life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus. The Kingdom of God comes to rule in a different way, by one heart at a time yielding to the love of God. Yoder claims that the church thus lives in the conviction that God calls Christians to imitate the way of Christ in his absolute obedience, even if it leads to their deaths, for they, too, will finally be vindicated in resurrection. In bringing traditional Mennonite convictions to the attention of a wider critical audience, Yoder reenergized stale theological debates over foundational Christian ecclesiological, Christological, and ethical beliefs. Yoder rejected Enlightenment presuppositions, epitomized by Immanuel Kant, about the possibility of a universal, rational ethic. Abandoning the search for a universal ethic underlying Christian and non-Christian morality, as well as attempts to "translate" Christian convictions into a common moral parlance, he argued that what is expected of Christians, morally, need not be binding for all people. Yoder defended himself against charges of incoherence and hypocrisy by arguing for the legitimacy of moral double standards, and by pointing out that since world affairs are ultimately governed by God's providence, Christians are better off being the Church, than following compromised moral systems that try to reconcile biblical revelation with the necessities of governance. The Politics of Jesus Of his many books, the most widely recognized has undoubtedly been The Politics of Jesus (1972); it has been translated into at least ten languages. In it, Yoder argues against popular views of Jesus, particularly those views held by Reinhold Niebuhr, which he believed to be dominant at the time. Niebuhr argued for a realist philosophy, which Yoder felt failed to take seriously the call or person of Jesus Christ. After showing what he believed to be inconsistencies of Niebuhr's perspective, Yoder attempted to demonstrate by an exegesis of the Gospel of Luke and parts of Paul's letter to the Romans that, in his view, a radical Christian pacifism was the most faithful approach for the disciple of Christ. Yoder argued that being Christian is a political standpoint and that Christians ought not ignore that calling. The Politics of Jesus was ranked by the evangelical magazine Christianity Today as the fifth most important religious book of the 20th century. Sexual abuse According to articles in The Elkhart Truth, allegations that Yoder had sexually abused, harassed, and assaulted women circulated for decades and became known in wider Christian circles,