2020/01/17

알라딘: [전자책] 러시아 혁명사 강의



알라딘: [전자책] 러시아 혁명사 강의




러시아 혁명사 강의 - 다른 미래를 꿈꾸는 사람들에게
박노자 (지은이)나무연필2017-11-30






























전자책 미리 읽기 종이책으로 미리보기


종이책
16,000원 14,400원 (800원)
전자책정가
11,000원
판매가

7.4100자평(8)리뷰(3)

기본정보

제공 파일 : ePub(54.7 MB)
TTS 여부 : 지원

종이책 페이지수 284쪽


주간 편집 회의
"1917년 러시아 혁명, 2017년 한국은?"
2017년, 러시아 혁명은 100년을 맞았다. 물론 오늘날 러시아는 당시의 혁명과 직접 이어진 사회가 아니고, 러시아 혁명은 실패로 일단락되었다는 평가가 다수지만, 그럼에도 오늘 러시아 혁명을 다시 들춰보는 사연은 그리 복잡하지 않다. “등록금을 버느라, 생활비를 버느라, 그래도 졸업장을 얻어 취직해보겠다는 일념으로 공부를 하느라 숨 쉴 틈 없이 일해야 하는 수많은 한국 대학생들의 삶은, 어쩌면 1917년 이전 제정 러시아의 고숙련 노동자들보다 더 힘들지도 모르겠”고, 그때 그러했듯 어떤 변화가 필요하다면, 가장 선명한 변화였던 러시아 혁명의 양면을 들여다보는 게 현명한 방법일 테니 말이다.

100년을 돌아보며 오늘을 살피는 이번 강의의 안내자는 박노자 교수다. 그는 소련의 ‘레닌’그라드에서 태어나 자랐고, 그의 러시아 이름 ‘블라디미르’는 열성적인 공산주의자였던 부모가 레닌에서 따와 지었으니, 혁명과는 떼려야 뗄 수 없는 삶이었을 테고, 한국과 동아시아의 역사를 연구했으니 오늘 한국사회를 혁명에 어떻게 비추어 볼지 입체적으로 살펴볼 수 있는 위치라 하겠다. 그는 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린 세 인물을 바탕으로 러시아 혁명의 이론과 현실이 어떻게 갈등했는지 정리하고, 이후 혁명의 여파가 유럽과 아시아에서 어떻게 이어졌는지 설명하고, 마지막으로 남한의 경제개발과 혁명을 비교하며 다른 미래를 꿈꿔야 할 이유와 방법을 두루 살핀다. 100년 후에도 누군가 이런 시도를 한다면, 그 대상이 200년 전 러시아 혁명이 아니라 100년 전 한국일 수 있을까. 오늘도 혁명을, 다른 세상을, 다른 미래를 꿈꾸는 이들에게 이 책을 권한다.
- 역사 MD 박태근 (2017.10.10)

책소개
소련의 레닌그라드(지금의 상트페테르부르크)에서 태어나 자랐고 페레스트로이카를 거쳐 러시아연방에서 살다가 한국으로 귀화한 역사학자 박노자, 그는 과연 러시아 혁명을 어떻게 바라보고 있을까? 이론가로서의 시각에 경험적 관찰까지 더해진 독특한 러시아 혁명사를 2017년 러시아 혁명 100주년에 맞춰 펴낸다.

이 책은 러시아 혁명의 한가운데 있었으며 혁명 이후 소비에트를 이끌었던 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린을 중심으로 혁명의 전후 맥락을 복원해낸다. 인물을 중심으로 엮어냈기에 흥미진진한 이야기들을 바탕으로 혁명의 과정을 들여다볼 수 있다.

또 하나 다른 러시아 혁명사 책들에 비해 이 책이 주목하는 것은 이 혁명의 여파와 영향이다. 사회주의 실험의 중심에 있던 러시아는 유라시아를 비롯해 전 세계에 혁명의 기운을 전파시켰다. 대한제국을 거쳐 일제강점기를 경유한 우리도 예외가 아니다. 한국사학자 박노자는 우리에게 머나먼 타국에서 벌어진 과거의 사건으로 여겨지는 러시아 혁명이 실제로 우리와 어떻게 결부되어 있는지를 다양한 사례들로 보여준다.

물론 100년 전과 비교해본다면, 세상은 변했다. 혁명을 상상하는 틀 또한 바뀌었다. 그러하기에 이 책은 오래된 과거 가운데서 현재까지 빛을 발하는 것들에 눈길을 돌린다. 혁명의 긍정성과 문제성을 동시에 조망하면서 더 나은 미래를 준비하는 이들에게 제시하는 희망의 씨앗이다.


목차


머리말 _러시아 혁명, 미완의 해방 프로젝트
1강 블라디미르 일리치 레닌, 이상적 사회주의 혁명을 꿈꾸다
2강 레온 트로츠키, 영구적인 세계 혁명을 위하여
3강 폭력적인 고속 성장의 꿈을 좆은 스탈린 체제
4강 급진과 온건의 갈림길에 선 유럽의 좌파 정당들
5강 아시아에 밀어닥친 러시아 혁명의 물결
6강 사회주의 혁명을 뒤따라온 적색 개발주의
찾아보기


책속에서


첫문장
개인사를 돌이켜보면 저는 블라디미르 일리치 레닌Vladimir Ilich Lenin(1870`1924)과 연관지어 회고할 부분이 꽤 있습니다.




P. 7 러시아에서 노동자들은 잔업을 포함해 하루 10~11시간의 고강도 노동에 시달렸고, 비좁은 셋집에서 살았으며, 권위주의적인 공장 당국의 ‘갑질’에 끊임없이 시달렸고, 불경기라도 닥쳐오면 정리해고를 당하는 게 수순이었습니다. 그들에게 러시아의 준주변부적 자본주의는 그야말로 지옥이었어요. 한번 노동자가 된 이상 그들에게는 신분 상승의 ... 더보기
P. 70~71 레닌은 근대 자본주의의 모순에 대해 탁월한 분석을 한 급진적 혁명가이자 사상가입니다. 자본가와 전쟁의 관계, 평화운동의 모순, 전쟁과 식민지 문제에 있어서 온건 사민주의자의 위선 등에 대한 그의 분석은 지금도 참조할 만하지요. 하지만 자본주의의 모순을 극복하기 위한 방안으로 그가 선택한 ‘프롤레타리아 독재국가 건설’ 논리에 대해서... 더보기
P. 106 우리는 트로츠키를 역사적 패배자로 봐야 할까요? 꼭 그렇지만은 않습니다. 소련이 몰락한 뒤, 한국에서는 소련의 사회주의를 따르겠다는 명분이 사라지면서 그 틈새를 주사파가 파고듭니다. 유럽이나 미국에서는 스탈린의 폭정이 널리 알려지면서 그렇잖아도 관료화되었던 공산당들의 활동이 위축되지요. 하지만 서유럽을 중심으로 민족과 국민이라는 ... 더보기
P. 152 소련은 사회주의 국가가 아니었습니다. 사회주의는 정치 영역의 존재를 기본 전제로 삼습니다. 국민 모두가 정치의 주체가 되어 자유롭게 활동을 펼치며 민주적으로 참여할 수 있어야 하지요. 물론 이는 선진화된 부르주아 사회에서도 어려운 일이지만요. 1927년까지의 소련에는 그나마 제한적인 정치 영역이 남아 있었지만, 이후로는 모두 사라... 더보기
P. 161 스탈린 체제는 분명 억압적이었지만, 제정러시아 때와는 비교할 수 없을 만큼의 대민 포섭 능력도 갖추고 있었습니다. 체제에 포섭된 대중들은 억압을 느꼈지만, 그에 대한 불만을 정치적으로 표출할 수 없었어요. 결국 스탈린 치하의 소련 체제는 사회주의라기보다는 대민 포섭 능력이 뛰어나면서 고속 압축적 성장을 지향하는 국가 단위의 비(非... 더보기
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저자 및 역자소개
박노자 (지은이)
저자파일
최고의 작품 투표
신간알림 신청


노르웨이 오슬로 국립대학교 한국학과 교수.
한국 고대사와 불교사 등을 연구했고 지금은 근대사, 특히 공산주의 운동사에 몰입하고 있다. 지은 책으로 『당신들의 대한민국』(1·2) 『우승열패의 신화』 『주식회사 대한민국』 등이 있다.


최근작 : <전환의 시대>,<한국지성과의 통일대담>,<러시아 혁명사 강의 (리커버 에디션)> … 총 87종 (모두보기)
인터뷰 : 이중의 타자, 박노자 교수와의 e-만남 - 2002.07.31


출판사 제공 책소개
2017년 러시아 혁명 100주년
소련에서 태어나 페레스트로이카를 살아낸 한국사학자가 읽어낸
러시아 혁명의 실제와 현재적 의미!

러시아 출신의 한국사학자 박노자가 들려주는
혁명의 뜨거운 열기와 쇠퇴 그리고 이후의 이야기

소련의 레닌그라드(지금의 상트페테르부르크)에서 태어나 자랐고 페레스트로이카를 거쳐 러시아연방에서 살다가 한국으로 귀화한 역사학자 박노자, 그는 과연 러시아 혁명을 어떻게 바라보고 있을까? 이론가로서의 시각에 경험적 관찰까지 더해진 독특한 러시아 혁명사를 2017년 러시아 혁명 100주년에 맞춰 펴낸다.
이 책은 러시아 혁명의 한가운데 있었으며 혁명 이후 소비에트를 이끌었던 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린을 중심으로 혁명의 전후 맥락을 복원해낸다. 인물을 중심으로 엮어냈기에 흥미진진한 이야기들을 바탕으로 혁명의 과정을 들여다볼 수 있다. 또 하나 다른 러시아 혁명사 책들에 비해 이 책이 주목하는 것은 이 혁명의 여파와 영향이다. 사회주의 실험의 중심에 있던 러시아는 유라시아를 비롯해 전 세계에 혁명의 기운을 전파시켰다. 대한제국을 거쳐 일제강점기를 경유한 우리도 예외가 아니다. 한국사학자 박노자는 우리에게 머나먼 타국에서 벌어진 과거의 사건으로 여겨지는 러시아 혁명이 실제로 우리와 어떻게 결부되어 있는지를 다양한 사례들로 보여준다.
물론 100년 전과 비교해본다면, 세상은 변했다. 혁명을 상상하는 틀 또한 바뀌었다. 그러하기에 이 책은 오래된 과거 가운데서 현재까지 빛을 발하는 것들에 눈길을 돌린다. 혁명의 긍정성과 문제성을 동시에 조망하면서 더 나은 미래를 준비하는 이들에게 제시하는 희망의 씨앗이다.

100년 전 러시아에서 벌어진 뜨거운 혁명의 순간,
그 찰나들은 어떤 고뇌와 희망을 담고 있었나
‘러시아 혁명’이라고 하면 21세기 대한민국을 살아가는 우리와는 동떨어진 역사적 사건으로만 기억하는 이들이 많을 것이다. 박노자는 우선 그 오래전 혁명의 태동과 과정을 설명하기 위해 레닌과 트로츠키, 그리고 스탈린이라는 인물을 내세운다. 이들의 역동적인 삶을 통해 혁명의 전후 맥락이 묘사되고 있는지라 사건과 사상이 결부되면서 러시아 혁명은 입체적으로 그려진다.

물론 이러한 혁명가들 외에 이름 붙여지지 않은 혁명 주역들에 대한 묘사 역시 이어진다. 혁명에 가담한 이들 대다수는 귀족과 부호 등이 소유한 농장을 몰수해 이를 농민 공동체 구성원들과 평등하게 분배하려 했던 농민들이었다. 또한 자본주의 사회에서 그 어떤 희망도 보지 못했던 러시아 도심의 대기업 숙련공들이었다. 가혹한 노동에 혹사당하고, 귀족이나 공장 당국의 ‘갑질’에 시달리던 이들. 자신의 삶을 열심히 살아내더라도 가난과 중노동을 자식에게 대물림해야 했던 이들. 이들이 처해 있는 상황은, 어찌 보면 오늘날 대한민국에서 열악한 처지에 있는 이들의 삶과 크게 다르지 않다. 종족적 소수자들 역시 이 혁명에 가담한다. 민족적 억압과 경제적 초과 착취의 중첩이 이어지는 상황에서 소수자들에게 혁명이란 자신의 해방을 꿈꿀 가능성을 담고 있는 희망이었다. 트로츠키가 유대인 출신이고 스탈린이 가난한 그루지아 출신이었던 것, 그리고 연해주 지역 고려 사람들이 볼셰비키 혁명에 열광했던 것은 이런 맥락에서 염두에 둘 사실이다.
사회 비판적 지식인들은 엄혹한 현실에 개입해 들어가며 혁명의 불꽃을 피워낸다. 러시아 혁명의 한가운데 있던 레닌은 이들에게 더 이상 지옥 같은 조건에서 노동을 팔지 않아도 되는 새로운 사회, 즉 사회주의의 비전을 제시했다. 트로츠키는 새로운 사회를 건설하는 과정에서 상실돼가는 민주성에 대한 자각을 일깨우려 했다. 스탈린은 국가 주도 개발의 붐 속에서 새로운 신분 상승의 가능성을 제시했다. 즉, 이 일련의 과정은 가혹한 현실의 사슬을 끊고자 하는 하나의 대응으로서 진행되었다.

그런데 우리는 러시아 혁명이 이러한 긍정적 교훈만을 남기지 않았다는 것을 잘 알고 있다. 혁명은 1920년을 전후해 사실상 퇴보의 길을 걸어간다. 혁명 지도자에서 국가 지도자로 변모한 이들은 일사분란하고 위계질서적인 ‘통제’를 내세웠고, 국가기관에 대한 아래로부터의 감시는 잘 이뤄지지 않았다. 그리하여 스탈린 시대에 이르면 혁명이 내걸었던 애초의 약속에 비해 훨씬 보수적인 사회가 되었으며. 민주성보다는 개발주의적 담론이 주류를 차지하게 된다.
이 모든 것을 통해 지금 우리가 들여다봐야 하는 것은 과연 무엇일까. 러시아 혁명은 좌초되었으며 소비에트의 시도는 실패했기에 패배의 과거로만 바라보아야 할까. 박노자가 혁명사를 들여다보면서 내려는 길은, 혁명의 빛만을 숭배하는 것도 혁명의 그림자만을 낙인찍는 것도 아니다. 혁명이 일어나게 된 가혹한 현실을 타파하면서 동시에 과거의 혁명이 저질렀던 오류를 어떻게 하면 넘어설 수 있을까. 박노자의 초점을 바로 거기에 맞춰 있다.

유럽과 아시아 등 전 세계로 이어진 혁명의 여파,
우리에게 러시아 혁명은 어떻게 파고들었을까
그렇다면 이 혁명의 여파는 어떻게 전파되었을까. 박노자는 우선 러시아와 가장 영향을 많이 주고받았던 유럽, 특히 영국과 프랑스의 상황을 진단한다. 이는 곧 유럽 진보 정당의 간략한 역사를 살펴보는 작업이기도 하다. 세계대전이라는 큰 전쟁을 겪긴 하지만 비교적 경제적·사회적으로 안정된 체제가 유지되었던 유럽의 좌파 정당들이 급진과 온건 사이에서 망설이며 갈등하는 과정이 묘사된다.
러시아 혁명의 주역들은 유럽을 망명지로 자주 드나들었고 정당 차원에서도 서로 영향을 주고받았지만, 혁명의 여파는 유럽에만 머물지 않았다. 열강에 속했지만 서구에 비해 사회 모순이 컸고 외국에 대한 의존도가 컸던 러시아의 상황은 아시아와 꽤 유사했다. 그러했기에 아시아의 혁명적 지식인들은 서구 열강보다 러시아를 좀더 가까운 존재로 여기면서 이 혁명에 주목했다. 이외에 러시아가 이란, 중국, 조선 등과 국경을 접하고 있었던 점도 혁명이 전파되는 데 중요한 원동력이 되었을 것이다. 박노자는 그간 많은 주목을 받지 못했던 아시아의 혁명들에 대해서도 러시아 혁명과의 관계 속에서 하나의 줄기를 엮어낸다.
우리 역시 예외는 아니다. 일제강점기만 보더라도 《조선일보》와 《동아일보》가 1925년부터 모스크바에 특파원을 파견할 정도로 조선은 사회적으로 러시아에 대해 관심을 갖고 있었다. 특파원들이 공산주의자는 아니었지만 사회주의에 관심이 많았고, 소련의 산업화에 대해서는 조선의 부르주아 미디어들 역시 호의적이었다. 이런 지면에서는 소련의 민중 교육 상황이나 소수민족 우대 정책, 성평등 정책, 그리고 근대적인 산업화에 대한 동경을 여실히 드러냈다. 물론 식민지 지식인들의 혁명에 대한 관심 또한 상당했다. 이는 직접적으로 분단으로 연결돼 남북한의 체제 경쟁으로까지 이어지는 맥락 속에서 파악해야 할 것이다.
이때 박노자가 주목하는 것은 스탈린 시대의 ‘적색 개발주의’다. 이는 자본주의 사회에서 박정희가 주도한 ‘백색 개발주의’와 견주며 비교된다. 편견을 걷어내고 본다면, 소비에트는 유럽을 비롯한 열강과 비교하더라도 훨씬 빠른 시기에 기초적인 복지 제도를 완비하고 무상의료와 무상교육을 실시하면서 노동자와 농민의 신분 상승을 어느 정도 보장하는 시스템을 갖췄다. 이는 박정희의 백색 개발주의가 엄청난 경제성장을 가져왔음에도 불구하고 만들어내지 못한, 어쩌면 지금까지도 우리 사회가 이뤄내지 못한 성과다. 물론 적색 개발주의는 서서히 저물어갔고, 그 개발을 주도했던 소련 관료들은 자본주의로의 체제 전환을 이뤄냈지만 말이다. 러시아 혁명 당시 안고 있던 문제를 지금의 우리가 여전히 안고 있는 것이라면, 어떻게 혁명이 범한 우를 넘어서면서 지금의 문제를 해소할 수 있을지 고민하는 데 이러한 비교는 상당히 유용하지 않을까.

러시아에서의 경험에 한국사 연구자로서의 실증을 더한
지금 우리가 참조해야 할 바로 그 혁명사
한편 한국사 연구자로서 박노자의 면모는 러시아 혁명을 다룬 이 책에서도 빛을 발한다. 예를 들면, 그는 혁명 전 제정러시아의 상황을 설명하기 위해 윤치호의 기록을 끄집어낸다. 윤치호가 조선사절단으로 재정러시아의 황제를 만나러 가서 섬세하고 예리하게 당시 러시아의 상황을 관찰하고 기록해둔 자료들은, 박노자라는 한국사학자를 만나면서 제정러시아의 입체적인 상황을 조망하는 데 이용되는 것이다. 이뿐만이 아니다. 여운형이 쓴 「모스크바의 인상」이란 여행기에 나오는, 트로츠키의 열변에 대한 목격담도 상당히 흥미롭다. 혁명기란 열변가의 시대이며, 트로츠키는 당대의 대표적인 열변가였다. 1922년 초반에 열린 극동노력자대회에 초청받은 여운형은 그 전해에 유라시아 대륙 횡단열차를 타고 모스크바에 가서 바로 이 트로츠키의 연설을 듣고서 생생하게 기록을 남겨두었다. 이처럼 러시아와 결부된 한국사의 다양한 사료들은 러시아 혁명사와 결부되어 소중한 꽃을 피워낸다.

물론 레닌 이름을 딴 레닌그라드에서 태어나 혁명의 이후를 살아냈던 박노자의 생생한 목격담과 경험담 역시 이 독특한 혁명사에 흥미를 더해준다. 우크라이나의 극심한 아사 사태를 전해주는 조부모의 이야기를 비롯해 어린 시절 학교에서 배웠던 레닌에 대한 이야기까지, 실제로 그 현장을 살아냈던 이만이 들려줄 수 있는 이야기가 더해져 살아 숨 쉬는 사건으로서 혁명을 느낄 수 있는 것이다. 접기


올해의 책
2017 올해의 책 : 이 책을 선택한 이유


너무도 소중한 한 양심적인 지성인의 책이라서. - transient-guest
박노자 특유의 관점과 러시아 혁명 100주년 기념 도서로 손색이 없을 만큼 당대의 이야기를 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린 등 인물 중심으로 혁명의 역사를 알기 쉽게 익힐 수 있어 추천할 만하다. - 인식의힘
박노자의 신선한 생각 - 키노
러시아 혁명의 의미가 무엇인지를 알수 있다. - 거북이
러시아 혁명 100주년을 맞이하여 러시아 혁명에 대한 공과를 살펴불 수 있도록 해줌 - 머큐리


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공감순







사회주의나 공산주의 간판으로 ‘진정한 사회주의와 공산주의‘를 파괴한 여러 정치세력들을 까발림.소련 등은 사회주의도 국가자본주의도 아닌 적색개발주의라고 함.근데,사회주의나 자본주의는 ‘관계적‘으로 사회 규정한 것.잘나가다가, 적색개발주의 주장에서 ‘삼천포로 빠짐‘.171~170쪽 중복.
laboreran 2017-10-01 공감 (5) 댓글 (0)
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러시아 혁명을 인물별 행적과 그에 대한 저자의 평가로 살펴본 책이다. 러시아혁명에 대한 기초 지식이 없어도 쉽게 읽을 수 있는 책이었으나, 러시아혁명의 배경과 과정의 전체적 모습을 파악하기에는 한계가 있었다.
다솔 2017-11-06 공감 (1) 댓글 (0)
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글의 전개나 책의 구조에 대해서는 아쉬운 점이 많았지만, 더 나은 세상이 가능할지도 모르겠다는 가능성을 생각해보게끔 하는 책
Astell 2018-08-11 공감 (0) 댓글 (0)
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공감순





혁명은 계속되어야 한다




이제 며칠뒤면 2018년을 맞이하게 되는 연말이지만 올해는 역사적인 사건들을 기념할 일이 많은 해였다. 교황의 면죄부 판매에 대해 루터가 95개조 반박문을 발표하면서 촉발된 종교개혁 500주년과 20세기를 풍미했던 러시아 혁명 100주년이 대표적이다. 어느 사건에 현재적 의의를 둘 지는 사람에 따라서 차이가 있을 것이다. 하지만 러시아 혁명과 사회주의가 한일병탄으로 국권을 잃었던 1920~30년대 독립운동과 80년대 독재정권에 항거했던 학생운동에 끼친 영향이 적지 않은 점을 고려해보면 우리 역사 속에 아로새겨진 흔적은 러시아 혁명이 더 선명하지 않을까 싶다. 이런 사실을 증명하듯 올해 국내에선 러시아 혁명 관련 서적들이 속속 출간되었다.「다시 돌아보는 러시아 혁명 100년」,「혁명의 러시아 1891~1991」,「E. H. 카 러시아 혁명」,「예술이 꿈꾼 러시아혁명」, 트로츠키의「러시아 혁명사」등이 대표적이다. 여기에 한국 사회의 모순과 부조리를 날카로운 외부인의 시각으로 조명하면서 우리에게 많은 생각거리를 안겨주고 있는 박노자 오슬로 대학교수도「러시아혁명사 강의」라는 이름의 책 한 권을 보탰다.



책은 이름에서도 알 수 있듯 2007~2016년 대학에서 강의했던 러시아혁명사 강의록을 토대로 하고 있으며 자신의 경험을 녹여 러시아 혁명의 전후 맥락을 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린 세 중심 인물을 중심으로 서술하고 있다. 아울러 러시아 이외 지역 즉 유럽의 좌파정당과 중국‧북베트남‧인도 등의 독립운동에 러시아 혁명이 미친 영향과 사회주의 혁명 이후에 뒤따라온 공산당 독재하 국가 주도의 계획경제를 의미하는 적색개발주의의 기원과 실제, 가치와 한계 등을 분석했다.



전반부에서는 근대 자본주의 모순을 탁월하게 분석한 급진적 혁명가이자 사상가였지만 혁명과 집권과정에서 보여준 내부 비판자 탄압 등의 비민주성으로 독재의 길로 가는 교두보를 마련한 레닌, 세계혁명론을 내세운 이상주의 혁명가로서 레닌과 함께 러시아 혁명을 이끈 지도자이지만 국가만능주의에 빠졌던 트로츠키, 국가주도의 경제성장을 내세워 이민족과 내부 비판자를 무자비하게 탄압한 국가폭력 체제를 구축한 스탈린에 대해 객관적이면서도 비판적인 시각을 보여준다.



이어 의회정치를 통해 기성질서체제 유지에 기여하는 모순적인 입장의 유럽 좌파정당이 러시아 혁명중 겪은 부침을 이야기하며 프랑스와 영국의 사례를 들고 있다. 1936년 총파업으로 사회당과 연립내각을 구성할 수 있게 되는 등 혁명의 분위기가 무르익었음에도 현실에 안주하고 알제리 독립전쟁과 68혁명 상황에서 안이한 대응으로 현재 명맥만 유지하고 있는 프랑스 좌파, 노동당과의 차별화에 실패하고 소련에 대한 추종‧맹종‧묵종으로 진보세력의 명분을 스스로 무너뜨린 영국의 좌파의 역사를 돌이켜보며 한국 진보정당이 그러한 오류를 답습하지 않기를 당부한다.



저자는 극단적인 사회모순 해결, 빈곤타파 및 자주적 근대화의 모색 등이 필요했던 제정 러시아에서 일어난 혁명을 목도하면서 유사한 사회적 상황과 지리적 접근성으로 인해 그 영향력 하에 있었던 아시아 여러나라의 사례도 살폈다. 특히 1919년이후 유럽의 핵심부 국가들에서 혁명이 일어나기 힘들다는 현실인식 속에서 아시아의 식민지 체제 전복으로 세계 혁명을 촉진시켜야 한다는 전략하에 이루어진 민족주의 세력과의 합작을 비중있게 다루고 있다. 이후 제2차 세계대전의 발발은 공산주의 확산의 결정적인 계기가 되지만 아시아 공산주의자들은 계급해방이라는 본연의 목표보다는 민족국가 단위의 발전에 치중한 점을 지적한다. 끝으로 이런 적색개발주의의 역사적 경험과 문제점 등을 검토하면서 과거의 소련이나 중국, 북한과는 다른 사적자본이 아닌 국가가 주체가 되는 비시장적 산업사회의 가능성에 대한 기대 피력으로 책을 마무리한다.



박노자 교수는 러시아 혁명을 다룬 다른 책「다시 돌아보는 러시아혁명 100년」의 총론에서 우리는 지금도 10월 혁명의 연장선상에 살고 있다고 말하면서 10월 혁명 이후 소련이 성취한 여러 무상복지 덕분에 체제경쟁을 하던 서구도 복지개혁을 할 수 있었다는 견해를 밝힌다. 우리의 역사에서도 그런 예를 찾아볼 수 있다. 일제에서 해방된 뒤 이승만 정권에서 실시한 토지개혁이 대표적이다. 북한에서 급진적인 무상몰수‧분배 방식의 토지개혁이 이루어진 덕분에 체제의 붕괴를 염려했던 남한이 제한적인 방식이라도 채택하여 토지개혁을 실시했기 때문이다. 소련의 붕괴 이후 1992년 발간된「역사의 종말」에서 프랜시스 후쿠야마는 20세기 이데올로기 대결에서 자유민주주의와 시장자본주의의 승리로 귀결되었다고 주장했다. 그렇지만 21세기 초반 10년간 민주주의의 썰물현상과 지난 2008년 글로벌 금융위기를 보면 성급하고 선동적인 선언에 불과한 것이었고 미‧중‧러 등 열강의 각축, 신자유주의 팽배로 인한 대중일반의 경제적 고통, 세계적 장기 침체 등에서 볼 수 있듯 현 체제의 한계는 명확해지고 있다. 그렇다면 지금과는 다른 미래를 꿈꾸는 사람들에게 참고할 수 있는 역사적 사건이 무엇이 있을까? 이에 대한 해답으로 러시아 혁명을 꼽으며 출간된「러시아 혁명사 강의」는 혁명 주역 레닌의 이름을 딴 레닌그라드(현 상트페테르부르크)에서 태어나 현지 상황을 생생히 목격하고 한국적 상황에도 익숙한 박노자 교수의 생각이 잘 요약된 친절한 안내서의 역할을 충실히 다하고 있다.
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시작과 함께 변질된 혁명, 이상적 사회주의 혁명은 가능할까?


로자처럼 서평쓰기 강의들으면서 쓴 글..

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시작과 함께 변질된 혁명, 이상적 사회주의 혁명은 가능할까?

1917년 러시아 혁명은 20세기 세계사의 시작이라 해도 무리가 없다. 러시아혁명 100주년을 맞은 2017년, 한국인에게 맞춤형으로 러시아혁명사를 소개해 줄만한 이를 찾는다면 단연 박노자가 떠오른다.

이 책은 러시아 혁명에 설계도를 제시하고 혁명을 건설했던 레닌, 트로츠키, 스탈린을 중심으로 혁명사상의 공과 과, 혁명의 명과 암을 들려주고 있다. 러시아 혁명이 유럽과 아시아에 미친 영향과 사회주의를 꿈꾸었던 러시아 혁명이 왜 '적색 개발주의'로 귀결될 수밖에 없었는지 설명하고 있다.

제국주의의 틀을 넘어선 이상적 사회주의 혁명을 꿈꾸었던 레닌의 사상은 '무장 혁명 후 프롤레타리아 독재국가 건설'로 집약할 수 있다. 레닌은 자본이 국가권력을 도구삼아 이윤극대화를 위해 전쟁을 일으키고 노동자를 착취한다고 보았다. 자연스레 레닌의 대안은 노동자들이 무장혁명을 일으켜 자본가들로부터 국가권력을 획득하는 것으로 귀결된다. 하지만 저자는 국가의 폭력적 속성을 간파하지 못한 것을 레닌의 한계로 지목한다. 일국사회주의를 넘어 중진국에서 시작된 혁명이 전 세계에 사회주의를 이루는 영구적인 세계혁명을 꿈꾸었던 트로츠키 역시 제도화된 폭력인 국가의 위험성을 과소평가했다.

혁명 사상가였던 레닌과 트로츠키와 달리 혁명국가를 시공했던 스탈린은 국가의 폭력성을 적극 활용하여 일인독재 체제를 완성한다. 스탈린이 만든 국가는 사회주의의 이름을 걸쳤을 뿐 시장이 아닌 국가가 주도하는 고속성장 모델인 국가자본주의라고 할 수 있다. 저자는 '적색 개발주의'라고 이름을 붙인다. 성장과 폭력을 자양분 삼아 체제를 유지한 스탈린 모델은 한국에서 익히 보았던 박정희 식 국가개발주의 양상과 그리 다르지 않다. 소련이 사회주의 체제가 아니었음은 고속성장이 지체되며 소련이 몰락하는 과정에서 잘 보여주고 있다. 자본의 이윤율하락이라는 자본주의 근본모순을 안고 있는 체제 전환은 결국 실패할 수밖에 없음을 역설적으로 소련이 보여주었다.

러시아 혁명이 유럽의 좌파 운동에 미친 영향과 아시아에 미친 영향도 함께 들려주고 있다. 자본주의 체제가 안정된 유럽에서의 좌파 운동은 급진·온건을 떠나 의회 내 정당으로 귀결되었으며 체제 내 기득권 유지 수준으로 전락하였다고 평가한다. 알제리 독립 전쟁, 6·8혁명에서 보여주었던 좌파 정당의 모습은 국가주의를 벗어나지 못하고 혁명의 기운을 꺾는데 앞장섰다고 저자는 비판하고 있다.

반면 아시아에서 소련은 제국주의 식민지 국가였던 중국, 인도, 한국 등에서 민족주의 진영과 연대하여 반제국주의 식민지 해방 전쟁의 지원과 기폭제 역할을 하였다. 또한 스탈린의 고속성장모델은 남한, 북한, 중국, 동남아시아 전역에 국가 주도형 개발주의 모델의 본보기가 되었다.

러시아 혁명과 좌파 운동사를 일별하며 오늘날에도 여전히 사회주의 혁명이 필요하다고 보는 저자가 제시하는 몇 가지 통찰이 있다. 첫째, ‘자본주의 내에서 부르주아 민주주의를 극복하려는 정당을 합법적으로 운영하다는 것은 자기모순적’이지만 이를 극복하기 위해서는 ‘일상에서 지속적으로 자본주의에 대한 대안을 실천해야 한다’고 말한다. ‘당원들간의 위계질서를 없앤다거나, 생태친화적 생활양식을 실천하는 것 등 일상적이고 문화적이며 대안 생활양식적인 실천‘을 해야 한다. 즉, 자본주의 극복을 위해 정치권력 획득에만 사활을 걸 것이 아니라 일상 속에서 억압과 착취에 기초한 자본주의 생활양식이 아닌 대안적 일상을 만들어가야 한다고 권한다. 둘째, 사회주의 혁명의 이상을 최대강령으로 가지되 시민들이 피부로 체감할 만한 주제들을 최소강령으로 삼아 지지를 얻을 것을 제안한다. 셋째, 국가나 민족 단위의 세계관에서 벗어나 사해동포주의적 가치관으로 국가간 영토 분쟁이나 전쟁에 대해 공동의 목소리를 내기를 제안한다.

마지막으로 저자는 적색 개발주의의 한계를 인정하면서도 시장이 아닌 다른 방식으로 경제발전이 가능함을 보여준 것은 적색 개발주의가 보여준 가능성으로 인정한다. 시장이 주도하지 않는 성장방식으로 자본의 억압과 착취를 극복하고, 중앙집중적 국가권력이 주도하지 않는 민주적인 방식으로의 성장이 ‘기술적으로’ 가능하다면 러시아 혁명의 한계를 넘어설 수 있지 않을까 하는 낙관적인 기대를 저자는 내비친다. 하지만 블록체인, P2P 등 시장과 중앙집중적 권력의 매개가 필요 없는 경제시스템이 ‘기술적으로는’ 가능하지만 여전히 민중이 중심이 된 비시장적 사회의 전망은 아직까지 가시거리에 보이지 않는다. 무엇이 더 필요한 것일까?

Buddhist Books by and for People of Color - Lion's Roar

Buddhist Books by and for People of Color - Lion's Roar

LR
Buddhist Books by and for People of Color

BY LION'S ROAR STAFF| JANUARY 13, 2020

In response to a query from a reader, our editors suggest some books by and for people of color.

Question: Can you recommend some Buddhist books by and for people of color?

Answer: It used to be that pretty much the only Buddhist books in English were written by Asian teachers or white Buddhists. Fortunately, Buddhism is changing and diversifying, and many of today’s most interesting and insightful Buddhist writers are people of color.


Here are seven books by and for Buddhists of color to get you started: 
  1. Taming the Ox: Buddhist Stories and Reflections on Politics, Race, Culture, and Spiritual Practice, by Charles R. Johnson (Shambhala); 
  2. Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, by Ruth King (Sounds True); 
  3. Sanctuary: A Meditation on Home, Homelessness, and Belonging, by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel (Wisdom); 
  4. A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment, by Spring Washam (Parallax); 
  5. Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, by Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Lama Rod Owens with Jasmine Syedullah (North Atlantic Books); 
  6. Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman’s Spiritual Journey, by Jan Willis (Wisdom); 
  7. Awakening Together: The Spiritual Practice of Inclusivity and Community, by Larry Yang (Wisdom).



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TOPICS: Beginner's Mind, Black Ethnicity, Book List, Books, Identity, Lion's Roar - Jan '19, News, Study, Teachings

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2020/01/16

알라딘: 트라우마의 이해와 치유



알라딘: 트라우마의 이해와 치유

트라우마의 이해와 치유 - 폭력이 발생했거나 공동체의 안전이 위협받았을 때 | 정의와 평화 실천 시리즈
캐롤린 요더 (지은이),김복기 (옮긴이)대장간2018-05-02원제 : The Little Book of Trauma Healing (2005년)







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이 도서는 <트라우마의 이해와 치유 - 갈등을 바라보는 새로운 패러다임 ㅣ KAP 정의와 평화 실천 시리즈 4>의 개정판입니다.
구간정보 보기


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기본정보

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157쪽
135*200mm
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ISBN : 9788970714509

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국내도서 > 인문학 > 심리학/정신분석학 > 심리치료


시리즈
정의와 평화 실천 시리즈 (총 6권 모두보기)

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서클 프로세스 - 평화를 만드는 새로운/전통적 접근방식
갈등전환
트라우마의 이해와 치유 - 폭력이 발생했거나 공동체의 안전이 위협받았을 때
가족집단 컨퍼런스
학교현장을 위한 회복적 학생생활교육




목차


추천의 글
저자 서문
역자 서문
감사의 말

1. 서론
변화와 갈등전환에 대한 요청으로서의 트라우마
이 책에 대하여

2. 트라우마에 대한 정의: 원인과 유형
지속적이며 구조적으로 발생하는 트라우마
사회적 혹은 집단적 트라우마
세대 간으로 전이되는 역사적 트라우마
이차적 트라우마
가해자의 트라우마
요약

3. 트라우마를 일으키는 사건에 대한 일반적인 반응
트라우마는 생리학적으로 우리에게 영향을 미친다
트라우마는 삶의 의미를 산산조각 낸다더보기




저자 및 역자소개
캐롤린 요더 (Carolyn Yoder) (지은이)
저자파일
최고의 작품 투표
신간알림 신청

동부 메노나이트 대학교(Eastern Mennonite University)의 정의와 평화 건설 센터(the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, CJP)와 교회세계봉사회(Church World Service)의 공동 프로그램이었던 스타 프로그램(STAR - Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience)을 이끌어내었다. 캐롤린은 가족과 함께 중동, 동부 아프리카, 남부 아프리카, 아시아, 캐리비안 및 미국에 살며 평화 관련 일을 해왔다. 저자는 미국뿐 아니라 해외의 전쟁, 고문 생존자 및 이들을 치료하던 사람들에게서 발생하는 이차적 스트레스 및 동정심에 의해 일어나는 트라우마에 이르기까지 아주 폭넓은 경험을 갖고 있다.
저자는 결혼 및 가족 상담, 전문 상담, 국제 갈등 상담을 진행하고 있다. 피츠버그 대학에서 언어학 석사, 미국 샌디애고 국제대학에서 상담심리 석사 학위를 수여받았다. 남편 릭(Rick)과 함께, 캐서린(Katherine), 제시카(Jessica)와 사라(Sara)라는 세 딸을 두고 있다. 접기


최근작 : <트라우마의 이해와 치유>,<트라우마의 이해와 치유> … 총 2종 (모두보기)

김복기 (옮긴이)
저자파일
최고의 작품 투표
신간알림 신청

강원대학교 조경학과와 캐나다 메노나이트 성경대학을 졸업하고, 미국 메노나이트 연합신학 대학원에서 목회학 석사학위를 받았다. 캐나다 온타리오주 런던의 샬롬 아도나이 교회에서 회중을 섬겼으며, 현재 캐나다 메노나이트교회 소속 선교사로 춘천에서 교회를 도우며 평화운동가와 교회개척자로 살고 있다.
『야수의 송곳니를 뽑다』, 『믿음-메노나이트 신앙과 실천』, 『동성애』, 『교리적 상상력』, 『반석 위에 세우리라』 , 『아나뱁티스트 역사』 , 『아나뱁티스트 크리스천』 , 『후터라이트 공동체의 역사』 , 『교회, 그 몸의 정치』 , 『그리스도의 충만함』 외 여러 권을 번역했다. 접기


최근작 : <살아있음이 기적이지요> … 총 30종 (모두보기)


출판사 소개
대장간
도서 모두보기
신간알림 신청


최근작 : <혁명에서 반란으로>,<디다케>,<회복적 서클 현장 이야기>등 총 323종
대표분야 : 기독교(개신교) 28위 (브랜드 지수 70,504점)

Allegations of sexual harassment against John Howard Yoder extend to Notre Dame | National Catholic Reporter

Allegations of sexual harassment against John Howard Yoder extend to Notre Dame | National Catholic Reporter



Allegations of sexual harassment against John Howard Yoder extend to Notre Dame

John Howard Yoder (Mennonite Church USA Archives/Carolyn Prieb)


When John Howard Yoder became a full-time professor exclusively at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, he gave a significant boost to the school's theology department. He brought with him international acclaim as a Mennonite theologian, scholar, ethicist and pacifist.
He also brought with him a long history of predatory behavior toward women, especially young female students, described as his "experiments."
Leaders of the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary -- formerly Goshen Biblical Seminary, where Yoder taught theology for 24 years -- gathered March 22 this year to apologize to his victims for the first time, publicly taking responsibility for the seminary's neglect that allowed Yoder to abuse more than 100 women. Yoder, who died in 1997, faced 13 charges of sexual abuse in 1992.
But what remains unanswered is who knew what at Notre Dame at the time of his hiring, whether officials there simply ignored his past and what officials on the South Bend, Ind., campus subsequently did as reports of his abusive behavior began to surface.

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Former colleagues of Yoder told NCR they knew very little regarding his history of sexual harassment when he first arrived as a full-time faculty member to Notre Dame. The noted professor finished his 20-year career there in good standing. Documents, though, from Yoder's time at Notre Dame and Goshen Biblical Seminary -- including his personal letters, contracts and alleged victims' testimonies -- suggest his superiors at both schools were at least aware of allegations of his misconduct with young women.
Firsthand records and interviews confirm Yoder's predatory behavior in the name of ethical studies and that it continued at Notre Dame. What follows is a complex depiction of Yoder's troubling past, and how it somehow failed to stimulate bureaucratic concerns at Notre Dame for decades.
When the Mennonite church wanted to open an investigation into Yoder's past, historian Rachel Goossen was asked to study personnel files and correspondence from Yoder's time, a project she undertook with the condition that the files eventually be open to the public. In January, her work -- "Defanging the Beast: Mennonite Responses to John Howard Yoder's Sexual Abuse" -- was published in The Mennonite Quarterly Review. The seminary then organized the reconciliation service.
Goossen told NCR that in an attempt to determine exactly what Notre Dame knew about Yoder's past at the time of his hiring, she sought to interview Fr. Richard McBrien, who was chairman of Notre Dame's theology department in 1984. McBrien, however, was in poor health in late 2014 and unable to do an interview. He died Jan. 25.
To get a better understanding of Yoder's time at Notre Dame, NCR reviewed numerous documents from Yoder's personal files kept in the Mennonite Church USA Archives in Goshen, Ind., recently made available to the public, as well as personal files of Goshen Biblical Seminary's then president, Marlin Miller, and his correspondence with Yoder, board members and staff throughout the 1970s-'90s.
Together, the documents and interviews NCR conducted indicate that Yoder attempted to conceal from Notre Dame the reasons for his departure from the seminary, but that Notre Dame officials became aware of his previous sexual misconduct in the early 1980s, years before alleged victims went public in 1992.
Dennis K. Brown, Notre Dame's assistant vice president for news and media relations, declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this story, saying that "Notre Dame does not comment on personnel matters."
In a Jan. 3, 1984, letter to Goshen Biblical Seminary board chair Evelyn Shellenberger, Miller -- who died in 1994 -- wrote of his 1983 meeting with two Notre Dame students who experienced sexual harassment by Yoder. Miller veiled both students' names in his correspondence.
"Jackie" worked in historic peace church circles, and Yoder recruited her, hoping he'd be a part of her support system. The professor took an interest in "Jackie," calling and visiting her regularly, eventually touching her in ways that made her uncomfortable as they prayed. She told Miller that Yoder would close the door and touch her for long periods of time, not letting her withdraw her hand when she didn't want to hold it any longer.
Another Notre Dame student, "Linda," said that in the winter of 1981 and '82, Yoder would call her three to four times a day for matters unrelated to the scholarly or departmental agenda. She told Miller the conversations would evolve from friendly chats to him talking about being affectionate, the slit in her skirt, and her legs and appearance. She met with a staff psychologist in student services, and after "Linda" confronted Yoder herself, he allegedly accused her of having problems with men and said that he could help her with those problems.
"Linda" and two or three other women, Miller wrote, thought of filing a suit against Yoder, but she dropped the notion since she was finishing up her studies. "Jackie" told Miller that she knew of three other students who also had problems with Yoder.
The scenes at Notre Dame reflected Yoder's past at Goshen Biblical Seminary, where rumors of his "experiments" with female students filled his last nine years at the school.
Yoder was a theology professor at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary from 1960 to 1984 and served as dean and president of the Goshen seminary. In 1994, the two seminaries combined, and in 2012 adopted the name Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
After several years abroad, Yoder returned to Goshen in 1976 as a professor. That same year, he agreed to teach full time at Notre Dame, complete with tenure for the summer of 1977.
It was this year that Miller first received complaints about Yoder's sexual improprieties toward his students. Yoder would maintain a full-time relationship with Notre Dame until his death, sharing his time with Goshen Biblical Seminary as an adjunct professor until his termination in 1984.
As an ethicist, Yoder was particularly interested in Christian sexuality in a variety of contexts, such as relationships among single people, how Christians empower married people more than singles, and extramarital relations.
But he took it upon himself to conduct "experiments" with students he mentored and women he met at conferences, among others, despite being married with six children. He called them his "circle of sisters." Never mind consent: Yoder believed he shouldn't be bound to Christian conventions, as ethicists were meant for far-reaching, cutting-edge thinking -- a defense he stuck with for the next 20 years.
In her article, Goossen cited a December 1979 letter from Yoder to Miller:
Intellectually the great challenge -- is how to deal with a basic challenge to an entire cultural mind set. ... Numerous of your [arguments] represent simply an appeal to the consensus of our respectable culture. I know what that consensus teaches, for I am its product and its victim. I knew its teachings before I began testing an alternative set of axioms. I did not come to reject them through simple rebellion or disdainful superiority. I knew at the outset that I am‚ "voted down." Therefore any appeals to that consensus ... or otherwise documenting its hold on our minds, is at best circular, and at worst it supports my analysis.
In an earlier December 1979 letter, Yoder admitted to Miller that his interactions with young women included:
• Closed door meetings, with hand-clasping, lap-sitting and kissing;
• "Token" partial disrobing;
• Total disrobing;
• Touching of genitals;
• Exploration of partial arousal;
Others had reported intercourse, though Yoder questioned what constituted intercourse.
By 1980, Miller had established the first of seven disciplinary task forces, all of which had ultimately grown weary of Yoder's consistent justifications and inability to reconcile, Goossen told NCR.
According to Goossen, Miller's initial concern was concealing these allegations to preserve Yoder's international influence and his 27-year marriage. But growing awareness throughout the student body and among Mennonite women of Yoder's behavior put more pressure on Miller to deal with the matter.
Eventually, Yoder was quietly forced to resign as adjunct professor at the seminary, leaving him to continue his employment solely at Notre Dame.
In "Defanging the Beast," Goossen cited a Feb. 3, 1984, letter where Miller warned Yoder that his behavior had become common knowledge among the Notre Dame student body, with students telling each other to "look out for Professor Y," and Miller cautioned him not to continue this behavior so as not to jeopardize his employment.
In a Feb. 6, 1984, letter to McBrien, Yoder vaguely hinted that controversy surrounded his exit from the seminary:
It would not have been appropriate for the GBS administration to ventilate the question with you earlier, in view of the delicate dimensions which such a matter has in a small school serving a small church. There are issues on many levels which made it seem best to terminate my dual employment rather than trying to work them on the level of public due process. I and others in the Mennonite context would be grateful if you could avoid giving the matter unnecessary prominence.
When Miller wrote to Yoder a week later saying that "the minimal courtesy suggests that I pick up a conversation with [McBrien]," Yoder responded that he saw no reason for that. "It would only seem to encourage him to ask for more information, which he is otherwise not inclined to do." Miller wrote to McBrien in June 1984 with no mention of Yoder's controversial past.
And so continued Yoder's untouched career at Notre Dame. Vic Stoltzfus, then president of Goshen College, where Yoder also taught classes, told NCR he remembered faculty at Notre Dame "spoke of him with awe; they were proud of him," being an internationally famous scholar on campus.
While Stoltzfus said he was aware of Yoder's misconduct in general terms, with Miller informing him that this behavior spanned three continents, he thought contacting Notre Dame was Miller's business.
By 1992, Yoder's career and the Mennonite community experienced a turning point. Yoder was invited as a guest speaker at Bethel College in North Newton, Kan., provoking a protest. Eight of Yoder's victims came forward that February with a statement detailing how Yoder had manipulated their student-professor relationship -- the first time his sexual improprieties became public. Their official statement described the following accounts:
• His attempts to establish secrecy, providing special addresses for them to reach him;
• Attempts to be alone, often shutting the door or showing up uninvited to their apartments;
• Probing questions regarding their sexual lives, asking, "How do you, as a single woman, find sexual gratification?" in personal surveys;
• "Physically assaultive" acts, such as sharing a couch with a woman in her house when her husband was away and laying his head on her lap, eventually shaking violently, as if experiencing an orgasm;
• Trivializing and blaming the women's protests and/or fear by saying "I thought you were more mature" or "I thought you were more sophisticated";
• Discussion of nudity;
• Graphic sharing of his fantasies, including an unsolicited letter where he described watching one of the women undressing in his bedroom;
• Intellectually intimidating rationalization, including theological justification and belittling of the women's arguments.
A flood of news stories followed, with coverage in publications ranging from The Bethel Collegian and The Mennonite Weekly Review to the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times.
After Bethel College disinvited Yoder as speaker for its Peace Lecture Series, Stanley Hauerwas -- Yoder's colleague in Notre Dame's theology department and close friend, now a professor at Duke University -- took his place. At the series, Yoder's sister and brother-in-law told him about Yoder's misconduct, Hauerwas recalled.
"I didn't, quite frankly, understand the extent of it at the time, nor did I think it was happening at Notre Dame," Hauerwas told NCR. "I probably didn't take it as seriously as I should have."
When he confronted Yoder, he was also met with intellectual rationalization, arguments Hauerwas said he didn't find convincing.
"It was just so absurd; I just assumed it wasn't happening [at Notre Dame]. ... I know that people think Notre Dame is engaged in some kind of cover-up. I just don't know if that's true or not."
Ruth Krall, a clinical counselor who taught at Goshen College, told NCR that throughout the late 1970s and '80s, she and colleagues met with women from both Notre Dame and adjacent St. Mary's College regarding Yoder's sexual abuse. Krall said that their strategy was to deal with this "not as a victim problem, but as a church management problem."
From the time she first heard rumors of Yoder's behavior beginning in the late '70s, she informed Miller in a Sept. 9, 1982, letter that the network of Mennonite women knew about Yoder, adding pressure for him to take action. Eventually, Miller met with "Jackie" and "Linda," whose contemplation of a lawsuit helped prompt Yoder's forced resignation.
Krall also took the issue to Notre Dame in the early '80s, she said. She sent one Notre Dame student with whom she had been working to speak to Kathleen Weigert, a professor who led the university's Center for Social Concern alongside Yoder. Weigert is now a professor of women and leadership, and assistant to the provost for social justice initiatives at Loyola University Chicago.
"We do know that in the early stages, Notre Dame was notified because I called them; [Weigert] promised me," Krall told NCR.
Weigert, however, told NCR that she would be "stretching" her memory to say she remembers having a conversation with a student regarding Yoder's behavior.
"I wouldn't make any claim one way or the other," she said, adding that she while can't deny Krall's memory, she has no recollection of this exchange.
But Krall recalls that Weigert "said 'I will pass this message up the line.' So I know they know."
"And what we know from former students," Krall added, "was that this was known in the student body. So it's very hard for me to believe that the department didn't know."
Lawrence Cunningham was chairman of Notre Dame's theology department when Yoder's misconduct was being investigated in the Mennonite community in 1992. He told NCR that Yoder approached him that year to inform him of the investigation with the Mennonites, and the two met several times every three or four months with updates on the investigation. Cunningham is currently a professor emeritus at the university.
"I don't think anyone in the department at that time knew anything about this investigation that was going on at another institution except for myself," Cunningham said. "I wouldn't have known unless he had come in and talked to me about it. ... He came to me in confidence, so I said I would observe his confidentiality."
"As far as I know, there was no stuff going on at the level of this central administration because it was not a Notre Dame affair," said Cunningham, who had joined the Notre Dame faculty four years after Yoder's 1984 resignation from the Goshen seminary.
There was "no question of him being disciplined at Notre Dame," Cunningham said. "As far as I know, this had to do with his behavior at another institution at an earlier time."
"I think that had there been any indication that he was behaving wrongly while he was at Notre Dame, I would've gone to the dean, but I had no reason to think that," Cunningham said, adding that Yoder "assured me at that time that none of this had involved Notre Dame. So I said, 'Fine.' "
When Yoder died in 1997, he did so in good standing with Notre Dame.
[Soli Salgado is an NCR Bertelsen intern. Her email address is ssalgado@ncronline.org.]
This story appeared in the June 19-July 2, 2015 print issue under the headline: Yoder case extends to Notre Dame .


1710 My rise, their fall: A theologian’s burden in response to the reality of sexual abuse – Baptist News Global



My rise, their fall: A theologian’s burden in response to the reality of sexual abuse – Baptist News Global



My rise, their fall: A theologian’s burden in response to the reality of sexual abuse

OPINIONAMY L. CHILTON | OCTOBER 27, 2017


EDITOR’S NOTE: On Oct. 18, American theologian Stanley Hauerwas published an article about the sexual abuse perpetuated by the late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. Hauerwas’s article has called attention to another article published two years ago by Rachel Waltner Goossen in the Mennonite Quarterly Review, detailing Yoder’s abuse and the complicity of academic institutions, churches and colleagues in keeping the matter quiet and rehabilitating Yoder’s reputation. These articles — and the wide-ranging conversation they have evoked — have converged with the revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and the #MeToo social media posts. Amy Chilton, an American Baptist minister who teaches theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and Azusa Pacific University, offers here an important contribution to the continuing conversation.

I am my daughter’s mother.

Tonight her jovial chatter demands a hearing when my mind is elsewhere, tangled up with wondering how long Stanley Hauerwas will sit in the corner and whimper like a child caught in a lie. His Oct. 18th response to his connections with John Howard Yoder’s decades of pervasive sexual predation is waging war within me. In his conclusion he states that he did not want to write this response and is “not happy that I have done it.”

Is he displeased with his writing, or with Yoder’s violent actions that were systemically masked by multiple networks of theological educators, ministers, faith communities and friends?

Lurking in the corners of my mind is doubt that Hauerwas’s self-reflection will last long enough for me gather my wits about me and open my mouth (or, in this case, my laptop). Perhaps Hauerwas is sad that this had to be written.

Me too.

I am a theologian by training and practice, situated in the Baptist tradition. My studies in systematic theology were crucial in finding my place in that celestial choir that was all too willing to sing theology’s great refrains without me — or, indeed, without many with whom I lived church.

Who must the church hear in order to be the church? Does the octave of one’s preaching voice determine one’s belonging?

While my master of divinity studies had brought to me many Roman Catholic theologians (and the Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann, always Moltmann) who fanned the flames of my passionate love for the discipline, it was voices from my own tradition that helped me sort out some of the tight theological knots that had rendered me mute and unheard in my baptist communities.In James Wm. McClendon Jr. I found tools for the local community to navigate self-involving and contextualized theology that could account for embodied reality. In Nancey Murphy I found my way past ideologies that rendered my experience insufficient for naming God and regarded my body as unnecessary, an impediment, or even a temptation to be avoided at all costs. In the friendship of Glen Stassen I took my first faltering steps into the world of academic publishing. My path is paved by persons who had been shaped, indeed even converted, by Yoder’s academic work.

My disgust and dismay upon reading Rachel Goossen’s article documenting Yoder’s abuse, “Defanging the Beast,” referenced by Hauerwas, is profound. Disgust at Yoder’s actions and the many cover-ups, and dismay at Stassen, Hauerwas and Mark Nation calling for a conclusion to the disciplinary process of the Indiana Michigan Conference so that Yoder might return to his work in the church. Hauerwas even states that still he needs “John’s clarity of thought.” Perhaps herein lies the center of my nagging thought: was the acquisition of “John’s” ideas allowed at the price of these women worth it? Yet, those ideas, passed down to and through my own mentors, had helped give me the courage to speak.


I may stand on the shoulders of theological giants, but Yoder’s egregious actions have forced my gaze downward only to see that I also stand on the hunched backs of Yoder’s victims. If I make it in this increasingly uncertain world of the theological academy, my rise will be due in part because of their fall. That is a burden passed on to me that I do not wish to bear. The price paid to extract Yoder’s thoughts is simply too high.

Meanwhile, my daughter chatters on, happy for this time with me. I would divide the Red Sea and silence the masses so that her voice can be heard. My thoughts straighten some, and all the while she demands a hearing from me. As of yet, she trusts that her voice belongs.

She is, after all, her mother’s daughter.

Related articles:

‘Defanging the beast’: Mennonite responses to John Howard Yoder’s sexual abuse | Rachel Waltner Goossen

In defense of ‘our respectable culture’: Trying to make sense of John Howard Yoder’s sexual abuse | Stanley Hauerwas

The opportunity Stanley Hauerwas missed | Janna L. Hunter-Bowman


OPINION: VIEWS EXPRESSED IN BAPTIST NEWS GLOBAL COLUMNS AND COMMENTARIES ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHORS.

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AMY L. CHILTON



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In defence of "our respectable culture": Trying to make sense of John Howard Yoder's sexual abuse - ABC Religion & Ethics



In defence of "our respectable culture": Trying to make sense of John Howard Yoder's sexual abuse - ABC Religion & Ethics


ABC Religion & Ethics

In defence of "our respectable culture": Trying to make sense of John Howard Yoder's sexual abuse


Stanley Hauerwas
Wednesday 18 October 2017 9:46am


In her sobering and well-researched article, "'Defanging the Beast': Mennonite Responses to John Howard Yoder's Sexual Abuse," Rachel Goossen reports on a response Yoder made to Marlin Miller's attempt to convince Yoder his "experimentation" with "non-sexual" touching was wrong. In a memo to Miller, Yoder observed that Miller's arguments:


"represent simply an appeal to the consensus of our respectable culture. I know what that consensus teaches, for I am its product and its victim. I knew its teachings before I began testing an alternative set of axioms."

I call attention to Yoder's use of the phrase "consensus of our respectable culture" because I will argue that his assumption that such a consensus exists was a profound and costly mistake. Even more surprisingly ― at least, surprising to me ― I will suggest that there can be some quite positive aspects for Christians in the "consensus of a respectable culture."

Before developing that argument, I need to make clear that for me to write about these matters fills me with sadness. I do not want to try to "explain" John's behaviour. I find even thinking about that aspect of John's life drains me of energy and depresses me. And I am not a person given to depression. But Goossen's article stunned me. I had no idea that John's engagement in his "experimentation" was so extensive both in terms of time and the number of women he seems to have involved. I am not sure, moreover, if I ever recognized how troubling it is that John refused to acknowledge that his views about what is possible between brothers and sisters in Christ were just wrong.

I partly hesitate to write about John's abusive behaviour because I know John's family and I do not want to add to their pain. John was by all reports a loving father, though one that was often absent. Annie, his wife, is a wonderful person who was a bulwark for John in the last years of his life. I count a number of his children as friends and I know something of the complexity of what it means to be John Yoder's child. The Mennonite world is just that - a world - and his children must find their way, as they have, through that world without anything I might say adding to that challenge.

I also find it hard to write because I must respond to those who have wondered about what I think about "all this" because they worry that I have not appreciated the seriousness of what John did. I tried to depict my relationship, my indebtedness, to John in Hannah's Child. I also report in Hannah's Child what and when I learned of John's behaviour, as well as my own involvement in the process of John's disciplinary proceedings. I see no reason to repeat what I said there, but what I must do is acknowledge that I did not appropriately acknowledge how destructive John's behaviour was for the women involved.

As I've already noted, I simply did not understand the extent of the activities. I think before I left the University of Notre Dame to come to Duke Divinity School I had been told by a graduate student that John had some questionable relations with women, but I did not have any idea what that meant. I think the next development was the series of articles that ran in the Elkhart Truth, but I did not read all of them because I did not have access to them having moved to Durham. It was not until 1992 that I learned how catastrophic a situation John's behaviour was creating.

In 1992 Al Meyer, his brother-in-law, and Mary Ellen Meyer, his sister, told me about John's behaviour. I was at Bethel College to give a lecture I seem to remember John was to deliver, but had been disinvited because of his behaviour. I realized I was getting the straight story from Al and Mary Ellen but for some reason I assumed the behaviour they were reporting had ceased and that we were not talking about that many women. I thought maybe three or four women might be involved. Of course, one woman would have been too many, but at the time I could not imagine what seems to have been the large number of women who had been abused by John. Nor did I appropriately appreciate at the time how traumatizing John's actions were for the women involved. For that I can only say I am sorry and I have learned an essential lesson.

One of the aspects of this whole sad story that saddens me is that I have had to recognize how much energy John put into this aspect of his life. His attempt to maintain these multiple relationships would have exhausted any normal person. But John was not normal - intellectually or physically. When I think about the time he dedicated to developing justifications for his experimentation, I feel depressed. Of course, John gave us the great gift of the clarity of his mind, but that same analytic ability betrayed him just to the extent that he used it to make unjustified distinctions ― such as those about the significance of different ways of touching that could only result in self-deception.

In Hannah's Child I also gave a far too positive account of the disciplinary process by the church. It is true that Glen Stassen, James McClendon and I made the phone call to urge John to participate in the process. McClendon was the person that told John no matter how flawed John thought the process might be, he should submit. But it is clear from Goossen's account that, though he submitted, he was anything but cooperative.

Another reason I find it difficult to write about these matters is, like most of us, I do not want to acknowledge my mistakes. But I learned from Yoder that such an acknowledgement is necessary if we are to be people for whom speaking truth matters. I hope in some small way writing this article may be a small example of Matthew 18, because at least one of the reasons I am writing is that I have been told by many that I need to do so.

Yet I must say, in spite of my hesitancy about writing this, I am glad to have written it. The paper gives me the opportunity to confess: I was too anxious to have John resume his place as one of the crucial theologians of our time. I thought I knew what was going on, but in fact I did not have a clue. In my defence ― and it is not a very good defence ― I think it is true that I simply did not understand what was going on. However, in truth, I probably did not want to know what was going on.

I also find it hard to write this because I do not know what to say. I do not know what to say to "explain" John's behaviour. Like anyone grieved by John's behaviour, I cannot resist trying to give some account of why John Howard Yoder of all people got into such a bizarre pattern of abuse. Of course he had a theory, but this is John Howard Yoder. Surely anyone as smart as Yoder should have known better. But what he did speaks for itself. Whether he may have had some form of Asperger's may be true, but it tells us little. My general assumption that his behaviour betrayed a deficit of empathy may be closer to the mark, but I think even if that is true we learn little from such a judgment.

I do not know what to say, though I must say something about the relation of a person's moral character and what and how they think. Given my emphasis on the virtues, I obviously cannot deny that there is, or there should be, some relation between who we are and what we say. But that is clearly not a straightforward correlation. I will make some tentative judgments about this question toward the end of this article. But even if I had the time or space I could not claim to know how to parse this heady matter.

Finally, I have to revisit Yoder's life and work because I do not want what he has taught us about how we should and can live as Christians and how we think theologically to be lost. Many of my friends who are former students, students who have written quite insightfully about Yoder, feel that they can no longer have their students read Yoder. They rightly worry that the very shape of Yoder's arguments for nonviolence may also inform his view about sexual behaviour between men and women in the church. I think the question about the continued use of Yoder's work for instruction is not quite the same among Mennonites as it is for non-Mennonites, but I have no stake in defending that view. What I do know, however, is that we cannot avoid the question of whether his justification for his sexual behaviour is structurally similar to his defence of Christian nonviolence.

So I do not want to write this article, but I think I have to write about this part of John's life, because I owe it to him. John Yoder changed my life before I knew it needed changing. I am often credited with making John Howard Yoder better known among those identified as mainstream Protestants. True or not, it is nonetheless the case that I am rightly closely identified with Yoder.

That being the case, I regard it as a responsibility to try to say why Yoder's behaviour was so wrong, and yet why he remains such an important theologian for those who, like me, are at best about half-Christian. I owe John Yoder the truth about his abusive behaviour and why such truth cannot help but implicate him in a way of life from which I am sure that God is now giving him all the time he needs to repent.
What was wrong with Yoder's "experimentation"

In an insightful article entitled "Scandalizing John Howard Yoder," David Cramer, Jenny Howell, Jonathan Tran and Paul Martens argue that Yoder's ongoing experimentation with what he claimed to be nonsexual relations with women was inconsistent with his commitment to nonviolence. They begin their article with a quote from Carolyn Holderread Heggen that describes an encounter with Yoder. Heggen was a new mother. She had received a letter from John inviting her and her infant to meet him at a conference. In the letter, Heggen recounts that Yoder:


"went into this bizarre, long, detailed description of what it would be like for him to sit in a chair and watch me sit on his bed, take off my clothes and nurse my baby. He described in vivid detail my breasts and other body parts. When I read the letter, I felt I had been raped. The thought of this dirty old man sitting at his seminary desk fantasizing about my nude body was terrifying to me, and I felt extremely violated and angry. I had never done anything to communicate to him that I was interested in anything but a mentor-protegee relationship."

There only needs to be one such report to establish the violent character of Yoder's behaviour. But there is clear evidence that many of the women Yoder invited to participate in his "experiment" experienced the same reaction that Heggen reports. Of course, Yoder maintained that he never forced any women to participate. That sense of non-coercion appears to have preserved his presumption that what he was about was nonviolent.

But it is hard to avoid the assessment that he was repressing the violence inherent in the structure of the event. For god's sake, he surely should have recognized that he was John Howard Yoder, the most prominent Mennonite theologian in recent times, and that these women he tried first to seduce intellectually in the hope it would lead further ― and I think seduction is the right word ― wanted his approval.

The authors accordingly argue that Yoder's understanding of violence as the violation of the dignity or integrity of some being is an appropriate description of Yoder's own behaviour. They conclude that given Yoder's configuration of Christian discipleship as nonviolence and the kingdom of God with the church's peaceableness, it is "unclear how he, given his behaviors (even if occasional), could consider himself faithful as a disciple of Christ or as a witness of the church." A judgement I find hard to deny.

If anyone wonders if I ever discussed with John what I had learned from Al and Mary Ellen Meyer, the answer is "yes." I am fairly sure my encounter with John about this matter took place at Notre Dame. I had already moved to Duke but I had returned to Notre Dame for a conference. I visited John in his office in the basement of the library. As usual, the office was stacked high with paper John collected so that nothing would be wasted. Cleaning off a chair I sat down and told him what I had learned from his sister and her husband.

I had read for many years John's unpublished papers such as "When Is a Marriage Not a Marriage" and "When is Adultery a Marriage," so I had some idea of how he challenged, for example, the presumption that for Christian marriage to be Christian the partners had to be married and prepared to bring children into the world. I did not know about his further justification for his "experiment" with nonsexual forms of touching, but I assumed that, because he thought Christians were first and foremost called to singleness, he must also think there needed to be ways of men and women to touch one another without those touches implying more. I assume that is why he only associated marital sexuality with ejaculation. He also had a paper that explored homosexual behaviour as no more serious than mutual masturbation. I had no idea at the time that he actually had intercourse with some of those he was trying to buy into his crazy project.

So I told him what I had learned and I made it clear I was not in the least persuaded by his "arguments." I pointed out that everything depends on how you understand "mutual masturbation" as it can be understood as more intimate than intercourse. I told him, moreover, that I was extremely doubtful about his assumption that what he was about could be described as "nonsexual" behaviour. But clearly, I thought what he was doing could not be right because it could not be shared by the whole community. For it must surely be the case that, whatever it means to be a Mennonite, it must mean that you cannot keep your "experiments" secret. John did not respond other than to express concern about the effects his behaviour was having on others.

Cramer, Howell, Tran and Martens also observe John's refusal to cooperate with the accountability processes was inconsistent with his ecclesiology. As Goossen makes clear, he simply tried to out-argue Miller and the others associated with the process in the seminary. His argument that the process was inherently flawed because he was not allowed to confront his accusers was a reading of Matthew 18 that is, at best, question-begging. He seems to have positioned himself as above the process, which meant he did not respect those he identified as the "Mennonite women's posse."

That Yoder's abusive behaviour was inconsistent with his deepest commitments is not the most challenging aspect anyone concerned with his actions needs to consider. The most challenging question is raised by the authors: "What do we do with the places where Yoder's actions were consistent with his theology?"

In particular, they have in mind Yoder's eschatological convictions that the church is the manifestation of the "original revolution" which entailed the "creation of a distinct community with its own deviant set of values and its coherent way of incarnating them." They observe that this understanding of the new age in which the church lives is the framework that informs Yoder's defence of nonviolence. That does not mean that only Christians can practice nonviolence. Yoder always insisted what is a duty for Christians is a possibility for anyone. All people, whether they are Christians or not, have the possibility of living nonviolent lives.

In a similar fashion, Cramer, Howell, Tran and Martens suggest that Yoder understood his exploration of "non-genital affective relationships" to be an expression of the "revolution" inaugurated by the new age. As I have already suggested, and the authors make the same point, given Yoder's account of singleness, such touching could be seen as a way the church has found to meet the needs of the "whole person."

I certainly feel the power of the authors' suggestion, but as they also suggest, Yoder's account of "non-genital" affection is bizarre. They rightly call Yoder's actions "demonic" which invites a very suggestive account of Yoder's behaviour as a manifestation of the power of the powers over our lives. Not only is Yoder's concept bizarre, but I do not think it can in any way be commensurate with his defence of nonviolence. Yoder's suggestion that Jesus's "touching" of women provides precedence for the abuse with which he engaged is clearly not justified by any of the Gospel stories of Jesus's interaction with women. Jesus may have touched some women but not in the way Yoder was touching women. In marked contrast to nonviolence, there are simply no texts in the New Testament to support Yoder's claims about what is sexually possible between Christians.

Nor is there any precedence in Christian tradition to underwrite Yoder's account of nonsexual touching. This is in marked contrast with nonviolence. Even the presumption that the majority of Christian tradition has entailed justifications for just war has always had nonviolence as its bad consciousness. If Christians did not presume nonviolence, why would they need to provide justification for the use of violence? These are complicated matters, but I do not think Yoder could have written a book like Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution about his views concerning non-genital sexual relations between brothers and sisters in Christ. To be sure the new harmonies could exist for a few years, but they never last.
The "consensus of our respectable culture"

This brings me to Yoder's claim that Miller's criticism of his behaviour and justification of that behaviour reproduced the "consensus of our respectable culture." You can almost hear by the use of that phrase Yoder's disdain for what he would identify as middle-class morality. Yet if that is what he heard or read as the basis of Miller's criticism, he was profoundly mistaken.

It is as if Yoder had not lived through the sixties. If anything, given the sexual revolution, the "consensus," particularly among the children of the middle class, was closer to Yoder's view than that of Miller. Yoder's experimentation could be seen as but one form of the changing sexual mores and behaviour of Americans. From such a perspective his views and behaviour were anything but radical. Rather, what he was doing could be understood, just as the "new morality" could be understood, as quite conventional. Given the changing attitudes toward sexual expression, it was just another step to conclude that you can do what you want sexually as long as you have the other's consent.

Yoder, of course, argued that he never acted without consent, but had he never explored how ambiguous the notion "consent" is when it involves such power dynamics? How would women know if they had given consent when they were confronted by that "intellectual giant" with the name John Howard Yoder? It is, moreover, quite possible that a woman may well look back on what had happened between Yoder and herself and judge that, though at the time she may seem to have given consent, retrospectively she cannot believe she acted freely.

There is, however, another way to read Yoder's disdain for the "consensus of our respectable culture" which I think is more substantive and important. That "consensus" can be understood as the hard-won wisdom and still ongoing challenge of maintaining the habits necessary for the sustaining of marriage as the institution of life-long fidelity. To be sure, there are perversions associated with those habits and practices, but the discovery of marriage as such a commitment for the sustaining of hospitality for new life is a profound discovery.

Such a discovery owes much to Judaism and Christianity, but it is not restricted to those communities. In fact, such an understanding of marriage as the appropriate home for sexual intimacy may be thought to be grounded in natural law. I have no objection to it being so located. But that is a move that Yoder may not have had the resources to develop and, even if they were available, he clearly did not use them.

The point I am trying to make - a point not easily made - may entail a criticism of Yoder's work that I am only beginning to understand. I worry that Yoder may have made too extreme the duality between church and world, particularly when it comes to dealing with our everyday relations with one another. I need to be very careful in making such a criticism because Yoder, contrary to many superficial criticisms of him, never restricted God's redemption to the church. He was always ready to acknowledge that God was doing a new thing among those who were not church - thus my insistence that Yoder always assumed what is a duty for Christians is a possibility for those who are not.

The critical question, however, is whether his emphasis on the distinctive behaviour that is constitutive of what it means to be the church presumes we are capable of being more than we are. The question is whether Yoder failed to understand that, when all is said and done, baptism does not make us angels; we remain human beings.

There are methodological issues at the heart of theological ethics entailed in these issues. The question of "the natural," the characterization of the natural, as well as the status of the natural can be one way these questions can be addressed. Yoder had little use for, or at least he seldom addressed, questions about the status of natural law. He quite rightly worried that appeals to natural law invited modes of moral reflection that were in tension with the Gospel imperatives. But some account of the natural - or, I would prefer, "creation" - is required in order to acknowledge that by the grace of God we exist. That means that nature is the concept that affirms that God has willed that there exist that which is not God.

That reality makes possible reflections of practical reason that offer wisdom to guide our lives. Though I doubt that there needs to be any hard-and-fast distinction between the natural or moral virtues and the theological virtues, it is nonetheless the case that the distinction not only can be made but must be made. This is not the context to develop these issues, but I raise them to suggest that I have long suspected that I hold views about such matters that may put me in some tension with Yoder's general perspective.
What is missing from Yoder's theology

Let me try to put these issues in a register that is more directly relevant to the challenge of Yoder's behaviour. Entailed is what I think may be missing in Yoder that led him to engage in such destructive behaviour, not only for the women he abused but for himself. As I have already noted, I am not trying to provide an explanation or a cause for John's experimentation. There can be no explanation that does not sound like an attempted justification. And, obviously, there can be no justification. Rather I am trying to help locate what I think his behaviour - and even more, his justifications for that behaviour - may provide to help us understand some problems with his work.

Of course, I write as one deeply shaped by and beholden to what John has taught me. But what I think is missing in John's theology is quite simple. What is missing is insight and wisdom about learning to live well as a human being.

The point I am trying to make is at the heart of Alex Sider's article, "Friendship, Alienation, Love: Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder." In this article ― an article with which I was at first not sure I was in agreement ― Sider argues that my account of friendship provides an opening to psychological insights that are absent in Yoder's work. Sider calls attention to passages in Yoder's work ― passages, indeed, I have celebrated ― in which Yoder resists any exploration of what Sider identifies as "the affective registers of desire and delight in others and oneself." Sider suggests Yoder is so intent on the primacy of the social dimension of the Gospel that he ignores the personal and psychological dimensions of practices such as baptism.

Of particular importance, given the subject of this article, is Sider's argument that Yoder should have attended to how guilt after baptism continues to be a shaping psychological force in many lives. A focus on baptism that relativizes guilt, Sider argues, still needs to attend to the guilt that people feel even if we have been inducted into the new humanity. Sider illustrates what he is calling for by focusing attention on Sebastian Moore's reflections on guilt as withdrawal into isolated selfhood. According to Moore, such a withdrawal:


"may be a sense of robbery, of stealing my private life from the whole in which I am a participant. It may be a sense of the inferiority, the unworthiness, of this privatized life in respect of the life as a whole."

Sider suggests that this is the kind of insight about our human condition that is simply missing in Yoder.

Sider summarizes his analysis of Yoder's texts by observing that in each instance, at the point where practices ― as basic as nonviolence ― shape the psyche, Yoder turns away from providing a rational psychology in favour of pointing to the task of the community. As a result, Yoder refuses to entertain any notion that Christians have any use for or stake in being happy. Happiness, after all, does not have to be understood in the superficial way that is so characteristic of modern social orders, but rather can be, as Aquinas taught, a way of displaying what it means to be befriended by God.

Sider notes that I have at times identified with Yoder's disavowal of thinking it important that we be happy. Yet he also observes ― a suggestion I hope is true ― that in the actual practice of friendship I manifest the patience with and sensitivity to the alienation and anguish that bedevils our complex relationships. That said, I think my written work displays some of the same psychology Sider thinks missing in Yoder, insofar as the virtues have been so crucial for me.

Yoder always thought my emphasis on the importance of the virtues was a distraction. That he had little use for the virtues is indicative of what Sider is getting at by suggesting John did not have any stake in our being happy. The virtues reside in wisdom traditions because they require insight about the human condition. Desires and passions must be accounted for because the virtues are the form of the passions. Desire and passion are missing in Yoder's work, but they were clearly present in his behaviour.

Moreover, the focus on the virtues requires consideration of how the virtues are related and how they are acquired. Those considerations entail judgments derived from traditions of reflection about what makes life worth living. John, however, never saw the need to engage any of those questions. There is, for example, no account of moral formation in Yoder's work. He seemed to see no reason he needed, to use his terms, to provide an account of how we might become nonviolent. He assumed if you were brought up right, if you were part of a community of nonviolence, you would simply become what it meant to be nonviolent.

Yet it is surely the case that nonviolence can become a subtly manipulative form of passive-aggressive behaviour. Yoder, of course, was quite well-aware that could be the case, but he never explored how questions of formation were necessary if we are to be people of peace. Yoder was so fixated on the social process he seems to have forgotten - or had methodological doubts - that we need to be trained to be a Christian.

Another, rather tendentious, way to make the point Sider and I are trying to make is to observe that Yoder had no interest in novels. He seldom read novels, nor did he think novels to be morally important. It is not that he did not like to read. But he saw little reason to engage in the kind of literature represented by the novel. Yet the novel is all-important for me exactly because it forces one to imagine other lives. In short, novels are an exercise in the enrichment of the imagination through which we develop the empathy that is crucial for the acquisition of the virtues.

What one cannot help but wonder is, like his encounter with Carolyn Holderread Heggen, how Yoder failed to appreciate how his suggestion about her joining him in his hotel room could only be received as a form of violence. Something was missing in Yoder, and I think the name for what was missing is called the moral imagination.
Life and work

I must finally address the question of the relation between morality and the intellectual life - a question that is obviously raised by Yoder's behaviour. Does the immorality of a person invalidate what they have had to say? I certainly do not intend at this point, even if I could, to develop a general response to that question. What I can do, however, is at least suggest that if you think that theology is not simply "thought," but rather a form of wisdom, then lives matter. That does not mean that everything a person has had to say must be rejected because they have turned out to be immoral or even evil. But it does mean how their work is read will require a particular hermeneutic of suspicion.

In the first chapter of his wonderful book on Edith Stein, Alasdair MacIntyre argues that the lives of philosophers cannot help but be of philosophical interest. They are so because philosophy is the way "in which a life informed by the activities of philosophical enquiry and guided by its conclusions will be significantly different from the life of someone in other respects like the philosopher, but untouched by philosophy."

MacIntyre observes that this understanding of the relation of a person's life to philosophical inquiry now seems strange because philosophy has become a specialized and professionalized academic discipline that makes possible the assumption that the character of the philosopher's life has no relation to their work as a philosopher. What is now characteristic of a philosophical life has the same kind of status and role-playing games that are characteristic of any professionalized academic discipline. Accordingly, the compartmentalization so characteristic of modern life ― the kind of life that found its most perverse form in Adolf Eichmann ― now determines the lives of philosophers.

Even so, MacIntyre argues, those engaged in philosophical work often embody a very different conception of the relationship of action to their philosophy. They do so because, if philosophy is to be recognizable as philosophy, it must always be recognizable as a continuation of Plato's enterprise. That enterprise MacIntyre identifies as a radical critique of everyday life which will require the philosopher to distinguish themselves from that which they are subjecting to critique. Thus the philosopher cannot help becoming different because:


"the very language that we cannot avoid speaking, our everyday vocabulary and idiom, is itself not philosophically innocent, but to a significant degree inherited from and still informed by past philosophical theories whose presence in our modes of speech, belief, and action is no longer recognized."

A philosopher, therefore, cannot avoid the reality that their philosophical work will or should make a difference in how they live.

MacIntyre's way of putting these matters I think has direct implications for how a theologian's life and work cannot be separated. Plato may be unavoidable for the philosopher, but the theologian must operate with "a language we cannot avoid speaking" that will make or should make a difference in how one's life is lived. That may be true just to the extent that the failure to lead a life commensurate with our language indicates something has gone wrong. That something has gone wrong is a testimony to the necessity that there must exist an interrelation between theology and how the theologian lives.

I have suggested that to read Yoder is not to look for mistakes he has made in what he has said, though such a reading is not without reason. It is, however, a reading that is required of any serious text. What I have tried to suggest, however, is that it is not what John has written that is the problem. Instead, the problem is what is not there. I am not suggesting that if John had a better understanding of our psychology, he would have been less likely to have engaged in his extremely troubling "experimentation." We have no means to know that. Rather, I am suggesting that if we continue to read and learn from Yoder, we must do so by attending to what is not "there."
Where does this leave us? What do we do now?

I do not have ready answers to either of these questions. Much depends, of course, on who the "us" or the "we" may be that asks the question. As I've mentioned, I have friends who have decided in deference to the offence against women by Yoder they will no longer have their students read Yoder. I respect that decision, but it is not one I can take. I need John's clarity of thought if I am to try to think through what I think I have learned from him.

I think Gerald Schlabach puts the matter well in his reflections on his relation to Yoder in his wonderfully titled essay, "Only Those We Need Can Betray Us." He observes that "there is simply no way to tell the story of 20th century historic peace church theology ― much less to appropriate it ― without drawing on Yoder's thought." Schlabach acknowledges that he can understand how younger Mennonite scholars can try to do peace theology without relying on Yoder, but he confesses, "I just don't see how they/we can do without him." Nor do I see how we can do without him.

In particular, I need his readings of Scripture which seem to me ever fresh and powerful. Yet I cannot deny that this cannot be the decision others can or should make. In particular, I think women would have trouble reading Yoder. But "trouble reading" is not the same thing as "not reading." For it is surely the case that there are aspects of Yoder's work that are of constructive use for the concerns of women.

Karen Guth has suggested, for example, that Yoder might be "redeemed" by attending to his positive commitment to some forms of feminism. Guth obviously thinks my close relationship with Yoder should make me follow her advice to engage feminist theologians. My first response to Guth's proposal was to stiff-arm the suggestion that those Guth identified as "witness theologians" should take "feminist theologians" more seriously. I did so because I objected to what I took to be Guth's presumption that I held a position that was an alternative to a feminist position.

I sent my response to Guth, who wrote an extremely informative reply. She observed she used "witness" and "feminist" only as conceptual placeholders, not as names for clearly identifiable positions. What she was suggesting ― a suggestion with which I wholeheartedly agree ― is the feminist critique of patriarchy and the attending violence or at least coercion associated with the male gaze is an insight that those committed to nonviolence ought to credit.

I have a very ambiguous relation with feminist theology because I often agree with their criticisms of the male behaviour but disagree with the basis for those criticisms. That I have not been prepared to discuss feminist theology in principle does not mean, however, that I do not think it important to take into account what women have to say. I should like to think that I have done that, at least to the extent that women like Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Martha Nussbaum, Marie Fortune, Catherine Pickstock and Ellen Davis, among others, have been crucial for how I have tried to think. But I engaged with them not because they were women, but because what they were doing was so interesting.

I certainly have deep sympathies with the feminist challenge to paternalism. Even more, I think feminist critiques of masculinity to be extremely insightful. Stan Goff's book Borderline is a model of how feminist insights can illumine what any Christian should think. The work Goff does in his book makes clear that the feminist challenge to "maleness" is a gift to men.

I also think the feminist challenge to the assumption that marriage is necessary for the fulfilment of women to be right and important. Yoder's account of singleness can be read as a feminist argument. I also think we owe feminists a debt of gratitude for their critique of romantic love. For years in the core course in Christian Ethics, I assigned the work of Marie Fortune because I thought her exposure of the violence present in romantic love to be a crucial insight. Fortune was not only important for exposing the violence occluded in romantic ideals of love, but she also helped make clear that nonviolence is not just about war. Yoder would and did think similar thoughts, but he did so because he thought they were commensurate with the Gospel.

Yet the issue remains how to receive Yoder's work without that reception seeming to imply that his behaviour does not matter. That surely would be an injustice to the women he harmed. He was the President of the Society of Christian Ethics. Should some notation be put next to his name when past presidents of the society are named? Pete Rose will not get into the Hall of Fame, but Yoder is already there. We cannot act as if he was not the president of the Society. Or what does it mean that Yoder was President of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary? I obviously cannot speak as a Mennonite, for which I thank God since I have no idea what to say, but they surely must say something.

Nor do I think it helpful to call attention to the misconduct toward women by Martin Luther King, Jr., Karl Barth or Paul Tillich. Each in their own way seem to have engaged in misconduct toward women or a woman, but I think it does little good to suggest that they help us understand Yoder's behaviour. To call attention to these men invites the general claim that when all is said and done "we are all sinners." That is a way to excuse each of us, with the result that Yoder is left off the hook. That is clearly a mistake, not only because Yoder should not be left off the hook, but, just as importantly, sin should never be used as an explanation.

That is it. That is all I have to say about this troubling matter. It surely feels like I am ending with a whimper. That is the way it should feel, because I have ended with a whimper. I did not want to write this article, but I have done it. I am not happy that I have done it, but then nothing about this situation is happy.

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University. His most recent books are The Work of Theology, Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life and The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson.

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