexual abuse . In: mennonite.org , February 1, 2015.
  6. Lucinda Borkett-Jones: Great theologians and serious sin: Does John Howard Yoder's history of sexual abuse discredit his work? In: Christian Today , April 14, 2015.
  7. Soli Salgado: Allegations of sexual harassment against John Howard Yoder extend to Notre Dame. In: National Catholic Reporter , Kansas City, June 25, 2015.
  8. Frieder Boller, Lukas Amstutz, Heike Geist, Hanspeter Jecker, Denis Kennel, Bernhard Ott, Michel Sommer, Marcus Weiand and Marie-Noëlle Yoder: In spite of everything, let yourself be inspired by John H. Yoder's theological thoughts. A statement ( memento of March 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) In: BienenbergBlog , May 21, 2015.
  9. David Neufeld: John Howard Yoder: Down from the podium? In: Neufeld Verlag Blog , May 29, 2015.
  10. ^ Mennonews - Mennonite News