Challenges for Reclaiming and Redefining Community Identity
During the 1st Century, the Johannine community was engaged in religious conflict with the Jews who were faithful to the synagogue. Christians in Palestine faced excommunication from the synagogue and even death because they believed that Jesus was Christ. A Dualism exists when there are two substances, or powers, or modes, neither of which is reducible to the other. The Gospel appears in this kind of situation although Jews positive Jews believed in Jesus, the following context suggests the character in the motion they had to let loose from sin, But, they understood in the main Jesus turned into opposition to Mosiac background, and the attractiveness of this organization catalysed the improvement of a high, pre-lifestyles Christology that leads to discuss Jews who notion that Johannine community have been forsaking Jewish monotheism through creating a 2nd God out of Jesus. This Paper deals with the Understanding of Johannine Community and Challenges for Reclaiming and Redefining Community Identity.
1. Johannine Community Origins
The disciples who follow Jesus in John 1:35-51 include names known in the other gospels (Andrew, Peter, Philip); and the titles given to Jesus there are found in the other gospels (Messiah, Son of God, King, Son of Man). It would seem, then, that at least in its origins Johannine Christianity was not too distant from the dominant style of Christianity in the movement centered on Jesus. In John 4, however, Samaritans are being converted (but not by the original disciples of Jesus); and Temple worship in Jerusalem is declared as losing significance (John 4:21-24). Here John has departed significantly from the description of the ministry in the other gospels and is closer to the developments described in Acts 6-8. There (without a break of communion) Hellenistic Jewish Christians separate administratively from the Hebrew Christian majority in Jerusalem who are faithful to the Temple observances; and (in the person of Stephen) Hellenist preaching proclaims that God does not dwell in the Temple.1
The Johannine community consisted not only of the type of Hebrew Christians whose heritage is preserved in many other New Testament writings, but also of groups similar to the Hellenists, more radical in their attitudes toward Judaism. There were also Samaritan converts. This mixture may have hastened innovative developments in Johannine Christology and made Johannine Christians particularly troublesome in the eyes of Jews who did not believe in Jesus. In any case, beginning in John 5 a dominant theme of the Johannine account of Jesus’ ministry is the hatred that “the Jews” have for Jesus because he is making himself God. The divinity of Jesus as one who had come down from God (an aspect of divinity not apparent in the other gospels) is publicly spoken of and attacked. There are long debates between Jesus and “the Jews” that grow increasingly hostile. What lies beneath the surface becomes apparent in the story of the man born blind (John 9). The Jews in anger say, “We are the disciples of Moses; we know that God has spoken to Moses. As for that fellow (Jesus), we do not even know where he comes from” (John 9:28-29). The man born blind, who is described by them as one of the disciples of “that fellow”, also speaks as a “we”: “We know that God pays no attention to sinners. If this man (Jesus) were not from God, he could have done nothing” (John 9:31, 33).2
The synagogue and the Johannine community are thus alienated from each other as disciples of Moses and disciples of Jesus; and through the medium of struggles in Jesus’ own life, the struggles between these two groups are being told. (In other words, the Fourth Gospel narrates on two levels: the level of Jesus’ life and the level of the community’s life). Just as the man born blind is put on trial before the Pharisees or “the Jews”, so have members of the Johannine community been put on trial by synagogue leaders. Just as the man born blind is ejected from the synagogue for confessing that Jesus has come from God, so have the Johannine Christians been ejected from the synagogue for their confession of Jesus (John 16:2).3
To have suffered expulsion from the synagogue because of a belief that Jesus had come from God inevitably sharpened and tightened the adherence of Johannine Christians to their high Christology. Jesus is so much one with the Father (John 10:30) that he is not only Lord but also God (John 20:28). Over such issues the Johannine Christians were willing to criticize even other Christians. There is contempt in the Fourth Gospel for Jews who believed in Jesus but who were unwilling to confess it openly lest they be put out of the synagogue (John 12:42). There is hostility towards Jewish disciples who have followed Jesus openly but who object when it is said that he has come down from heaven and can give his flesh to eat (John 6:60-66) or because he is described as existing before Abraham (John 8:58).4
Such criticism of others suggests that the Johannine Christians must have been extremely controversial because of their Christology, challenged both by Jews who did not believe in Jesus and by Jews who did believe in him. The courtroom atmosphere of the Fourth Gospel with its constant stress on testimony / witness, accusation, and judgment (John 1:19-21; 5:31-47; 7:50-51; 8:14-18; etc.) and with its debates over the implications of Scripture texts (John 6:31-33; 7:40-43, 52; 10:34-36) reflects the controversies and how they were conducted. The synagogue leaders apparently thought that the Johannine confession of Jesus as God denied that basic faith of Israel: “The Lord our God is one.” In response, the evangelist and his community defended the divinity of Jesus so massively that the Fourth Gospel scarcely allows for human limitation. The entire presentation protects Jesus from whatever could be a challenge to divinity. It is very important to understand that this particular Christology can be understood only when seen in the context of the community’s situation.5
2. Beloved Disciple Community
The story of the community of the beloved disciple is continued after the Gospel period in the Epistles. His dominant concern is to reinforce the readers against a group that has seceded from the community (1 John 2:19). While the Gospel reflects the Johannine community’s dealing with outsides, the Epistles are concerned with insiders. The author of the First Epistle says that a group has gone out from the ranks of his community (I John 2:19). It seems that both parties knew the proclamation of Christianity available to us through the Fourth Gospel, but they interpreted it differently. Each of the disputing parties was making the claim that its interpretation of the Gospel was correct. Hence the author’s almost frustrated appeal to what was from the beginning (I John 1:4; 2:7, etc.) His opponents may sound as if they know the Johannine Gospel, but in his judgment they are distorting it precisely because they are ignorant of the tradition underlying it.6
The Second and Third Epistles of John were written to different churches at a distance from the author (who intends to visit them), and so we know that the Johannine community was not all in one geographical place. Different cities or towns must have been involved. And since this was the period when Christian communities met in house churches that could not have held very many members, in a given town or city there may have been several house churches of Johannine Christians.7
The central issue was apparently Christological. The secessionists so stressed the divine principle in Jesus that the earthly career of the divine principle was neglected. They apparently believed that the human existence of Jesus, while real, was not salvifically significant. The author challenges the wrong conclusions that his opponents have drawn from the commonly admitted incarnational theology, and so he is careful to accompany statements implying pre-existence with other statements stressing the career of the Word-made-flesh a stress more formal and explicit than what is found in the Fourth Gospel. There were also clashes on the implications of Christology for Christian behaviour. The author faults the secessionists on three grounds. First, they claimed an intimacy with God to the point of being perfect or sinless. Second, they do not put much emphasis on keeping the commandments. Third, they are vulnerable on the subject of neighbourly love.8
3. Setting of the Johannine Community and Issues
The issue of the setting of the Fourth Gospel is really a kind of condensed history of a particular Christian community in the first century. The best efforts to reconstruct that history result in at least three-stage views.
1. First stage, the Johannine community constituted a part of a Jewish synagogue. That is, the earliest Johannine Christians were Jewish Christians who believed that the Christian faith was continuous with the Jewish faith and who were content to live within the context of a Jewish community. At this first stage we may suppose that their beliefs were not radically different from Jewish beliefs. Their view of Jesus was that he was the Messiah who had come and then promised to return to fulfil the hopes of the Jews as well as the Christians.9
2. Second stage of this history brought the split between the Christians and the Jews of the synagogue. It appears that the Johannine community experienced an expulsion from their religious home in the synagogue for at least two reasons.
v First reason, their increasingly successful missionary efforts among their colleagues in the synagogue began to pose a threat to the leadership of the synagogue, and an earlier emphasis on what the two groups had in common was steadily giving way to an emphasis on the differences. Involved in this may also have been the effective missionary work of the Johannine Christians among Samaritans (John 4).
v The second reason for the expulsion was the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Romans in A. D. 70 and the resulting crisis of faith. The destruction of the temple brought a kind of identity crisis for the Jews what is Judaism without a center of sacrificial worship? And may have resulted in purging sympathizers of Jesus of Nazareth from some synagogues. In three places in the Gospel the expulsion of the Christians from the synagogue is echoed John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2.10
This expulsion had a mighty effect on the Christian community, producing a trauma of faith of major proportions. It was amid this crisis that the fourth evangelist gathered the traditions of the community and interpreted them so as to address the needs of the newly isolated community. It was then that the major themes of the Gospel took shape, providing the Johannine Christians with assurance and confidence in the midst of the uncertainty of their recent experience of deprivation. Furthermore, it was in the subsequent, and perhaps violent, debate with the members of the synagogue that the Gospel found its setting (e.g., John 16:2).11
3. Third stage of the history of the community was close to, if not identical with, the setting for the publication of 1 John. While the crisis of the expulsion from the synagogue had been resolved and the community was an independent Christian body, there appeared some internal conflicts over the interpretation of the original Gospel of John in general and proper belief and practice in particular. Moreover, relationships with other Christian communities had become important (John. 21). Certain additions to the Gospel appear to address this situation.12
4. Challenges for Reclaiming and Redefining Community Identity
Identity in the ancient world was largely established by what group one was part of and by factors like geography, gender, and generation these were all patriarchal cultures, where the question of “who is your father” was crucial. This is precisely why the Gospel writers had to go to such lengths to explain Jesus’ origin.13 Identity formation does not take place in vaccum. In most cases, identity formation is related to social, religious, political and economic factors.
Milkael Tellbe defines Identity as a social construct. Though this social construct is of immense importance, yet in the context of the first century, in which the Johannine community took shape, religious expression cannot be isolated from the social life. The understanding of God affects the perception of society and vice versa.14
Van Der watt states “Language is a social phenomenon. Texts express social conventions and are also embedded in social contexts.” This is true in the case of Community where Christology is reinterpreted in terms of the experiences of the community.15
The Fourth Gospel presents the story of Jesus as well as the history of the community simultaneously its struggle and search for meaning and identity, on the midst of opposition. A Study of the Gospel reveals that the community has long and complex history, accounting for the unique presentation of the Person and Work of Christ, different from that of the synoptic gospels. In this regards, John Painter states, “the most significant factor in shaping the Johannine tradition was the relation to the synagogue, a relationship which began with the dialogue, became a conflict and ended its mutual execration”16 Their expulsion from the synagogue and the resultant minority status in society forced them to develop an ‘insider’ verses ‘outsider’ dialect. Existential demands persuaded them to redefine their soteriology in relation to eschatology and theology. In the process of contextualization, the community described its ideas with a situational rhetoric and that enabled it to develop a semiotics of resistance.17
In John’s community, faith was not considered as an abstract concept, but as an active response to Jesus and a significant requirement for community identity. As a result, faith was actualized through an emphasis on seeing, knowing, obeying and involving. Faith as an existential demand enabled the community to possess theology not as a remote entity but as a lived out experience. It was conceived through the appropriation of the faith and hence, was a theology of the people, by the people and for the people. This mode of community can be considered a paradigm in the contemporary context such as Indian society where the following principles are important to be observed at this very juncture.
- First, the community members emphasized a Christo-centric theology where faith in Jesus was a significant requirement.
- Second, the community demanded the faith reactions of its members with an aim to promote a soteriology that takes into account seeing, knowing, and obeying Jesus as an important requirement.
- Third, the community considered faith as an essential demand or requirement for establishing people’s community.
- Fourth, in the community, because the signs Jesus performed were expected to attract other followers through similar works or even greater works.
- Fifth, People’s knowledge about the superior revelation of Jesus and their positive response to it through faith led them to experience eternal life.
- Sixth, Faith was the means through which the members of the community facilitated union with Christ and exercised the charismatic gifts.
- Seventh, Faith was one of the overarching concepts which intervened in soteriology with Christology and theology. The insider dynamism was developed, primarily to establish community identity and then to expand faith-centered and interactive theology to outsiders18.
a. Redefining and Reclaiming New Community of Love
Jesus’ Love is the model of the new commandment, and such a model is not found in the OT. It is the expression of the life of God which is shared by all. So John writes: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). This is the highest form of love (agape). It is the divine love. It is manifested in self-giving and self-sacrifice. For, John writes: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sin. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another” (1 John 4:9-11). Hence the new commandment of Jesus is all about undeserving love, unconditional love, supernatural love, unlimited love, and self-sacrificing love.19
The new commandment of love is the core of Christian life. After having washed the feet of his disciples, Jesus said: “| give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus in the NT gives commandment to his people just as Yahweh did in the OT. The commandment of love was already an old commandment. For Yahweh stipulated: “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Lev 19:18). Jesus has shown this commandment as the second of the most important commandments of God. To the Pharisees who asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus answered: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Hence the love of the neighbor was already an existing commandment. But Jesus made it a new commandment asking his followers to love as he has loved.20
b. Redefining and Reclaiming Unity of the Community
Jesus envisaged in this world a new community of the people of God with a new Law which is of love, and with a new life-style which is of humble service. Unity is the essential quality of this new community. In John 15 he shows its logic and in John 17 he prays for it. In John 15:1-17 Jesus speaks in parabolic language of the logic of the disciples remaining united with him and with one another. Israel is often called in the OT as a vine. From this background Jesus says: “I am the true vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:1, 5). By this Jesus wants to say that compared to Israel of the OT he and those who remain united with him are the true community of God. He is the vine to which all the believers are united as branches. So the unity of the community envisaged here is an organic one as in a plant or tree with roots, trunk and branches. Only if one remains united with Jesus and with all others, will the life-sap that flows within the whole organism (Mystical Body) flow also through him/her, and thus will possess life and manifest it through a life of love.21
In his priestly prayer before his suffering and death Jesus insistently prayed for unity: (John 17:21-23)22. The unity of the new people of God which Jesus envisaged here is the oneness modelled on the unity of the Son with the Father. It is a vital and organic unity. It is more than a moral union. It is a unity that emerges from sharing the same Life of the Father and the Son. The unity of the Christians, therefore, must be visible enough to challenge the world to believe in Jesus. It leads to real community life, which is expressed in fellowship (1 John 1:3, 6, 7).23
Conclusion
Johannine Community was within a situation of conflict, crisis and alienation that the Fourth Gospel was written, and against this background it must be understood. The community’s traditions about Jesus were powerfully recast in this milieu, reflecting the influence both of forces outside mainstream Jewish piety and of the conflict with the synagogue. This reshaping of an originally independent stream of tradition advancing its portrayal of Jesus ever farther from the earlier tradition toward a deeper understanding, in a process perceived by the community as the work of the Spirit of Truth. In the multi-pluralistic context like India, the community and identity is based on Caste just like the Johannine community was excommunicated with the belief in Jesus, In India identity is based on the Caste belief which rules the society in all sectors of society. People from the low caste are oppressed and marginalized even though the numbers of low castes are high in number. Dalits, Tribals, Women, Children are the vulnerable community and their identity is negligible in Indian society. There were many riots took placed in the name of communal differences religious differences and disturbed the identity and harmony of the community.
Bibliography
Brown E Raymond. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. London: Chapman, 1979.
Dorner, A Isaak. A History of Preotestant Theology. Vol. 1 Eugene: 1970.
Nereparampil, Lucius. “Spiritual Insights of Johannine Literature.” Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications, 2006.
Thomas Koshy, Asish. Identity mission and community: A Study of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative. New Delhi: Christian Publishing & Book from India, 2018.
Varughese John Aruthachal, Atola Longkumer and Nigel Ajay kumar, eds., Religious Freedomand conversion in India. Bangalore:SALACS press, 2017.
Journals and Articles:
Hendrickx, Herman “The Johannine Community.” CICM Theology Annual. Vol 12, 1990-1991.
Dissertation:
Ntsika Mandaba Qina, Axolile. “Reading John’s Gospel within its Socio-political Context: A Rhetorical Analysis of John 8:12-59.” Master of Theology dissertation, Stellenbosch University, 2019.
Webliography:
http://archive.hsscol.org.hk/Archive/periodical/abstract/A012k.htm accessed on 5th August, 2021. 9:00am
Footnotes
1 http://archive.hsscol.org.hk/Archive/periodical/abstract/A012k.htm accessed on 5th August, 2021, 9:00am.
2 Herman Hendrickx, “The Johannine Community,” CICM Theology annual Vol 12 (1990-1991): 170
3 Herman Hendrickx, “The Johannine Community,” CICM Theology annual Vol 12 (1990-1991): 171-172
4 Herman Hendrickx, “The Johannine Community,” CICM Theology annual Vol 12 (1990-1991): 167-175.
5 http://archive.hsscol.org.hk/Archive/periodical/abstract/A012k.htm accessed on 5th August, 2021, 9:00am
6 Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (London : Chapman, 1979), 93-95.
7 Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple.., 96.
8 Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple.., 97.
9 http://archive.hsscol.org.hk/Archive/periodical/abstract/A012k.htm accessed on 5th August, 2021, 9:00am.
10 Herman Hendrickx, “The Johannine Community,” CICM Theology annual Vol 12 (1990-1991): 167-175.
11 http://archive.hsscol.org.hk/Archive/periodical/abstract/A012k.htm accessed on 10th August, 2021, 9:00am.
12 Herman Hendrickx, “The Johannine Community,” CICM Theology annual Vol 12 (1990-1991): 176-180.
13 Axolile Ntsika mandaba Qina, “Reading John’s Gospel within its Socio-political Context: A Rhetorical Analysis of John 8:12-59” Master of Theology dissertation, Stellenbosch University, 2019. 42
14 Asish Thomas Koshy, Identity mission and community: A Study of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative (New Delhi: Christian Publishing & Book from India, 2018), 215.
15 Asish Thomas Koshy, Identity mission and community: A Study of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative.., 216.
16 Asish Thomas Koshy, Identity mission and community: A Study of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative.., 2.
17 Aruthachal Varughese John, Atola Longkumer and Nigel Ajay kumar, eds., Religious Freedomand conversion in India (Bangalore:SALACS press, 2017) 139-140.
18 Isaak A Dorner, A History of Preotestant Theology, Vol. 1 (Eugene: 1970), 81.
19 Lucius Nereparampil, “Spiritual Insights of Johannine Literature,” (Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications, 2006), 60.
20 Lucius Nereparampil, Spiritual Insights of Johannine Literature.., 61.
21 Lucius Nereparampil, Spiritual Insights of Johannine Literature.., 61
22 “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me”
23 Lucius Nereparampil, Spiritual Insights of Johannine Literature.., 62.
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