I have long loved Michael Card’s Christmas song, “Immanuel.”  He recently Tweeted the following rendition of it.  Really beautiful.  Merry Christmas!

I am no expert on the late Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder, but, like many others, I have benefited from his work, particularly his seminal work, The Politics of Jesus. And, like many others, I came to know Yoder’s work through the work of Stanley Hauerwas.  It was through reading Hauerwas’ autobiography, Hannah’s Child, that I came to learn of Yoder’s earlier sexual misconduct.  It was a disheartening revelation, for, around that same time, I learned of the sexual misconduct of Karl Barth as well as the troubled private life of New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd (through John D’Elia’s fascinating book, A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship).  It was a weird time.  It seemed to me that numerous stalwart voices within the theological academy had, in fact, fairly sordid private lives.

Now, I knew this, of course, but I knew it theoretically.  Had you asked me then if the greatest of theologians were deeply flawed and sinful, I would have responded, “But of course they are!”  But it is one thing to know it and another thing to know it.

The Yoder accusations were/are deeply troubling.  I will not chronicle them here.  A simple Google search will tell you way more than you want to know (the essential articles are here).  To summarize, though, Yoder sexually harassed a number of women under the guise of developing a theology (as he saw it) of extra-marital sexual conduct that stopped short of sexual intercourse, and, in his mind, short of sin.  It seems that Yoder actually believed the kind of stuff he was saying to the women who were his victims. As I understand it, Yoder never actually had sexual intercourse with any woman other than his wife, but he, in essence, was propositioning women in theological language that would, inevitably, have led to such. (Again, my opinion.) Furthermore, he apparently did force himself upon the wife of a man who invited him to lecture while the husband was away, but, when she resisted, he stopped.  Nobody has accused Yoder of rape, though what he did was clearly a violation.  What he did and proposed was abusive, harassing, and adulterous.  It was sinful.  It was wrong.  I haven’t the slightest desire or inclination to minimize Yoder’s actions.  It matters not to me how he justified his actions with theological window dressing.  They were pernicious actions.

Before his death in 1997, Yoder underwent a discipline process among the Mennonites.  However – again, as I understand it – the victims of his harassment never saw the kind of public acknowledgment of his misdeeds that they warranted.  His books continue/d to be published and his name remains a bright star in the theological world.  I am evidence of this fact, by the way.  I first read Yoder somewhere around the year 2000.  I was completely unaware of these accusations until two or three years ago.

Apparently, Herald Press, the Anabaptist publisher of many of Yoder’s works, now feels that it needs to acknowledge Yoder’s sins.  According to this story in Christianity Today, Herald Press will now include the following notice on all of Yoder’s books that they publish:

John Howard Yoder (1927–1997) was perhaps the most well-known Mennonite theologian in the twentieth century. While his work on Christian ethics helped define Anabaptism to an audience far outside the Mennonite Church, he is also remembered for his long-term sexual harassment and abuse of women.

At Herald Press we recognize the complex tensions involved in presenting work by someone who called Christians to reconciliation and yet used his position of power to abuse others. We believe that Yoder and those who write about his work deserve to be heard; we also believe readers should know that Yoder engaged in abusive behavior.

This book is published with the hope that those studying Yoder’s writings will not dismiss the complexity of these issues and will instead wrestle with, evaluate, and learn from Yoder’s work in the full context of his personal, scholarly, and churchly legacy.

The purpose of this post is to express my own struggle with this move.  It is a genuine struggle:  just when I think I’ve reached a conclusion I see the other side.

On the one hand, it seems reasonable to me that the victims of Yoder’s abuse should not have had to suffer the indignity of what likely appeared to them to be a kind of corporate cover-up.  That is, the publishers continued to make money off of Yoder, he continued to teach at Notre Dame, and, as others have pointed out, he continued to lecture widely to much acclaim.  In this sense, it seems to me a good thing that those who financially benefited off of the mythological mystique of Yoder should have to acknowledge that the man off of whom they benefited was living in radical violation of his own programme of pacifism and peace.

On the other hand, this is happening twenty-two years too late, after Yoder’s death.  Furthermore, it seems an odd thing to publish the sins of an author on all of his books (from that press).  It seems to me that if Yoder’s sins invalidate his works, they should be pulled.  If they do not invalidate his works, they should stand.  The victims need/ed justice and the reading public (like myself) needs not to be naive.

Furthermore, I do wonder about the precedence this sets.  Should the works of Barth proclaim his adultery?  Should the works of Paul Tillich proclaim his adultery?  Should the works of Francis Schaeffer proclaim his problems with anger and temper?  Should the works of George Eldon Ladd mention his deep insecurities, his ego, and his misdeeds?

All of that being said, what makes this case unique is that Yoder was arguing for pacifism, peace, and justice, for the protection of the weak against the powerful and for a radical living out of the Sermon on the Mount.  Perhaps it is the incongruity between Yoder’s sexual misdeeds and the core of his entire message that makes the disconnect worthy of publication, worthy of a literary scarlet letter.  Who knows?

As I think about the whole sordid affair it occurs to me that there was one author who once published his own disclaimer about his own hypocrisy and failures.  In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul announced that Christ Jesus had come into the world to save sinners, “of whom I am the foremost.”  Yoder should have acknowledged this himself.  We all should.

It’s a tough question, this publishing of sins, and one with which I’ll likely continue to wrestle.  Regardless, there is a cautionary tale here about our words and our lives, and one we had best heed well.

This coming Spring, I’ll be teaching a Ouachita Baptist University extension course on “Interpreting the Bible” at Central Baptist Church. You may take the class for credit or audit it.  The details are below.

We were iced in today in Sherwood, AR.  It was a great day for laziness and relaxation.  So this morning, indulging in said laziness, while scrolling through the U-Verse On Demand documentary offerings, I noticed “The Institute.”

Curious, I checked it out. It was, in a word, enthralling.

Essentially, here is what happened:  in 2008 a California-based artist named Jeff Hull developed an elaborate game in San Francisco.  In reality, he created a false world centered around the Jejune Institute and its conflict with the Elsewhere Public Works Agency.  It’s kind of hard to explain the story, though it dealt with the Jejune Institute’s very New Agey efforts at helping people develop in their understanding of themselves and of reality and of human potential.  Furthermore, there was a backstory concerning the disappearance of a girl named Eva and clues surrounding her perceptions and discoveries of deep truths regarding these themes.  I realize that does not make much sense.  Not much about this whole thing makes sense.  The game was carried on for about three years in the San Francisco area and had lots of twists and turns.

Participants walked into the game after answering advertisements posted in the SF area.  You must understand that those answering these advertisements were unaware what they were stepping into or that the Jejune Institute (where they first went to begin their journey through the game) was a farce or that this was a game at all.  Jeff Hull did a brilliant job of bathing the fliers and notices regarding the Jejune Institute in language and images and verbiage that will be immediately familiar to anybody who has ever looked closely at cults (particularly California-based cults in the 60’s and 70’s) and New Age movements.

Over the three year period of the game, thousands of people got caught up in it.  Most dropped out before reaching the end (the game itself was divided up into chapters), but the level of commitment evidenced by those who took part is telling.  They followed the signs and clues that Hull and his team cleverly placed throughout the city, analyzing the evidence they discovered about the disappearance of Eva and the mysterious Jejune Institute.  The game was basically an urban scavenger hunt.  How many people thought this was a game is hard to say.  Clearly many people thought this was reality and that they were caught up in a true story.  I suspect most people were conflicted about what was actually happening.

Some crossed the line.  One man in the documentary, interviewed with his visage obscured by darkness, refused to believe this was a game and lashed out at those who realized it was.  He read deep meanings into the arcane clues Hull offered and internalized the story in a troubling way.  Hull claims he was stunned at this phenomenon.  Finally, Hull brought the game to a conclusion with a truly weird day-long self-actualization event with the major characters of the game (sans Eva) revealing that they had reached a fragile peace.  At no point did anybody ever say, “None of this is real.  This has all been an elaborate game, a hoax.”  The participants who stayed all the way through to the end seemed to feel a kind of anticlimactic disappointment, with some saying they slipped into a depression when it ended.

This documentary should be watched and watched carefully.  What struck me must deeply were a few things:

• The brilliance of Jeff Hull and his team.  Truly, it is amazing to see the world that this guy created and the lengths to which he went to create a believable if strange narrative that many people found compelling and intriguing.

• The deep desire within people for transcendence.  This documentary clearly demonstrates how strongly people feel that there must be more than the reality we see before our eyes.  Though many people likely suspected this was a game or something like it, it seems to me that what drove them forward was a suspension of belief and a sincere hope that such an eclectic tale might possibly be true.

• The human longing for community and solidarity.  It was fascinating to see people come together around Hull’s concocted world and imagined story.  In particular, it was interesting to see how many young people allowed themselves to be absorbed into this carnival and spectacle.

• The ease with which human beings can be led to take up a cause or a movement that they do not even understand.  At one point, Hull even had 250 people protest in the streets of SF concerning they knew not what!  One of the troubling things about this whole experiment, to this observer anyway, is how it demonstrates the gullibility of people.  More than that, it demonstrates how people will put faith and trust in a movement that they do not understand.  I kept thinking, while watching this documentary, about how easy it is for cults to get started and get a following.

I’m not sure what Jeff Hull wanted to prove or demonstrate, but the quasi-religious/cultic element of this experiment, and the eagerness with which people gave themselves to this “cause” strikes me as telling and illuminating.

It’s a weird journey, but “The Institute” is an intriguing documentary that is well worth consideration.

What is “Liturgical Gangstas Redux”?

In 2009, Michael Spencer asked some of us across denominational lines to come together as “The Liturgical Gangstas.”  The intent was for Michael to throw a question to Christians of different traditions to see how we would approach the questions and, ostensibly, to help ourselves and the readers to think through spiritual issues more deeply.  We did this over the following year.  I bowed out after Michael’s passing, though I think the Liturgical Gangstas continue on over at the Internet Monk site.  Anyway, in looking through the older content at Internet Monk, I thought I might post my answers to those questions over here, in case they are of use to anybody. (I don’t feel comfortable lifting the entire Gangsta posts from the site, but, in time, I’ll move the questions and my responses here.)

“If we cannot join our Catholic brothers and sisters in simply trusting the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic church, then what is the answer to the “authority” question for non-Catholic Christians?”

The question of authority is indeed a bit difficult for those without an official Magisterium (though many observers of the modern SBC would point out that we now seem to have a kind of magisterium!). In short, Luther’s declaration at Worms about his “heart being captive to the Word of God” resonates deeply with Baptists, even if Lutherans would no doubt point out that Luther would be quite suspect of much Baptist handling of the word! Furthermore, I fully acknowledge that every believer of every communion will, at heart, assert with equal strength that God’s word is ultimately their authority as well. The question then becomes one of mediation. How do we hear and find and understand this authoritative word to which we are accountable?

The Baptist finds it in his experience with the word, as it is opened through the Holy Spirit’s unction via the means of careful exegesis and sound hermeneutics. He finds it particularly as it is fleshed out in the local church. We see the Bible as the encapsulation, in written form, of that early authority to which, Acts tell us, the early church devoted herself: “the Apostle’s teaching.”

I understand the dilemma in arguing that the word of God is our authority. Have Baptists not simply abandoned one pope for sixteen million popes (as the official but absurdly inflated numbers of the SBC would suggest)? Has not the idea of the lone soul standing with his Bible before his God given rise to a pandora’s box of chaotic, idiosyncratic interpretations and splintering? Has not the cry of ecclesia semper reformanda simply become a first principle by which we validate whatever tangent we happen to want to go on at the moment?

I don’t deny the practical realities of these problems, I simply deny that claiming the word of God as your authority must necessarily be this way. To be sure, in a Baptist climate of disappearing ecclesiology, the deceptive cry of “no creed but the Bible” (not originally a Baptist cry anyway) has morphed into “no creed but me.”  But it need not be this way.

In truth, a more full-orbed Baptist understanding of authority can be found in the congregational renewal that is currently taking place among the many Baptists who are seeking to reclaim the cherished principle of regenerate church membership.  This does not position authority in the church, but it does give a healthier oversight of our handling of the word in the context of a local, covenanted, accountable, and disciplined congregation. A concurrent retrieval of the once-strong system of accountability among these local congregations would likewise strike a blow at the church-shopper mentality that says, “Ok, if my quirks aren’t welcome here, then I’ll just find someplace where they are.”

Alongside this ecclesiastical parameter that surrounds and guides the individual and his Bible, I firmly believe that many of those calling for a greater appreciation of historic, consensual exegesis as a tempering guide for reading the Bible are hitting on something key. You can find this in many of the Baptist catholicity guys (Timothy George, D.H. Williams, Steve Harmon, et al.), but perhaps it has been best articulated in Tom Oden’s paleo-orthodoxy programme.

Thus, I would argue that the Christian’s source of authority is the enscripturated Word of God as it is read, understood, and lived in the context of an accountable, covenanted local congregation, and as it is guided and tempered by a renewed appreciation for the voice of the Church throughout time (a voice which does not eclipse the word, but which certainly ought to be respected and heeded in the reading of the word.)