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After Constantine ... the ruler, not the average person or the weak person, is the model for ethical deliberations. A moral statement on the rightness of truth-telling or the wrongness of killing is tested first by whether a ruler can meet such standards.

— John Howard Yoder The Priestly Kingdom (1984)

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More quotes by John Howard Yoder

The church will be most effective where it abandons effectiveness and intelligence for the foolish weakness of the cross.

The Otherness of the Church (1961)

A minority may do for a society what the conscience does for an individual.

The Priestly Kingdom (1984)

Pre-Constantinian Christians had been pacifists, rejecting the violence of army and empire not only because they had no share of power, but because they considered it morally wrong; the post-Constantinian Christians considered imperial violence to be not only morally tolerable but a positive good and a Christian duty.

The Priestly Kingdom (1984)

A dichotomy between the religious and the social must be imported into the [New Testament]; it cannot be found there. The "cross" of Jesus was a political punishment; and when Christians are made to suffer by government it is usually because because of the practical import of their faith, and the doubt they cast upon the rulers' claim to be "Benefactor."

The Politics of Jesus (1972)

God speaks where his people gather and are free to be led. The marks of the validity of the conclusions they reach are to be sought not alone in the principles applied but in the procedure of the meeting. Were all free to speak? Was every speech heard and weighed?

The Priestly Kingdom (1984)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Howard Yoder (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.