Mark Nation and Marva Dawn on John Howard

Yoder’s sexual misconduct

 
I do not usually reblog things on here, but in light of the ongoing
discussions surrounding John Howard Yoder’s sexual misconduct in the
1970s-early 1990s, what Mark Thiessen Nation and Marva Dawn have to
say is important. Both are scholars of integrity and vigor whom I deeply
admire. And both were students and friends of Yoder.
Yoder’s writings continue to be a source of inspiration and insight for my
commitment to Christian nonviolence. But we cannot ignore his deep
flaws and sins, and the damage they wrought not only on the women
whom he harassed, but also his wife Annie. Nevertheless, I have for years
believed that a much more contextualized account of what happened
should be presented than has been. I believe this to be the case for two
reasons. The first is simply that we have much to learn from his story–both
as individual believers and as the church. Second, as a matter of legacy, so
that we do not lose the treasures of his thought in the dross of his failures.
This article is crucial to both purposes, and deserves to be thoroughly
digested. It is the contextualized account for which I have been longing to
see for at least a decade.

Below is an excerpt:

I do not think . . . that John Yoder was a man of unresolved rage who
either hated or had disdain for women and was often on the prowl for
future victims or was attempting to prevent women from having power.  I
tend to think, rather, of a man who had needs for intimacy and closeness
that were unmet. This was a man with great intelligence, who in the midst
of newly emerging sexual revolution, came up with a theory about sex
that made it possible for him to satisfy his own needs while, as he
convinced himself, serving others. Is it instructive to realize that it
wasafter his interactions with “Colleen” that he wrote a letter to someone
that, one of the reasons his experiment was not wrong was because he
“was not violating anyone in deed or thought”? He was simply offering
“affective support,” helping women to accept their own sexuality, their
own bodies. That what he and his “sisters” were doing was in fact “pure
and beautiful.” So, that is how he perceived what he was doing. Some of
the “sisters” who enjoyed relationships with him felt the same way.
And then it went horribly wrong—even by his own lights. It is a recipe for
disaster to have a man who is typically awkward in his interpersonal
relationships—and bad at picking up signals from the body language of
others—to initiate intimate physical relationships that, in many cases will
be unwanted. That he was brilliant simply allowed him to rationalize his
“prophetic” but quite destructive behaviors. Therefore, that he was
inadequate or even harmful in the way he conducted his “experiments” in
intimate relationships is not surprising to me. But it is very sad.
As the statement by the AMBS faculty affirms John could be “deeply
caring, generous and creative.” He could also be “dismissive of persons
who confronted him about his misuse of power, and manipulative while
crossing boundaries with women.” These latter characteristics became
quite apparent when, beginning in the 1970s and the 1980s, others
challenged what he believed to be his cutting edge approach to intimate
extra-marital relationships. He apparently was especially hard on his
colleagues and administrators at AMBS who tried to get him to stop his
“experimental behaviors.” His dismissiveness also reflected his failure in
relation to his own theological commitments.
...
I hope we have learned from this situation with John Howard Yoder. We, I
hope, have learned why the Church has across the centuries drawn clear
lines about sexual immorality. I believe we can learn from history that
men, in particular, are tempted by sexual immorality (which can lead to
harassing, abusive and even violent behaviors when desires are unmet).
We have learned, I hope, that no one should be a law unto themselves. No
matter how powerful or even, in certain ways, important someone is, their
moral behavior is subject to the scrutiny and possible discipline of the
Christian community. And in fact especially powerful people ought to be
working within structures that protect those who may be abused by their
power and influence. If abuse has been reported it should be taken quite
seriously. And where harm has been inflicted, care and nurture should be
offered (after having stopped the abuse that caused such harm in the first
place).
The rest of this important essay can be accessed here at Mark Thiessen
Nation’s Anabaptist Nation blog.
A Theologian’s Influence, and Stained Past, Live On

Can a bad person be a good theologian?

All of us fall short of our ideals, of course. But there is a common-sense

expectation that religious professionals should try to behave as they
counsel others to behave. They may not be perfect, but they should not
be louts or jerks.

By that standard, few have failed as egregiously as John Howard Yoder,

America’s most influential pacifist theologian. In his teaching at Notre
Dame and elsewhere, and in books like “The Politics of Jesus,” published in
1972, Mr. Yoder, a Mennonite Christian, helped thousands formulate their
opposition to violence. Yet, as he admitted before his death in 1997, he
groped many women or pressured them to have physical contact,
although never sexual intercourse.

Mr. Yoder’s scholarly pre-eminence keeps growing, and with it the

ambivalence that Mennonites and other Christians feel toward him. In
August, Ervin Stutzman, executive director of Mennonite Church USA,
which has about 100,000 members, announced the formation of a
“discernment group” to guide a process to “contribute to healing for
victims” of Mr. Yoder’s abuse.

In 1992, after eight women pressured the church to take action, Mr.
Yoder’s ministerial credentials were suspended and he was ordered into
church-supervised rehabilitation. It soon emerged that Mr. Yoder’s 1984
departure from what is now called Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical
Seminary, in Elkhart, Ind., had also been precipitated by allegations
against him. He left for Notre Dame, where administrators were not told
what had happened at his last job.

But Mr. Yoder emerged as a hero of repentance. His accusers never spoke
publicly, and their anonymity made it easier for some to wish away their
allegations. And in December 1997, after about 30 meetings for
supervision and counseling, Mr. Yoder and his wife were welcomed back
to worship at Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart. To cap a perfect
narrative of redemption, he died at 70 at the end of that month.

Without denying the wrongness of his acts, his supporters continued to

celebrate Mr. Yoder and the Mennonite leaders who had rehabilitated
him.

“How John’s community responded to his inappropriate relations with

women” was “a testimony to a community that has learned over time that
the work of peace is slow, painful, and hard,” wrote Stanley Hauerwas, a
retired Duke University professor and Yoder’s heir as the leading pacifist
theologian, in his 2010 memoir.

Mr. Yoder’s obituary in The New York Times  did not mention his sexual
misdeeds. None of his victims received monetary settlements. Mr. Yoder
apologized, sort of, with a statement that “he was sorry that we had
misunderstood his intentions, as he never meant to hurt us,” according to
Carolyn Holderread Heggen, one of the eight complainants.

Ted Koontz, a professor at Mr. Yoder’s old seminary and a member of the
church’s discernment group, said the church needed to take stock of what
was — or was not — done for Mr. Yoder’s victims.

“There are a lot of different opinions about what was done and wasn’t
done to hold him accountable,” Professor Koontz said.

The committee will probably conclude its work, he added, in time for the
Mennonite Church USA’s 2015 convention in Kansas City, Mo., where
there may be a ceremony “of confession, repentance, reconciliation.”

Of course, reconciliation was what the four-year process in the 1990s was
supposed to achieve. It obviously failed. And Mr. Yoder remains
inescapable for Mennonites, his work read and referenced often and
everywhere.
“Physically he died, but his work and his theological writings live on,” said
Linda Gehman Peachey, a freelance writer in Lancaster, Pa., who is also
part of the six-member group. “For those who have known this other side
— his behavior, particularly toward women — that is really painful.”

Mr. Yoder’s memory also presents a theological quandary. Mennonites

tend to consider behavior more important than belief. For them, to study
a man’s writings while ignoring his life is especially un-Mennonite.

Professor Koontz regularly tells his students reading Mr. Yoder that “his
behavior is one thing we ought to take into account when we read his
work.” Ms. Peachey noted that Mr. Yoder wrote a good deal about
suffering as a Christian virtue, but “if you know this part of the story” —
how he made women suffer — “you tend to read it with a different eye.”

Mr. Yoder seemed very attentive to the notion that theology should align
with behavior. It turns out that in unpublished papers, he formulated a
bizarre justification of extramarital sexual contact.

In his memoir, Professor Hauerwas alludes to what Tom Price, a reporter

for the newspaper The Elkhart Truth, described in a five-part 1992
series as Mr. Yoder’s defense of “nongenital affective relationships.” Mr.
Yoder said that touching a woman could be an act of “familial” love, in
which a man helped to heal a traumatized “sister.”

Mr. Price quoted from “What Is Adultery of the Heart?” a 1975 essay in
which Mr. Yoder wrote that a “bodily” embrace “can celebrate and
reinforce familial security,” rather than “provoking guilt-producing erotic
reactions.”

Ms. Heggen, called Tina in the newspaper articles, told Mr. Price that Mr.
Yoder had a grandiose explanation for his advances, which he tried out on
multiple women.

“We are on the cutting edge,” Mr. Yoder would say, according to Ms.
Heggen. “We are developing new models for the church. We are part of
this grand, noble experiment. The Christian church will be indebted to us
for years to come.”

On Wednesday, Ms. Heggen, agreeing to be identified as a victim for the

first time, recalled driving Mr. Yoder to the Albuquerque airport in 1982.
He asked her to get out for “a proper goodbye,” Ms. Heggen said. “Then
he pulled me into his belly and held me tight for a painfully long time. I
realized I couldn’t escape his clutch.”

In 1992, Ms. Heggen, who now lives in Oregon, published a book about
sexual abuse. Traveling the world, lecturing about her book, she said she
met “significantly” more than 50 women who said that Mr. Yoder had
touched them or made advances.

“Women inevitably come up after these events and tell you their story,”
Ms. Heggen said. “The scenario was so familiar to me, and I would
interrupt them and say, ‘Are you talking about John Howard Yoder?’ They
would say, ‘How did you know?’ ”

After his advance toward her, Mr. Yoder mailed Ms. Heggen an essay in
which he advocated physical contact, including nudity, between
unmarried people, so long as “there wasn’t lust.”

Ms. Heggen had a theory of what Mr. Yoder might have been thinking. “ ‘I
have created this great peace theology,’ ” she began, trying to put his
thoughts into words. “ ‘And you and I are developing a new Christian
theology of sexuality.’ ”