John Howard Yoder Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Seminary leaders held an AMBS-based gathering, including a Service of Lament, Confession, and Hope on the weekend of March 21–22, 2015.

The historian Rachel Waltner Goossen was commissioned by Mennonite Church USA to produce a complete report chronicling Yoder’s sexual abuse and church responses to it, which was published in January 2015.

In October 2014, the governing board of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) released the following statement:

He called the arrangement whereby the state and the church each supported the goals of the other Constantinianism, and he regarded this arrangement as a dangerous and constant temptation. He argued that the early Church was a socially subversive community because of their shared life focusing on the Kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of any mere man, but later after the rise of Constantine the Great the more worldly focused Church came to covet desire temporal power and political influence. Yoder called this the Constantinian shift. He further argued that Jesus himself rejected this temptation, even to the point of dying a horrible and cruel death. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was, in this view, God’s way of vindicating Christ’s unwavering obedience, as well as setting the example of a life laid down in serving and loving others, for all who claim to follow Jesus. Constantine Revisited: Leithart, Yoder, and the Constantinian Debate (2013), edited by John D. Roth, is a collection of essays by Christian pacifists addressing the scholarly debate between Yoder and Peter Leithart about the nature of the Emperor Constantine’s impact on Christianity. In his book Constanttine Revisited,’ Leithart opposed Yoder’s argument that God preferred Christians to focus on the spiritual needs around them and to build the Kingdom of God, rejecting coercion for a life of service, thereby remaining a politically powerless, physically defenseless minority.

Despite the allegations of abuse, Yoder’s obituary in The New York Times did not mention any improprieties. Sixteen years after his death, in October 2013, The New York Times ran an article discussing the allegations, quoting one of the complainants Carolyn Heggen who claimed that more than 50 women “said that Mr. Yoder had touched them or made advances.” The article also discussed the recent formation of a support group for victims.

Yoder died on December 30, 1997, one day after his 70th birthday. His personal papers are housed at the Mennonite Church USA Archives.

In 1992, media reports emerged that Yoder had sexually abused women in preceding decades, with as many as over 50 complainants. The Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary acknowledged in a statement from 2014 that sexual abuse had taken place and it had been tolerated partly because he was the leading Mennonite theologian of his day and partly because there were not the safeguards in place that there are today.

Yoder sexually abused over 100 women during the 1970s and 1980s while at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. The abuse was widely rumored, but not acted upon even when board members became aware of the numerous accusations. The Elkhart Truth first reported on the allegations June 29, 1992. The seminary has acknowledged Yoder’s crimes against women and has apologized for not acting on them at the time.

According to articles in The Elkhart Truth, allegations that Yoder had sexually abused, harassed, and assaulted women circulated for decades and became known in wider Christian circles, but were never publicly acknowledged until 1992. After repeated institutional failures to address these abuses a group of victims threatened to engage in a public protest at a Bethel College (in North Newton, Kansas) conference where Yoder was to be a speaker. The college President rescinded Yoder’s invitation, the student newspaper reported the story, and one of the victims reported that Bethel was “the first institution in the church that has taken this seriously”. The Elkhart Truth articles detail extensive allegations of harassment of students and others.

From the summer of 1992 to the summer of 1996, Yoder submitted to the discipline of the Indiana–Michigan Conference of the Mennonite Church for allegations of sexual misconduct. Yoder’s writing in the unpublished 1995 book The Case for Punishment suggested he believed he was the innocent scapegoat of a conspiracy. Upon the conclusion of the process, the church urged Yoder “to use his gifts of writing and teaching.”

Of his many books, the most widely recognized has undoubtedly been The Politics of Jesus (1972); it has been translated into at least ten languages. In it, Yoder argues against popular views of Jesus, particularly those views held by Reinhold Niebuhr, which he believed to be dominant at the time. Niebuhr argued for a realist philosophy, which Yoder felt failed to take seriously the call or person of Jesus Christ. After showing what he believed to be inconsistencies of Niebuhr’s perspective, Yoder attempted to demonstrate by an exegesis of the Gospel of Luke and parts of Paul’s letter to the Romans that, in his view, a radical Christian pacifism was the most faithful approach for the disciple of Christ. Yoder argued that being Christian is a political standpoint and that Christians ought not ignore that calling.

Yoder began his teaching career at Goshen Biblical Seminary. He was Professor of Theology at Goshen Biblical Seminary and Mennonite Biblical Seminary (the two seminaries that formed what is now called Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) from 1958 to 1961 and from 1965 to 1984. While still teaching at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, he also began teaching at the University of Notre Dame, where he became a Professor of Theology and eventually a Fellow of the Institute for International Peace Studies.

John Howard Yoder (December 27, 1927 – December 30, 1997) was an American Mennonite theologian and ethicist best known for his defense of Christian pacifism. His most influential book was The Politics of Jesus, which was first published in 1972. Yoder was a Mennonite and wrote from an Anabaptist perspective. He spent the latter part of his career teaching at the University of Notre Dame.

Yoder was born on December 29, 1927, near Smithville, Ohio. He earned his undergraduate degree from Goshen College where he studied under the Mennonite theologian Harold S. Bender. He completed his Doctor of Theology degree at the University of Basel, Switzerland, studying under Karl Barth, Oscar Cullmann, Walther Eichrodt, and Karl Jaspers.