Wisdom of the Cross: Essays in Honor of John Howard Yoder, The

Theology Today, Oct 2000 by Swartley, Willard M

The Wisdom of the Cross: Essays in Honor of John Howard Yoder

Edited by Stanley Hauerwas, Chris K. Huebner, Harry J. Huebner, and Mark Thiessen Nation

Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999. 494 pp. $49.00.

In this massive volume, a decade in making, the reader encounters John Howard Yoder from appreciative and critical stances. Without doubt, Yoder has left a significant mark on moral and theological thought of the latter third of the twentieth century. This book consists of twenty-one essays, with a preface by Stanley Hauerwas, plus a "Bibliography Supplement" (to the "Comprehensive Bibliography" published in Mennonite Quarterly Review 71 [1997], 93-145) by Mark Thiessen Nation. It puts Yoder's contribution in critical dialogue with numerous notable ethicists and theologians.

The first two chapters provide "A Biographical Sketch" of Yoder's life (Nation) and a previously unpublished essay by Yoder, "'Patience' as Method in Moral Reasoning: Is an Ethic of Discipleship 'Absolute'?" The biographical sketch begins with Yoder's ancestry and the Oak Grove Mennonite church community; it then identifies major influences upon Yoder: his formative educational experience-what Hauerwas calls "the hidden years"-and Yoder's diverse ecumenical engagements. Yoder's teaching career falls into two roughly equal periods: 1959-84 at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries (now Seminary) and 1977-97 at Notre Dame University. Not mentioned by Nation and likely not known by most, Yoder again taught at AMBS in fall 1997-the semester before his death-after reconciliation was completed with AMBS subsequent to five years of disciplinary actions, conversations, and restoration by the local church conference. As dean and then acting president of AMBS, I was the bearer of that good news to his home, to him and wife, Annie. In certainly two of the most important hours of my life, I witnessed the depth of anguish and joy in personal reality of what Yoder taught about church discipline, faithfulness, and reconciliation. Most helpful to understanding Yoder, in addition to the fine essays in this volume, see the special issue of the Conrad Grebel Review (Vol. 16, Spring 1998), including "Reflections" at his funeral.

Yoder's essay on "Patience" is vintage Yoder, identifying nineteen types of "patience" necessary for dialogue and quest toward faithfulness. Then follows considerable "fencing" to disqualify his stance as "absolute"-at least no more than that of other ethicists! This essay echoes Yoder's nineteen types of "pacifism" in Nevertheless (Herald Press, 1971, rev. 1992).

The remaining nineteen essays in The Wisdom of the Cross are grouped into five sections. The first, titled "Nevertheless," consists of essays by Nancey Murphy on "Yoder's Systematic Defence of Christian Pacifism," Reinhard Hitter on "Be Honest in Just War Thinking," Tobias Winright on "From Police Officers to Peace Officers," and Ernest W. Ranly on "Christian Spirituality of Nonviolence as Reconciliation." The second section, "The Politics of Jesus Revisited," consists of three essays: William Klassen on "Jesus and the Zealot Option," Glen H. Stassen on "The Politics of Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain," and Marva Dawn on "The Biblical Concept of `the Principalities and Powers': John Yoder Points to Jacques Ellul." The third section, "Alternatives to Methodologism," contains four essays: Harry J. Huebner on "Moral Agency as Embodiment: How the Church Acts," Arne Rasmusson on "Historicizing the Historicist: Ernst Troeltsch and Recent Mennonite Theology," Mark Thiessen Nation on "Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Polyphonic Pacifism as Social Ethics," and Grady Scott Davis on "Tradition and Truth in Christian Ethics: John Yoder and the Bases for Biblical Realism." Section 4 contains four essays under the title, "The Otherness of the Church": "The Believers Church in Theological Perspective" by James Wm. McClendon Jr., "Meeting in the Power of the Spirit: Ecclesiology, Ethics, and the Practice of Discernment" by Gayle Gerber Koontz, "Sorting the Wheat from the Tares: Reinterpreting Reinhold Niebuhr's The Interpretation of Christian Ethics" by Michael G. Cartwright, and "Love Your Enemies: The Church as Community of Nonviolence" by Jane Elyse Russell. The final section of four essays, titled "Tertium Datur," begins with a conversation about Yoder's theology ("History, Theory, and Anabaptism") between Stanley Hauerwas and Chris K. Huebner, followed by a second essay by J. Denny Weaver, "Theology in the Mirror of the Martyred and Oppressed: Reflections on the Intersection of Yoder and Cone," the third by A. James Reimer, "Theological Orthodoxy and Jewish Christianity," and finally an essay by Gerald W. Schlabach, "Deuteronomic or Constantinian: What Is the Most Basic Problem of Social Ethics?"

Memorable among these diverse essays is Nancey Murphy's summary of what she regards as Yoder's core hypothesis: "The moral character of God is revealed in Jesus' vulnerable enemy love and renunciation of domination. Imitation of Jesus in this regard constitutes a social ethic." Murphy proposes that this core is buttressed by auxiliary hypotheses. Her systematization is I think correct, though Yoder would likely demur on any notion of system. Murphy's appeal to Rene Girard to address a major deficiency in Yoder's emphases-Christ's death as a once-for-all sacrifice for sin-is most instructive. Likewise, Reimer's critique of Yoder's "antifoundationalist" view that locates the fall of the church initially in the second century in its estrangement from Judaism, which in turn puts on discount the developing Christian understanding of God and Trinity that culminates in Nicea and Chalcedon, identifies another deficiency (which shows itself in "mutation" in Weaver's essay).