Principalities and Powers: Revising John Howard Yoder"s Sociological Theology

The present book is an attempt to grapple with Yoder’s critics in order to decide how to move forward with a revised “Yoderian” theology. Pitts suggests how that revision should be accomplished by first providing an overview of the current state of Yoder scholarship and this book’s place within it; then proposing an argument that Yoder’s theology can profitably read as a “sociological theology” that exhibits reductive tendencies, but which can be revised to be non-reductive; and finally offering an outline and justification of the proposed method of revision, which involves putting Yoder’s theology of the principalities and powers into conversation with the reflexive sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.