Practicing the Politics of JesusThe Origin and Significance of John Howard Yoder's Social Ethics by Earl Zimmerman |
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Practicing the Politics of Jesus holds the potential to be the definitive book on John Howard Yoder's social ethics. Through a treatment of Yoder's thought that is insightful and sophisticated yet suprisingly accessible given the profundity of the issues being analyzed, Zimmerman lays out the relevance of the politics of Jesus for people committed to the power of God's transforming love.
As foreword writer John Paul Lederach mentions, the book reads almost like a novel - in the sense that Zimmerman has managed skillfully to weave together elements of Yoder's thought with factors in Yoder's personal as well as church-related narrative which helped shape Yoder's thought. Readers will emerge from engagement with Practicing the Politics of Jesus with new understanding of both what for Yoder's Jesus' politics are and how Yoder's perspectives came to fruition.
North American and Western Christians are up against powerful business, media, and military institutions that dominate the public square. It becomes increasingly difficult to carve out a space in which virtuous lives can be formed. The task, as Zimmerman based on Yoder helps us to conceptualize it, is to create and nurture welcoming communities shaped by the compassion and revolutionary social relationships modeled in the life and vision of Jesus. We become communities in exile, shaped by the Scripture and following Jesus, in a society dominated by violence and greed.
About the Author
Earl Zimmerman is Assistant Professor of Bible and Religion at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a member of the pastoral team at Shalom Mennonite Congregation. He is co-editor of Telling Our Stories: Personal Accounts of Engagement with Scripture.