James William McClendon Jr.

James William McClendon Jr. (1924–2000) was a Christian theologian and ethicist in the Anabaptist tradition,[1] though he preferred the term 'baptist' with a lower-case 'b'.

He studied at the University of Texas, where he took some undergraduate classes with Robert Lee Moore, whom McClendon credits with providing rigor in his theological work.

[2] McClendon served in the United States Navy during the tail end of World War II, and was profoundly affected by what he saw in post-war Japan.

McClendon is frequently mentioned alongside John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas in seeking to reclaim the importance of character in theological ethics.

Some students and faculty at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, in Mill Valley, California, became vocal and active in support of the civil rights movement in the U.S. South.

In 1968, McClendon organized the writing of an open letter by Democratic faculty members to President Johnson, urging withdrawal from the war in Vietnam.

McClendon believed that this action resulted in his contract not being renewed at USF, and he had temporary teaching positions for the next several years, only regaining stable academic employment when he took up the post at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in 1971.

For McClendon, the baptist vision is a communal hermeneutical orientation taken by congregations and individuals toward scripture and the world, in which the text is understood to be of immediate import to the community in question.