The study of Christian ethics in North America has been profoundly influenced during this century by the work of H. Richard Niebuhr. That influence is felt nowhere as keenly as in the widespread use of his classic text, Christ and Culture. Yet certain central flaws exist in Niebuhr's work on Christ and culture, particularly in its lack of concrete norms for the church's transformative engagement with the world. Scholars have long realized that further work must be done in this area if the church is to speak the word of the gospel adequately in the midst of a pluralistic and changing culture....

These essays in Christian social ethics, some previously published but most appearing in print here for the first time, are all about the way in which the church, in the midst of the world, is called to think and act on behalf of the world. As the title indicates, this affirmative stance is the opposite of the way John Howard Yoder has often been interpreted under the label of "sectarian." The church is called to serve as a prophetic model and discerning pioneer, addressing the surrounding society's concerns about power and righteousness. The examples chosen for interpretation range from the...

In the historic meeting held in 1527 at Schleitheim, Switzerland, an ad hoc group of Anabaptists worked through fundamental disagreements and emerged with a consensus on seven points of faith that became known as the Schleitheim Confession. Also known as the Brotherly Union, this text constitutes one chapter from The Legacy of Michael Sattler. 36 Pages.

Description: ""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...

At a time when the Evangelical wing of the church is beginning to show some signs of soul searching over the issues of war and peace, the Pentecostals would do well to study their own heritage.Whether they accept or reject their earlier world view, they need to interpret the motivation for their original beliefs and those which they now hold.As people of the word of God, have Pentecostals altered their pacifistic views as a result of new biblical insights or cultural accommodation?-- From the Introduction

In A Pacifist Way of Knowing: John Howard Yoder's Nonviolent Epistemology, editors Christian Early and Ted Grimsrud gather the scattered writings of Yoder on the theme of the relationship between gospel, peace, and human ways of knowing. In them, they find the beginnings of a pacifist theology of knowledge that rejects strategies of empire while at the same time avoids a self-defeating relativism.

Description: The ambitious and accessible essays collected in this volume were presented by John Howard Yoder during an extensive visit to South America in 1966. Reflecting and also subverting the acknowledged "faddish" attempt to address the revolutionary nature of Christianity, these lectures provide an illuminating snapshot of Yoder's vibrant initial encounter with Latin American Christianity. In these lectures, he thematically addresses the shape of the free church, the Christian practice of peace, and the place of the church in the midst of revolution. In a manner that betrays his...