Founded in part on a rejection of "worldly" power and the use of force, Anabaptism carried with it the promise of redemptive power. Yet the attempt to banish worldly power to the margins of the Christian community has been fraught with dilemmas, contradictions, and, at times, blatant abuses of authority. In this groundbreaking book, Benjamin W. Redekop, Calvin W. Redekop, and their coauthors draw on classic and contemporary thinking to confront the issue of power and authority in the Anabaptist-Mennonite community. From the power relationships of the sixteenth-century Peasants' War to issues of contemporary sexuality, the topics of Power, Authority, and the Anabaptist Tradition are sure to interest a wide audience. Contributors: Stephen C. Ainlay, College of the Holy Cross • J. Lawrence Burkholder, President Emeritus, Goshen College • Lydia Neufeld Harder, Toronto School of Theology • Joel Hartman, University of Missouri • Jacob A. Loewen, missionary, retired • Dorothy Yoder Nyce, Writer and former Assistant Professor, Goshen College • Lynda Nyce, Bluffton College • Wesley Prieb (deceased), former dean, Tabor College • Benjamin W. Redekop, Kettering University • Calvin W. Redekop, Conrad Grebel College, emeritus • James M. Stayer, Queen's University, Ontario

The Anabaptist Vision, given as a presidential address before the American Society of Church History in 1943, has become a classic essay. In it, Harold S. Bender defines the spirit and purposes of the original Anabaptists. Three major points of emphasis are: the transformation of the entire way of life of the individual to the teachings and example of Christ, voluntary church membership based upon conversion and commitment to holy living, and Christian love and nonresistance applied to all human relationships.

The Anabaptist tradition, originating as part of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, has from its beginning presented an alternative approach to Christian faith. Jesus-centered Anabaptist convictions such as pacifism, simple living, and community remain of vital concern for twenty-first-century Christians. Embodying the Way of Jesus: Anabaptist Convictions for the Twenty-First Century traces the origins and historical expressions of Anabaptist faith and then suggests ways Anabaptist convictions speak to our contemporary world. Ted Grimsrud proposes a fourfold approach to interpreting Anabaptist theology, considering themes from the Bible, from the tradition's history, from present experience, and from envisioning a hopeful future. What emerges is an engaging portrait of a living tradition that speaks with urgency and relevance to a world badly in need of a message of peace.

In the era of 'post-Christendom', how can church as a sociological reality be switched on to the destructive dangers, yet constructive possibilities, of 'power' flowing in and around its community? Attuned to the current distrust of church power, this book creatively works out responses that could turn painful censure into a re-visioning of church power relations, helped by neglected critical studies. The approach exposes a complexity to power, and filters that insight into a theology of church. The book shows how lessons are available for a religious community from post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault and from recent feminism. The topic of power has universal importance in the study of religion, though the response to analysis and critique in this book is drawn specifically from Christian sources. Kearsley concludes with an exploration for a future renovated, self-critical, authentic and growing community, sensitive to power while remaining in line with classic Christianity.

Could it be that the stories we tell in our churches weaken our efforts to be congregations who take risks in mission for the sake of love? In this thought-provoking book, Emily Ralph Servant suggests that the work of today’s leaders is to explore new stories, listen to new voices, and open ourselves up to the Spirit’s work of transformation. Experiments in Love engages in a three-way dialogue with feminist and liberation theologians, the social and behavioral sciences, and the Anabaptist tradition. Out of this vibrant conversation emerges the story of a God who takes the risk of being radically present to a vulnerable world. Because of God’s courageous presence with us, we can also take the risk of being vulnerably present to others as God invites us all to participate in God’s community of life, love, and flourishing.

By utilizing the contributions of a variety of scholars – theologians, historians, and biblical scholars – this book makes the complex and sometimes disparate Anabaptist movement more easily accessible. It does this by outlining Anabaptism's early history during the Reformation of the sixteenth century, its varied and distinctive theological convictions, and its ongoing challenges to and influence on contemporary Christianity. T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism comprises four sections: 1) Origins, 2) Doctrine, 3) Influences on Anabaptism, and 4) Contemporary Anabaptism and Relationship to Others. The volume concludes with a chapter on how contemporary Anabaptists interact with the wider Church in all its variety. While some of the authorities within the volume will disagree even with one another regarding Anabaptist origins, emphases on doctrine, and influence in the contemporary world, such differences represent the diversity that constitutes the history of this movement.

'John Howard Yoder: Radical Theologian' shows that for John Howard Yoder both theology (in particular Christology) and ethics are expressions of the meaning of the narrative of Jesus. All such statements are relative to a particular context, so thattheology and ethics are subject to reaching back to the narrative in order to restate the meaning in new and ever-changing contexts. This methodology is visible in Yoder's 'Preface to Theology', which has been little used in most treatments of Yoder's thought. Yoder has been characterised as standing on Nicene orthodoxy, criticised for rejecting Nicene orthodoxy, called heterodox, and designated a postmodern thinker to be interpreted in terms of other such thinkers. None of these characterisations adequately locates the basis of his methodology in the narrative of Jesus. Thus 'John Howard Yoder: Radical Theologian' aims to go beyond or to supersede existing treatments with its demonstration that Yoder is a radical theologian in the historical meaning of radical - that is, as one who returns to the root - but also relates his theology to the personal accusations that clouded his later years. For Christian faith, this root is Christ. Parts II and III of the book explore the sources of Yoder's approach, and its application in several contemporary contexts.