bankers and soldiers | john howard yoder quote
Political moral insight is a law unto itself, independent. Such values are nature, reason, law. They are considered autonomous in that they are thought to be known otherwise than through revelation or worship. ... Ordinarily the definitions of such concepts do not seem to be dependent on faith or on Jesus, although maybe we hold them to be vaguely supported by nature or "nature's God." In any case, we do not expect "worship" to tell us more about them. ... The duties they lay upon us are different from what Jesus calls us to do. For example, a banker is called to save money or to lend it with interest, not to give it away or to lend it without interest. A soldier in battle is not supposed to love the enemy.
John Howard Yoder was a Christian Anabaptist theologian and ethicist. I'm reading Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World
(Photo is one of mine: the National Archives in Wash DC in Feb 2008).
