I’ve been reading The War of the Lamb, the most recent posthumous work of John Howard Yoder’s to be released. I’ll have more to say about some of the problems of the published form of the book later. (Short version: I deeply suspect that Stassen has taken too many editorial liberties in the interest of enlisting Yoder in support of his “just peacemaking” program. But I have to investigate more before I make any strong accusations of that sort.)

However, despite what the back cover claims, that in this book Yoder argues that “Christian just war and Christian pacifist traditions are basically compatible,” Yoder’s true voice cannot be edited away. The book actually provides the most clear statement of Yoder’s firm rejection of just war theory as a credible form of moral discourse:

This is a conversation [between just war and pacifism] I have already analyzed more deeply than most people have. I know from having tested it for thirty years from inside that the just war tradition is not credible. I don’t dialogue with the just war tradition because I think is is credible, but because it is the language that people, who I believe bear the image of God, abuse to authorize themselves to destroy other bearers of that image. (p. 116)

This is perhaps the clearest statement I’ve yet seen from Yoder about his own rationale for his dialogical engagement with just war theory. Those who construe it as some form of advocating “compatibility” between just war and pacifism are doing violence to Yoder’s work. Yoder’s engagement with just war was of a distinctly pacifist sort. He engaged the just war tradition because he loved both those who held to it and those who suffer under its abuse. Indeed, as Yoder makes clear in the The War of the Lamb, his discourse with just war is simply one of the ways he tried to practice the gospel call to love our enemies (see pp. 110-11).

To my mind this quote is the final nail in the coffin to any who would argue that John Howard Yoder’s engagement with the just war tradition amounted to a claim that either just war or pacifism are acceptable options for Christians:

. . . we must proclaim to every Christian that pacifism is not the prophetic vocation of a few individuals, but that every member of the body of Christ is called to absolute non resistance in discipleship and to abandonment of all loyalties which counter that obedience, including the desire to be effective immediately or to make oneself responsible for civil justice. (The Original Revolution, 72)

Whether or not one ought to agree with Yoder’s terminology and force on this point here, no one can plausibly argue that he ever viewed pacifism as just one possible form of Christian witness. Rather, for Yoder it is the very form thereof.

As Yoder draws his trenchant analysis of just war theory to a close in his essay “Christ, the Light of the World,” he really drives home the all-important point regarding the question-begging nature of the just war tradition. This essay is, to my mind, one of the most logically sharp pieces of writing that Yoder ever produced, and frankly it is quite difficult to argue with. I’ve never seen any argument so thoroughly demolish another position in the space of one paragraph before.

In bringing his case against just war theory to a close, Yoder argues that

the total body of doctrine of the just war is a kind of begging the question. It is assumed that a great number of other moral values are solidly known and accepted, so that they can provide a perspective from which to evaluate a given war or the use of a given kind of weapon. It is said, for instance that war need be waged only by a legitimate authority; but where do we get the definition of legitimacy for political authority? It is said that only such weapons may be used that respect the nature of humans as rational and moral beings; but who is to define just what that nature is and what means of warfare respect it? The evil that is sure to be brought about by war must not be greater than the evil that it seeks to prevent, but how are we to measure the weight of one evil against another? A just war can only be waged when there is a clear offense; but what is an offense? In a host of ways, the total heritage of just war thought turns out to be a majestic construction whereby a case is made, on the grounds of self-evident values that seem to need no definition, for setting aside the examples and instruction of Jesus with regard to how to treat the enemy. In order thus to function, the other values, as well as the logic whereby they operate in the given case, must have a kind of authority for which the best word is ‘revelatory.’ Otherwise they could not be weighed against Jesus. (p. 190)

Here Yoder makes several important points about just war doctrine that are fundamental to understanding his perspective on the matter. First, he makes clear that just war theory itself rests on utterly dubious rational foundations. Its claims for rationality, efficacy, and intelligibility are in fact massive exercises in begging the question. Second, the values that give just war doctrine its shape constitute a competitive revelation claim over against the claims of Jesus with regard to how to treat the enemy. Yoder is clear on this point. Just war doctrine, in so far as it posits a different revelation claim is in fact an alternative messianism to the messianic politics of Jesus and the church.

As my other posts exploring Yoder’s understanding of just war have demonstrated already, all of this militates utterly against the notion that Yoder viewed just war doctrine as an acceptable mode of Christian ethical thought. Rather, in so far as just war doctrine legitimates violence against the enemy it constitutes an alternative messianism to that of Jesus and as such must be seen as a form of unfaithfulness and idolatry that must be rejected.

John Howard Yoder was a profound ecumenist and ethicist. In the course of his work he engaged substantially with virtually all Protestant traditions and Roman Catholicism. A substantial part of this engagement occurred in conversation with Christians who subscribe to just war theory. Yoder’s patient, respectful discourse with proponents of just war theory has given some cause to speculate that ultimately Yoder felt that consistent just war theorists and Christian pacifists are so close in their position that the two schools of thought were basically compatible. This is a significant misreading of Yoder’s engagement with just war theory.

In his important essay, “Christ, the Light of the World,” (published both in The Original Revolution and in The Royal Priesthood–my page references refer to the latter) Yoder makes some significant statements about the just war tradition. One of his first observations in expressing his own messianic pacifism is that

In the personal case of Jesus it is made clear that he rejects not only unjust violence but also the use of violence in the most righteous cause. It is no longer possible to misinterpret his teaching as simply a call to vigilance or to sensitivity in excluding improper use of violence; what Jesus was really tempted by was the proper use of violence. It was concerning the use of the sword in legitimate defense that Jesus said that they who take it will die by it. (p. 186)

Here is a crucial point. For Yoder, what Jesus specifically rejected and called upon his disciples to reject if they were going to name him as Lord, was the just use of violence. Jesus’s lordship is defined, not by only utilizing violence in conformity with just regulations, but rather its disavowal in favor of an ethic of kenotic love (see also, The Priestly Kingdom, p. 145) for more on the importance of kenosis for Yoder’s ethical thought).

Having laid out his own messianic theology of nonviolence, Yoder proceeds to critique two other approaches to the question of war, just war theory and Reinhold Niebuhr’s advocacy of political realism. He clearly takes just war theory with much more seriousness than Niebuhr’s advocacy of political realism, arguing that “the doctrine of ‘just war’ must be dealt with far more respectfully than most pacifists have been willing to do. It takes seriously as the other available thought patterns do not, that there can be an ethical judgment upon the use of violence in the name of the state” (p. 186-7). However, in the midst of his respectful analysis of just war, Yoder does not shrink away from searing critique. For him, just war theory, like other non-pacifist approaches to the question of violence

make or presuppose a case for placing our faith in some other channel of ethical insight and some other way of behaving than is offered us through Jesus as attested in the New Testament. All these approaches thereby justify my trusting myself to have the wisdom to know, for example when I may properly sacrifice the life of my neighbor to the righteousness of the cause that I represent. All of them thus find in this other channel of ethical insight also another substance of ethical instruction. Whereas Jesus instructed his disciples to return good for evil, this other light demands or permits returing a certain amount of evil. While Jesus told his disciples that they should expect to be persecuted, this other light indicates that in some grounds under some circumstances we should cause others to suffer. (p. 188-9)

The crucial point here is that Yoder is clear that the acceptance of just war theory as a mode of Christian moral reasoning is predicated fundamentally on the rejection of Christ’s own normativity for ethics. What we have here is not merely an interpretive squabble within a largely coherent tradition but something far more serious. “What we have to do with here is fundamentally nothing other than a competitive revelation claim. If I say  it is my duty to make history come out right, appealing to a concept of ‘creation’ or of ‘love driving me to take political responsibility’ or to the call of ‘the situation,’ in all of these cases I am setting up over against Jesus another imperative and another source of imperatives” (p. 189).

Thus for Yoder, the adoption of just war theory, from the standpoint of Christian discipleship is not simply a minor failure to not be fully consistent in our ethical calculus. Rather it is the acceptance of a structurally different source and norm of our whole view of history, Christ, and politics. As such, in no sense can Yoder be seen to be recommending or tolerating just war theory as viable from the standpoint of an ethic of discipleship. To be sure, consistent just war theory is preferable to all other approaches to war, but it too buys into a source of ethical evaluation and substance that is opposed to the politics of Jesus.

In John Howard Yoder’s The Christian Witness to the State, Yoder offers a brief analysis of just war theory, in the context of his examination of “examples of political judgment.” In this section, Yoder is investigating and exploring the logic of various forms of ethical-political analysis that diverge from the calling of Christian discipleship, but must be understood in the context of the Christian engagement with political powers.

Thus, Yoder claims at the outset that just war theory is among “certain concepts,” which are unequivocally “illegitimate for guiding Christian discipleship.” However, these same concepts, which while categorically excluded for Christians, are “still relevant in the elaboration of an ethic for the state.” In other words, given that the state,  by definition utilizes violent force, the just war theory is one of a number of concepts which might be good for the state to adopt to minimize the spread of violence. As a Christian Yoder has an interest in minimizing state violence as much as possible and this informs his recommendation of just war theory as an ethic for the state.

However, in regard to the path of Christian discipleship, Yoder is clear. “That there can be a just war in the Christian sense of the word just or righteous is, of course, excluded by definition; we can make the point only negatively. When the conditions generally posed for a just war are not fulfilled, then a war is unjust to the point that even a state, resolved to use violence, is out of order in its prosecution. This is the basis of our condemnation of the atomic bomb even for the warring state.” (p. 49)

Thus, for Yoder just war theory is not an acceptable mode of Christian faithfulness, but rather the least malignant form of unfaithfulness that Christians should expect from the state. As such it can be given a penultimate recommendation as far as the state is concerned, but must be roundly rejected by all Christians as a possible path of faithfulness.