A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
John Howard Yoder argues that Jesus’ public ministry, teaching, cross, and resurrection constitute a concrete social ethic rather than an apolitical spirituality or an impossible ideal. Reading Luke and other New Testament texts through an Anabaptist lens, he presents enemy-love, nonviolence, economic sharing, servant leadership, and refusal of domination as the church’s political witness—a community that embodies another way of ordering power.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
The book decisively challenged Christian ethics that praise Jesus devotionally while treating coercive statecraft as the only realistic public option. Its account of the cross as faithful nonviolent resistance remains foundational for peace-church theology and beyond. The Library retains it for that influence and argument, while refusing to separate its theology of power from the documented sexual abuse Yoder committed and the institutional failures that protected him.
Good starting place if…
You want a foundational Anabaptist case that Jesus shapes public ethics and political practice, and you are prepared to read it with survivor-centered accountability.
Know before you begin…
Yoder sexually abused and harassed numerous women over many years, often manipulating theological and institutional authority; Mennonite bodies later acknowledged both his misconduct and failures of accountability. That history is indispensable when reading his claims about submission, community discipline, suffering, leadership, and power. The book’s nonviolence should never require victims to remain accessible to abusers, forgo protection, or spiritualize imposed suffering. Read with survivor testimony, safeguarding scholarship, and attention to the contradiction between Yoder’s argument and conduct.