Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Pacifism

An early paper by John Howard Yoder answering Reinhold Niebuhr's criticism of Christian pacifism. It was first presented in May 1953 to a seminar at Heerewegen near Zeist in the Netherlands on modern theology and its criticism of nonresistance, then printed as Heerewegen Pamphlet No. 1 in 1954, as an article in the Mennonite Quarterly Review in April 1955, as a Concern reprint, and later as a Church Peace Mission pamphlet. Yoder engages Niebuhr's Christian realism, the most influential American case against pacifism at the time, and argues for a pacifism grounded in the life of the church. The engagement with Niebuhr runs through his later work, including The Politics of Jesus.