Yoder on Christian Nonconformity

The famous saying is that power corrupts, and it would certainly be easy to list examples of this truth. But perhaps a more useful saying is that power conforms. Everyone must choose which powers they will conform themselves to. There are the powers of popular culture, of money, of success, of politics, of addiction, of an idealized self, and of spiritual forces. Christians are called to conform themselves to Christ. Through his perfect model and sacrifice of life, and His ability to overcome death, God provided Christ as the only perfect power to which we should conform. All the Biblical references to acceptance, submission, obedience, conformity, and even enslavement to Christ reinforce this most basic of Christian tenets. As temporal humans, many powers can be worthy of our time, respect and submission, but Christians are instructed to never forget that while they are "in" this world, they are not "of" this world.

Along these lines, a John Howard Yoder article from 1955 (yet timely nevertheless) explores the Christian response to the conforming power of government. The author begins with a clear warning:

The conscientious submission to government as God’s instrument and the honor we owe to "kings" should not change our refusal to identify Christianity with the nation's religion.

This identification becomes far more serious when the attempt is made to claim that American nationalism is sanctioned, not only by religion in general, but by evangelical Protestantism. Such attitudes exist, creating a strange mixture of Biblical and nationalistic ideas, as shown for instance in a ceremony dedicating the United States to the defense of "Seven Freedoms" defined in the Twenty-third Psalm. It would be hard to imagine anything more dangerous for faith than this confusion of motives, which in reality is the same thing we saw in I Kings 22; instead of seeing God's judgment on one's own nation... the sins of the enemy are magnified, and God is called on to bless one nation at the expense of the others. Even Israel, God's own people, was wrong in expecting so one-sided a blessing.

Yoder then lists out his six principles for living a life that he argues would properly prioritize a Christian's conformity to Christ as opposed to the state:

(1) In so far as a government respects its God-given function of "punishing evil and encouraging good" the Christian will commend its faithfulness and submit to its regulation and its taxation for conscience' sake. In this sense it is legitimate to honor the statesmen who have done this in the past, and to prefer America to some other countries which have or have had less conscientious governments.

(2) In so far as a government oversteps the conditions of this divine authorization, by punishing good and encouraging evil, the Christian will, as spokesman for his God, condemn this injustice and refuse to support it. This judgment applies to war in any sense except a strictly limited police action. That a Christian should support war even to the point of paying taxes and accomplishing alternative service is not as clearly stated in the New Testament as some think, for the Roman forces in Palestine, which Jesus accepted as part of the situation, were not used for international war, but for a policing function. It is regrettable that this "prophetic" witness to government has come in the past mostly from Christians without a fully Biblical orientation.

(3) This prophetic function should express the Christian conscience' criticism of specific injustices in the state's behavior or elsewhere in social life. This is the true form of the church's responsibility for the social order; the call to repentance and "works worthy of repentance." Its Biblical expression is, "Know ye not that we shall judge the angels" (I Cor. 6:3 "angels" here, as in Rom. 8:38; I Pet. 3:22, and elsewhere, refers not vaguely to heavenly beings in general, but to those spiritual forces standing behind worldly authorities, as the parallel in v. 2 indicates)? The church's mission in the world is not only the saving of souls, but also the proclamation to the' powers that be (Eph. 3:10) of God's just and merciful will. Expressing this kind of judgment would not be "getting involved in politics"; it would not require office holding and would in fact sometimes forbid it; it is the path of Christian discipleship.

(4) In so far as an unjust state attacks the Christian himself unfairly, the Christian, though condemning the injustice, should submit to it out of love, as Christ submitted to His unjust condemnation and execution at the hands of the Roman authorities. Injustice toward others should be denounced and resisted by any means consistent with love for the agents of government.

(5) In so far as the state undertakes activities unrelated to the police function and aimed at the common good, the Christian whose vocation calls him to such public service may serve the state just as be. might serve under any local agency, and with the sane limits of faithfulness where conscience draws the line. Education, roads, and public health are examples of such fields of service.

(6) If the state thinks that by its planning and direction of society and economy it can achieve an ideal social order, the Christian's witness is a reminder of how man's sinfulness corrupts even the best of plans. He will therefore oppose the concentration of power in the hands of a few, and will prefer that form of government and social order which, without guaranteeing perfect justice, provides the most effective checks and balances against individual ambitions. He will be dubious about the values of either "free enterprise" or the "planned economy" as a matter of economic doctrine; for both are subject to the same flaw-man's sinfulness-and he will be most interested in workable ways of keeping the planner or the free entrepreneur from taking advantage of his power.

Yoder then ends by quoting John 17:14 and drawing an interesting conclusion:

"I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." There is no difference between nonconformity to the world and conformity to Christ; both mean a positive obedience to God's higher love which makes the Christian out of place, stranger, and a source of irritation because he isn't "at home" in the world, and because he bears a message of judgment and mercy from Him whom the world flees.

These are challenging words, but perhaps Yoder is really on to something. It has caused me to examine more closely not only my political views, but on a more personal level it raises an awareness of how I conform to the power of our culture, the lure of money and recognition, and how that may conflict with or displace what should be the ultimate power to which I am to steadfastly conform.