The Politics of Yahweh

John Howard Yoder, the Old Testament, and the People of God

John C. Nugent

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9781608999149
  9781498213202
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621894360
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

John Howard Yoder is most famous for arguing in The Politics of Jesus that a sound reading of the New Testament demonstrates the abiding relevance of Jesus to social ethics. However, it is seldom acknowledged that Yoder makes essentially the same argument with regard to the Old Testament. Throughout his extensive writings, Yoder offers a provocative interpretation of the Old Testament that culminates in the way of Jesus and establishes the ethical, ecclesiological, and historiographical continuity of the entire biblical canon. In The Politics of Yahweh, presented as a prequel to The Politics of Jesus, John C. Nugent makes Yoder's complete Old Testament interpretation accessible in one place for the first time. Nugent does not view Yoder's interpretation as flawless. Rather, Nugent moves beyond summary to offer honest critique and substantial revision. His constructive proposal, which stands in fundamental continuity with the work of Yoder, is likely to provoke thought from theologians, biblical scholars, and ethicists. Even at points where readers disagree with some of his and Yoder's interpretations, they will be challenged to explore new perspectives and rethink common assumptions concerning the diverse and often confusing issues that arise from sustained reflection on the Old Testament.

chapter 1

Introduction

Why The Politics of Jesus Needs a Prequel

The Value of a Prequel

Luke Skywalker was my childhood hero. He worked diligently to become a Jedi Knight. He saved the rebel alliance from ultimate destruction. He conquered the forces of evil. He was the star of the blockbuster trilogy Star Wars—or so I thought. Long after the series seemed to have ended, there were rumors of a prequel (or, more accurately, a prequel trilogy). I was skeptical at first, but my cynicism abated shortly after I purchased a copy of the original trilogy containing interviews with producer George Lucas. Those interviews dramatically changed my understanding of the storyline of Star Wars.

Toward the end of the Empire Strikes Back (Episode V), arch villain Darth Vader, whom Luke had defeated in the first movie, made the paradoxical claim that he was Luke’s father. We were stunned. How could this be? Befuddled fans debated this claim until it was confirmed in the final episode, Return of the Jedi. Still, many of us wondered what the point was. What purpose could this agitating revelation possibly serve? At the series’ end it began to make sense: Darth Vader, formerly Anakin Skywalker, would be redeemed. He would atone for his sins by offering his life in order to vanquish the wicked Emperor. As a result, he was united with his forefathers who dedicated their lives to advancing the good side of the Force.

I have to admit that when all of this transpired I was oblivious to its full significance. I considered it a mere add-on, the product of an eleventh hour brainstorm designed to spruce up a perfectly fine story of how my hero, Luke, climbed the ranks of Jedi knighthood to single-handedly bring down the evil empire. I assumed this, of course, because I had not seen the entire series and because modern culture had trained me well how to identify heroes. Luke embodied the stuff of which all good heroes are made: good looks, interesting friends, humble origins, and a free spirit. When I watched the George Lucas interviews, however, I discovered how badly these assumptions failed me. In them Lucas discloses that his epic’s plot actually hinges on the redemption of Anakin Skywalker. It was no mere subplot, and after the prequels are released the waiting world will finally grasp the centrality of Lord Vader. Until then, Lucas explains, “The real story hasn’t even been told yet.” Without the prequel, it was too easy to misread the entire plot; the real story is not Luke’s hero journey, but Anakin’s redemption.

For the Sake of Yoder Scholarship

Nearly 40 years have gone by and scholars are still misreading The Politics of Jesus.1 Or at least they’re still misreading John Howard Yoder. There’s Yoder the Marcionite, Yoder the supersessionist, Yoder the fundamentalist, Yoder the secularist, and—often implied but seldom stated forthrightly—Yoder the naïve Anabaptist. That such labels are misplaced is partly why The Politics of Jesus needs a prequel. It’s hard to blame Yoder’s critics, however. He wrote widely on ethical and theological issues but never brought his ideas together into a single volume that reveals the grand architecture of his thought. He simply wrote one essay at a time as he was commissioned and as the situation seemed to require. After writing over 600 essays, Yoder was forced to retire his pen having breathed his last on his seventieth birthday, December 30, 1997.2

Three years later, Christianity Today hailed The Politics of Jesus as one of the twentieth century’s ten most important religious books.3 Though this acclaim justifies identifying it as Yoder’s magnum opus (if we admit a loose enough definition), The Politics of Jesus should not be mistaken for a complete expression of Yoder’s thought. It, too, was a commissioned piece—the weaving together of previously independent threads that fulfilled previously independent purposes.4 That Yoder continued writing throughout the twenty-five years following its publication has not prevented scholars from presuming to know his thought after reading only that one work. Ironically, The Politics of Jesus is not Yoder’s distinct contribution to theology and ethics. In it Yoder merely serves as an interdisciplinary courier, bringing the insights of New Testament studies to bear on the field of Christian ethics. His thesis was simple: contrary to the prevailing winds of mid-twentieth-century ethical thought, the Jesus of Scripture was a political figure who was interpreted by the apostolic generation as teaching and exemplifying truths that were relevant to the public life of first-century churches. Without help from Yoder, or from the Anabaptist tradition, New Testament scholars had already discovered that Jesus was a politically significant figure. The ethics guild had simply not caught on yet.

More central to Yoder’s project is the provocative way he interpreted the biblical narrative and brought it to bear on ecclesiological, ethical, and historical questions. In focusing on the New Testament, The Politics of Jesus gives us only the latter portion of that narrative.5 Yet Yoder’s understanding of the Old Testament is just as important for understanding his work as his reading of Jesus. Unfortunately, Yoder’s Old Testament reflections are scattered widely throughout his massive literary corpus, including over twenty lesser-known essays in which Yoder focuses primarily on Old Testament concerns.6 It is little wonder then that most scholars have missed Yoder’s Old Testament narration and the important role it occupies in his thought. Had Yoder made it more easily accessible, he might have avoided John Miller’s baseless charge that his ethical project is essentially Marcionite and J. Daryl Charles’s equally unsubstantiated claim that Yoder “assumes a radical ethical discontinuity between the Testaments.”7 If for no other reason than to set this record straight, The Politics of Jesus needs a prequel that sets forth Yoder’s Old Testament narration.

For the Sake of Ethics, Ecclesiology, and Historiography

There are at least two more reasons to showcase Yoder’s Old Testament narration—reasons that concern a broader audience than those seeking to interpret Yoder’s theological legacy. One is that a prequel to The Politics of Jesus encourages Christian ethicists, historians, and ecclesiologists to do what Yoder did, which was to take the entire biblical narrative seriously in their respective fields. Though Old and New Testament scholars have been eager to apply the tools of their craft to ecclesiology and ethics,8 few have been willing to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable chasm separating the Testaments and engage the full sweep of the biblical witness.9 This is understandable. To do so well requires acquaintance with ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman history and culture; familiarity with source criticism, redaction criticism, literary criticism, textual criticism, and canonical criticism, to name just a few; and fluency in at least two biblical languages. This is compounded by the fact that interpreters of Scripture do not always know who the author is, how exactly the events it portrays relate to history, and whether specific accounts were intended to be descriptive or prescriptive.

Of course, those who are comfortable in all of these areas still need to answer the thorny question of how the Old and New Testament relate to one another given the apparent tension between them. Classical dispensationalism offers one thoughtful answer: God is sovereign over world history and has chosen to relate to different people in different ways during different times. Humans are in no position to understand or judge why he chose to do so, but they must humbly accept that reality. Not only was God free to work through violent means in one Testament and not in the other, but each Testament is itself divided into multiple dispensations during which God reserves the right to alter his means and measures.10

John Howard Yoder was not satisfied with that answer, nor was he content with approaches that deal with intratestamental tension by narrating differences in terms of progressive revelation, attributing discrepancies to pedagogical concessions, or positing a split between various realms or vocations and assigning the teachings of the Old Testament to some and the New Testament to others.11 He rejected all of these approaches because he denied their shared premise that there is, in fact, sharp discontinuity between the Old Testament and New Testament, whether one is applying them to ethics, ecclesiology, or historiography.12 Not all scholars will agree with how Yoder resolves intratestamental tensions, but his work challenges them not only to critically engage his interpretation but to demonstrate that their projects are more firmly rooted in a sophisticated and nuanced reading of the entirety of Scripture.

For the Sake of Biblical Interpretation

A final reason to showcase Yoder’s Old Testament narration is that, where Yoder departs from standard interpretations of challenging biblical passages, he is sure to provoke much thought. Even at points where readers will disagree with his interpretation or the various alternatives th...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Part One: Yoder’s Old Testament Narration
• Part Two: Yoder’s Old Testament Narration Revisited
• Epilogue: Practicing the Politics of Yahweh
• Appendix A: Two Essays Exhibiting Yoder’s Canonical-Directional Approach
• Appendix B: Summary of a Revised Yoderian Narration of the Old Testament
• Appendix C: Distinguishing Marks of a Kingdom-Reflecting Church
• Bibliography