Categories
Ecclesiology Evangelism John Howard Yoder Missional Papers Th.D. / Ph.D.

The Ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder paper

I am placing online the major paper I wrote this summer:  The Ecclesiology of John Howard Yoder: Scripture, Five Practices of the Christian Community, and Mission.

It is 96 pages and I don't expect many to read it but it might be helpful for someone. 

Here are my casual blogpost-informal introductory comments; you can read my academic phrasing in the paper. 

I find Yoder's writings on the church to be enormously inspiring.  Some people caricature Yoder as a "bury your head in the sand" "come out from them and be separate" sectarian who supports Christians huddling together as the world goes to hell in a handbasket.  (That's a lot of cliches).  His point of view is much better summarized as: "let's walk our talk"–Why do we expect people to want to become Christians if we don't live as Jesus did?  This seems to me to be basic Christianity.  (Make disciples . . . Matt 28:18-20).  Yoder writes a book called For the Nations in 1997, while Stanley Hauerwas wrote Against the Nations in 1992–note well the difference in emphasis.  Not only is this missionary emphasis explicit in his later writing, Yoder's emphasis on the importance of the church being missional is found in his 1967 essay "A People in the World" in The Royal Priesthood and greatly resembles the paradigmatic missional theologian Lesslie Newbigin's understanding of the church as missional.  (See page 70 of my paper.  By the way, Newbigin drew upon Yoder regularly in his writings and did not caricature Yoder). 

Similarly, in the last 17 years of his life (1980-1997), there is very little emphasis in Yoder's writings on pacifism which is what he is most famous / infamous for.  He deliberately tried in these later years to show that his ecclesiology was much more multifaceted and fruitful than this emphasis.  The idea that Yoder = pacifism is another caricature that must be debunked.  

Still, I do offer some critiques of Yoder's ecclesiology in my paper.  I argue that the five practices that he presents in Body Politics (as well as in various other places) do not adequately represent the main practices of the early church.  As he admits, they are "sample" practices–not necessarily the most central ones (and I argue they are of particular interest to him as an ethicist interested in moral discourse)–but the casual reader could easily get the idea that these are the main practices that characterize the New Testament church.  (See pages 13-15 of my paper).  I argue for example that the Acts 2:42-47 arguably better represent the early church's life than the five practices Yoder draws out of the New Testament. 

Along these same lines, I also think he does not adequately capture the importance of leaders (specifically the apostles in the New Testament) and teaching.  By his emphasis on the multiplicity of gifts and the open meeting, he gives the impression that we do not need leaders, nor someone to show up at the open meeting adequately prepared to present something that edifies the community.  Though I am a huge fan of interacting with the congregation in preaching, shared leadership, and gift-based ministry, I think Yoder does not adequately address the central importance in the New Testament of someone like the apostle Paul.  There is no place in Yoder's ecclesiology for someone doing the kind of leading and teaching that Paul did and my sense is that this leading and teaching function need to be taken up somehow in all Christian communities.  I am making quite a pedestrian boring point here I think–churches are not wrong in thinking that often there will be a very good Bible teacher in the community who will also exercise leadership in shaping the direction of the community–Yoder does not want to say this because he is trying to emphasize the priesthood of all believers.  Again, you will need to read the whole paper to see my full arguments on these points. 

Therefore, here is my advice for people who are Yoder fans.  If you liked his Body Politics, you need to see how you can incorporate those excellent practices in your church but at the same time, you may need to keep other good practices like the practice of teaching Scripture. 

If you think the church is a boring, bureaucratic sleepy organization where mediocre people dutifully show up to pay their dues, then Yoder is what you need.  For Yoder, the church is the means by which God intends to change the world.  It is a laboratory run by revolutionaries who intend to undermine all that is wrong with the world by the way they love one another.  Amen to that. 

Download The_Ecclesiology_of_John_Howard_Yoder.pdf

Download The_Ecclesiology_of_John_Howard_Yoder.doc

   

See my posts:
Based on Yoder's five practices: Everything I needed to know about the church I learned at Taylor University.
John Howard Yoder on Voting
I recommended Yoder's Body Politics at my post: Best book on ecclesiology I read this year.

See also my major paper: The Missional Ecclesiology of Rowan Williams.

Books mentioned in this post:


Categories
Anglican Communion Church Planting Ecclesiology Emerging Church Missional Papers Rowan Williams

The missional ecclesiology of Rowan Williams

I have posted below for download the paper I finished recently on the missional ecclesiology of Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Anglican Communion.  The question I was asking was, "What would Rowan Williams be thinking
about if he was a church planter or emerging church pastor?" 

Download Rowan_Williams’s_Theology_of_the_Church_as_Missionary.pdf

I look forward to reading your comments.  I am not an expert on Williams but I have read eight books by him.  If you know of any place I might consider publishing this, I would be open to advice.   

Three benefits of my paper:

This paper has three main benefits.  First, Christians might use the four “practices” as a guide for evaluating their own churches.  Does our church embrace fully the four practices in Williams’s work that can help ensure our faithfulness to the gospel? 

The terms “practices” and “standards of excellence” are borrowed from MacIntyre and are not used by Williams but I think they are an enlightening way of organizing his arguments related to the mission of the church.

Second, Christians might use the “standards of excellence” for the practice of communicating the Good News to evaluate their own church’s outlook toward mission.  Does our practice of communicating of the Good News adhere to the standards of excellence which should characterize that practice according to Williams?

Third, this paper brings together in an organized way the diverse thought of Rowan Williams for the edification of the church.  Williams tends to be misunderstood as the recent furor over his comments about Sharia exemplify.  His writings have different audiences and content so that one could get a skewed understanding of Williams’s thought if they are unaware of the scope of his work.  For example, if someone only read Lost Icons, they might be unaware of his explicitly Christian writing such as Tokens of Trust.  This paper allows both liberals and conservatives, critics and fans, to better appreciate and understand Williams.  By organizing it in these categories and explaining it, I hope to set Williams’s work “on a lower shelf,” that is, making it somewhat more accessible than it might otherwise be.  I have also quoted liberally from Williams in order to point readers toward the places in Williams’s writing where he makes these arguments so that further research can be done.

When one understands Williams’s work in its breadth, it is difficult not to appreciate the beauty and sensitivity and brilliance of his writing.  His writing truly can help churches who are attempting to do innovative mission work to do so with faithfulness to the Christian tradition as well as great effectiveness and flexibility.  The difficulty in reading Williams is that his essays tend to be so occasional, that is, trying to address a specific situation.  Therefore, it is possible to misinterpret them if they are taken to be representative of Williams’s approach to related issues.  I think this essay helps to relieve some of those possible misconceptions by framing the issue in terms of practices and standards of excellence and bringing together eight of Williams’s works.

A few websites with Anglicans thinking about new forms of
church:

Anglimergent
Fresh Expressions

Jonny Baker

Emergent UK:

Emergent UK

Jason Clark

 

Archbishop Rowan Williams: How is emergent church viewed in the Anglican Communion?

Archbishop Rowan Williams: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the emergent church?

Archbishop Rowan Williams – What is church?

Categories
Papers Practical Theology Th.D. / Ph.D.

My first papers: Critical Reflections on Practical Theology texts

I thought I would post some initial papers I have been writing for one of my classes

I had the late Stanley Grenz for Pastoral Ethics and Systematic
Theology C while I was at Regent College.  For Grenz’s
Systematic Theology C course, we needed to take a stand on a number of
controversial issues.  We wrote papers on the role of the Holy Spirit
for today, the marks of the church, and an aspect of eschatology.  He
would say, "Turn your paper in on time.  This is not your final word
for all time on the subject.  All of our writing is provisional.  What
you turn in will be your opinion on that day based on the time you were
able to put in toward looking at this issue."   

So here are my initial papers.  They are what they are.  They are three
page papers which were the best
I could do with the time that I had on the day they were due.  I have given you the amazon link to
the book my paper critically reflects on and then a link to the pdf document of the paper I wrote. 

Th.D. Seminar: Explorations in Practical Theology with Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Richard Lischer.

Download at_this_time_in_this_place Amazon.com review and my notes.pdf

Download practicing_our_faith three page paper on forgiveness.pdf

Download Theologia paper about Th.D. program and Amazon.com Review.pdf

One of my collegues in the Th.D. program Sameer Yadav also blogged about this book. 

Download after_virtue_alasdair_macintyre_paper.pdf   

Download fundamental_practical_theology.pdf