Editors note: John Howard Yoder first dealt personally with the question of war taxes in 1962. He then wrote an account of his response in the Gospel Herald (January 22, 1963). Because his counsel and experience seem all the more relevant in 1977, an adapted version of that original account is shared on these pages.
As I grew in my late teens and my early twenties into my earliest under standings of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one of the deeply significant aspects of it which I sought to understand was what my teachers called nonresistance. I came to understand this word as pointing not to a social theory or a set of legal principles, but to one of the ways in which personal fellowship with Jesus Christ through his Spirit will normally work itself out in the life of the believer.
Two things stood out in this understanding of discipleship in nonresistance which came from my teachers and grew stronger in my own further study and experience. First of all, to follow Christ on this path involved being enough different from the surrounding world to be considered unlikable or undesirable by certain powerful people and groups in the world. As a result of this opposition, the way of nonresistance may be called the way of the cross; it involves suffering. The acceptance of such suffering is the test of the disciple’s sincerity and faithfulness to Christ.
Secondly, this position should be a witness. A witness should show the world that the way it operates, through interplay of selfishness against selfishness and violence against violence is subject to the condemnation of God and destined, even in this age, to ultimate judgment.
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