John Howard Yoder - Life

Life

Yoder earned his undergraduate degree from Goshen College where he studied under the influence of Mennonite theologian Harold S. Bender. He completed his Th.D. at the University of Basel, Switzerland, studying under Karl Barth, Oscar Cullman, Walther Eichrodt, and Karl Jaspers. Anecdotally true to form, the night before he was to defend his dissertation on Anabaptism and Reformation in Switzerland, Yoder visited Barth's office to deliver an entirely different document: a thorough critique of Barth's position on war which he had written in the meantime called Karl Barth and the Problem of War.

After World War II, Yoder traveled to Europe to direct relief efforts for the Mennonite Central Committee. Yoder was instrumental in reviving European Mennonites following World War II. Upon returning to the United States, he spent a year working at his father's greenhouse business in Wooster, Ohio.

Yoder began his teaching career at Goshen Biblical Seminary. He was Professor of Theology at Goshen Biblical Seminary and Mennonite Biblical Seminary (the two seminaries that formed Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary) from 1958 to 1961 and from 1965 to 1984. While still teaching at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, he also began teaching at the University of Notre Dame, where he became a Professor of Theology and eventually a Fellow of the Institute for International Peace Studies.

Yoder's personal papers are housed at the Mennonite Church USA Archives.