Recent Blog Entries
Stop Trying to Bring the Kingdom
05/23/2013
Kingdom language is back on the map as a way of talking about the gospel and the church’s mission. It is now time to tighten up our…
Recent Progress in Yoder Studies
04/16/2013
It has been a while since I’ve blogged, but a lot has been happening in my work in Yoder studies. Here is an update and as a bonus…
The Cross and Martin Luther King...
01/21/2013
Below are two excerpts from a sermon John Howard Yoder preached the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The first is short…
12/23/2012
A sermon about why Christmas can only be Christmas for us because it was first Christmas for Israel.
Recent Writings
Elections and Idolatry
11/03/2012 Unpublished
Christians in America are all too often drawn into the nationalistic rhetoric that permeates election seasons to such an extent that they stray from the biblical vision of church and state. This essay was developed as a three-part blog series immediately before the 2012 presidential election. It informs Christians of the disturbing religious dimensions of nationalism, the history of the state's domestication of the church, and the biblical basis for the proper relationship between Church and state.
Christ Did Not Come To Abolish the Natural Law But To Fulfill It
08/26/2011 Unpublished
This essay serves as a companion to my essay titled "With and Against the Grain: Stanley Hauerwas and the Tumultuous Tale of Natural Law." It raises and answers ten questions about natural law theory--questions about what it is, whether it has biblical support, whether we can witness without it, and whether we should abandon it altogether.
The End of Sacrifice
06/14/2011 Unpublished
This essay introduces the basic contours of Yoder's perspective on capital punishment by showcasing his careful biblical exegesis and penetrating cultural analysis. Yoder's core argument is that capital punishment is ritual/cultic practice that accomplishes an important function in society, that the death of Christ has fulfilled that function, and that Christians have a responsibility to proclaim Christ's work and its implications.
