Quotes from The Politics of Jesus

By John Howard Yoder (1974)

• The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt or a nagging in-law; it was the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society. Already the early Christians had to be warned against claiming merit for any and all suffering; only if their suffering be innocent, and a result of the evil will of their adversaries, may it be understood as meaningful before God (1 Pet. 2:18-21; 3:14-8; 4:1, 13-16; 5:9; James 4:10).#
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• To make of Gal. 3:28 a “modern” statement on women’s liberation, from which one can then look down on the rest of Paul’s thought, not only misplaces this text logically . . .; it also misreads the text itself.#
  ChristianityGender
• After the invitation to wives we saw that the Haustafeln addressed a similar and immensely more novel call to husbands to love their wives; after calling slaves to be subject, the early Christian moralists called upon the masters to be equally respectful; after calling children to remain subordinate to parents, the admonition was turned about and addressed to parents as well. When, however, the call to subordination is addressed to the Christian in his status as political subject, then in these texts exhortation is not reversed. There is no invitation to the king to conceive of himself as a public servant.#
  ChristianityPolitics
• That God orders and uses the powers does not reveal anything new about what government should be or how we should respond to government.#
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John McKenzie, Authority in the Church (1966)

• Certainly the story [of Jesus’ temptation] means that secular power is not to be acquired at the price of worship of Satan; but do we grasp the import of the story fully if we think the only thing wrong with the offer is that it came from Satan . . . ? The offer is not rejected because Satan is unable to deliver what he promises; it is rejected because secular power is altogether inept for the mission of Jesus, indeed because the use of secular power is hostile to his mission.#
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