Anabaptist Re-Vision: On John Howard Yoder's Misrecognized Sexual Politics (original) (raw)
Related papers
Mennonite Bodies, Sexual Ethics: Women Challenge John Howard Yoder
The phenomenon of religious leaders violating individuals over whom they have spiritual authority has become part of public discourse, and Mennonite organizations, long insensitive to the harms associated with sexual abuse, now promote policies aimed at prevention. 1 Increasingly, sexualized violence is subject to legal penalty, reflecting broad cultural and legislative shifts occurring over the past several decades. Sexualized violence is now widely regarded to be a public health issue. This evolution began in the 1970s, when according to the historian Estelle Freedman, "[feminist] organizers reframed sexual violence not merely as a private trauma but also as a nexus of power relations and a public policy concern." 2 This historical context provides a framework for examining the legacies of Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's decadeslong patterns of sexual abuse. 3 Cloaked in theological language and often targeted at women whose church and family upbringing had encouraged them to be reverential, his abuse was met with resistance from many Mennonite women, as well as out-migration of some of them from Mennonite churches and theological circles.
The Evolution of Mennonite Sexuality: How John Howard Yoder Got Away With It
In recent years, it's been made clear that sexuality is an important conversation in the circle of Mennonites around the world. Discussions of sexual morality, homosexual relationships, and sexual violence are plenty. If one knows anything about Mennonite dress, it's clear that sexuality, both pure and impure, are thought to be implied by how one chooses to dress themselves. Youth, in any culture, are seemingly always stuck in the center of the conversation of sexuality and sexual curiosity. It's clear that in the years between about 1890 and 1930, the youth of the Mennonite community were treated no differently, though in years prior to 1890, it is unclear exactly how much of a focus there was on the youth and sexuality. Enter here a few men who had a thing or two to say about sexuality and how Mennonite circles should approach the discussion in a Bible-influenced way. Sexual roles, in the home and in the church, changed and men were seen to be at the top of the pyramid in all things, even sexually. With modernity came the conversation on purity and the man's role in the relationship to decide what that means. In the course of this paper, the transition from free-will and love to clamp-down and white prayer caps will, hopefully, give insight into how a horrible misconduct, such as that done by John Howard Yoder, could possibly have happened under the dome of Anabaptism, seemingly without recourse.
This essay argues that the attempts by the Mennonite Church to address Yoder’s problematic sexual explorations revealed and heightened at least three tensions internal to the Anabaptist tradition that affect its polity in very practical ways: 1) the tension between the “Anabaptist vision” and “Mennonite reality”; 2) the tension between church discipline and anti-Constantinian resistance to power; and 3) the tension between the Anabaptist desire to separate from sin and the need for continued dialogue in disagreement. After describing how these tensions are narrated in Yoder’s writing and manifested in the competing perspectives concerning his disciplining process, the essay argues that—even though the circumstances are radically different—the same tensions are present in the current discernment process devoted to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ inclusion in the church. In so doing, we clarify the implicit theo-logics appealed to by differing groups in the Mennonite Church in order to facilitate better understanding among those representing various perspectives in these often impassioned discussions. [N.B. This article is under the copyright of the publisher and is posted here by the author strictly for personal/educational purposes. Please do not distribute or reproduce this content without the express written permission of the publisher. To purchase this content or subscribe to the journal, please visit https://www.goshen.edu/mqr/. If you are the publisher and would like this content removed from this website, please contact me directly at the information included in my CV. Thank you.]
PhD, Dissertation, 2017
While Mennonites are known for their peace stance, Mennonite pacifism and peace theology have tended not to address internal forms of violence within the community of faith and among people who identify as "Mennonite." Two illustrations of this include the case of Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's methodical perpetration of sexual violence against upwards of 100 women, specifically his theological justification of them as acts of "familial love" within the body of Christ, as well as Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA's discernment processes regarding the morality of same-sex marriage and the membership of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer persons. In both of these examples sexual and gender based forms of violence within Mennonite institutions and understandings of Mennonite ecclesiology and reconciliation processes were overlooked and/or ignored. This thesis addresses such significant failures. It considers the potential of Mennonite peace theology and discipleship ethics for the construction of a feminist Mennonite theo-ethics of embodiment and sexualityone that is committed to the well-being of the most vulnerable members of the community of faith (i.e. those with the least access to ecclesial and social power).
This paper is a response to a call from ethicist Karen Guth for those of us deeply influenced by Yoder to acknowledge unequivocally his abusive behaviors, affirm the full flourishing of women, and clarify that our peace theology includes opposing all forms of violence, including sexual violence. Also, along with Guth, the paper continues to affirm the use of Yoder's writings for formulating a Christ-centered peace theology. I offer a brief rationale for why this makes sense.
“Mennonite Political Theology and Feminist Critique,” MQR 93.3 (July 2019): 393-412.
Mennonite Quarterly Review, 2019
This study explores recently published and collected works of four important voices in the conversation on Mennonite political theology. The article begins with a brief account of the broader discourse of political theology, before critically summarizing the political theologies of A. Harder. After surveying Reimer's vision of the entanglement of ecclesial and public life, Kroeker's messianic political theology, Gingerich Hiebert's genealogy of violence and apocalyptic, and Neufeld Harder's theopolitical challenge of naming, the article concludes by exploring the ways in which the dialogue between Mennonite political theology and feminist critique could be furthered by attending to the work of the late feminist philosopher of religion Grace M. Jantzen.
Mennonite Peace Theology and Violence against Women
The Conrad Grebel Review, 2017
I In Women's Bodies as Battlefield, theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite claims that Mennonite peace theology-the sectarian and idealist pacifism of the Mennonite church-perpetuates violence against women by encouraging a "theology of obedience (and especially submission of women), following the example of the sacrificial love of Christ. " 1 This is the case, she argues, because the theology of obedience fails to address the nature of power and violence as gendered and sexualized, and thus overlooks the importance of women's agency and the role that choice plays in differentiating between unjust suffering (suffering that is not chosen and perpetuates relationships of domination and subordination) and suffering in the way of Christ (suffering in solidarity with others as a conscious choice and a sign of God's love as shared power). 2 She uses John Howard Yoder's sexual abuses as a primary example of how the theology she criticizes "facilitate[s] violence against women and prevent[s] an appropriate institutional response. " 3 In this paper I consider both Thistlethwaite's claim that Mennonite peace theology perpetuates violence against women and her suggestions for improvement. I begin with a conversation about power and then consider her assertion that Mennonites must reclaim the significance of the physical body for peace theology. Finally, I explore her thoughts on desire and violence, especially her argument that Mennonite peace theology also perpetuates violence against women by upholding a patriarchal status quo that eroticizes women (demonstrated by the Yoder case). I respond to her call for an 1 Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Women's Bodies as Battlefield: Christian Theology and the Global War on Women (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 157. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. For a detailed account of the history of Yoder's sexual abuses, and institutional and ecclesial responses to them, see Rachel Waltner Goossen, "'Defanging the Beast': Mennonite Responses to John Howard Yoder's Sexual Abuse, " Mennonite Quarterly Review 89, no. 1 (2015): 7-80. A collection and timeline of articles that outline the conversation and developments regarding the abuses is available on Mennonite Church USA's website: mennoniteusa.org/ menno-snapshots/john-howard-yoder-digest-recent-articles-about-sexual-abuse-and-discernment-2/.
John Howard Yoder Mennonite Evangelical Catholic MQR July 2003
During the last half of the twentieth century John Howard Yoder emerged as one of the most influential theologians and ethicists of his generation. In addition to his formidable intellectual gifts, Yoder's prominence derived in part from his ability to speak coherently from within the perspective of several theological traditions. Born and raised a Mennonite, Yoder always understood the believers church theology of Anabaptism to be his primary point of departure. But he was equally comfortable within evangelical circles; and he spent a significant portion of his academic career teaching and writing out of a Catholic context at the University of Notre Dame. Yoder's ultimate point of reference, however, was never any one of these various traditions but rather the person and the gospel of Jesus Christ. JOHN HOWARD YODER, THE MENNONITE John Yoder is largely responsible for putting Mennonites on the theological map at the end of the twentieth and now at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 1 If anyone mentions "Yoder" in academic