The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel

by John Howard Yoder

In this volume of essays John Howard Yoder projects a vision of Christian social ethics rooted in historical community and illuminated by scripture. Drawing upon scriptural accounts of the early church, he demonstrates the Christian community's constant need for reform and change. Yoder first examines the scriptural and theoretical foundations of Christian social ethics. While personally committed to the "radical reformation" tradition, he eschews "denominational" categorization and addresses Christians in general. The status of Christian community, he argues, cannot be separated from the doctrinal content of beliefs and the moral understanding of discipleship. As a result, the Christian's voluntary commitment to a particular community, as distinct from secular society, offers him valuable resources for practical moral reasoning. From a historical perspective, Yoder reviews the efforts of sixteenth-century radical (or Anabaptist) reformers to return to the fundamental ethical standards of the New Testament, and to disengage the community, as a biblically rooted call to faith that does not imply withdrawal from the pluralistic world. Rather, radical commitment to Christianity strengthens and renews the authentic human interests and values of the whole society. His analyses of democracy and of civil religion illustrate how Christianity must challenge and embrace the wider world.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Church, Politics, Religion

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Yoder was a Christian theologian, ethicist, and Biblical scholar best known for his radical Christian pacifism, his mentoring of future theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas, his loyalty to his Mennonite faith, and his 1972 magnum opus, "The Politics of Jesus".

Reviews

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is dense, as testified by the multiple quotes in my update feed. I did this not just to share some of Yoder's insights as much as to make the task of going back to these insights easier. This book is well worth the read. I'd even hazard to say that it's the best work of political theology I've read. This book, even more that The Politics of Jesus, is a collection of clear statements that give the reader a firm idea of Yoder's political and social ethics. So many quotable lines means that there is much to digest, which I hope to cover in my own writing in response to Yoder's ideas.

If the ways Christianity is used in contemporary political debates bothers you (and it should!), this book provides a foundation of critical thinking that you can apply to this problem.

[Aeisele · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to describe how interesting and brilliant Yoder is. He takes a simple proposition: the gospel is the fact that Jesus has lived, died, and was raised, and is now the Lord of the world - in opposition to every other Lord. Practically, these means non-violence (since God dealt with his enemies through sacrifice and love); it means a prophetic voice against nationalism and "civil religion" (because the nation basically attempts to use God as a claim to destroy, instead of love, its enemies); and it means creative involvement with bringning real reconiliation in the world.
These essays are amazing.

[Drick]

This is a series of essays and lectures Yoder delivered on the Anabaptist perspective on politics. He clearly contrasts Anabaptist thought with the dominant protestant thinkers such as Richard Reinhold Niebuhr, of whom he was a contemporary. He tries to show that Anabaptism was an attempt to re-capture the original Christian ethic that was diluted once Christianity came into power under Constantine in the 4th century. His last essay, a critique of American Civil Religion is brilliant. While at points I was lost in his inter-disciplinary debates with other ethicists, overall I found this book enlightening and made me glad to have embrace an Anabaptist heritage

[Jake Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's honestly a bit unfair to all the other books I read in a year to compare them to anything by Yoder - Like Stanley Hauerwas, Jean Vanier, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Yoder has been hugely influential to me and contributed to my development and growth as a Christian and a thinker over the last 5 years. A well handled if a bit wordy examination of Radical Reformation ethics that is objective to a fault; sometimes I wish Yoder would just out and state his opinion, but then he wouldn't be Yoder.

No book on Jesus, theology, ethics, or any related field could come more highly recommended. A 6th star is required, Goodreads.