John Howard Yoder

Original Revolution, The: Essays on Christian Pacifism (John Howard Yoder)

Jesus created around himself a voluntary society that was counter to everything his society knew or expected. Jesus gave his members a new way to deal with offenders, with violence, with money, with leadership, with a corrupt society. He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, and an enlarged understanding of what it means to be human. This is the original revolution: the creation of a distinct community with its alternate set of values and its coherent way of incarnating them. Such a group is not only a novelty, but is also, if lived faithfully, the most powerful tool of social change.