According to the most usual definition, a sect is a religious group that rejects the social environment in which it exists. In that sense, the whole New Testament can be typified as sectarian to some degree (I would put Revelation on one end of the spectrum and Luke-Acts on the other). Given that the Gospel of John is largely salvific and missional towards the world (e.g. 3.16; 20.31) on the one hand, to what extent is it sectarian on other other hand. Bob Gundry provides an answer:
"John paints the world in very dark colors. It is full of darkness Those human beings who make up the world are children of darkness. They do not belong to the light. They do not comprehend the light. Their deeds are evil. They do not acknowledge God, God's Son Jesus, or God's children, who believe in him and in Jesus. Moreover, they hate God, God's Son, and God's children. They murdered God's Son, rejoiced over his death, and excommunicate and kill God's children as well. Satan dominates worldlings. He is their father. God loved the world; but because of their unbelief his wrath rests on them already, so that they are headed for a resurrection of judgment. And only God is said to love the world. Though John often portrays Jesus as loving those who believe in him, he never says that Jesus loved the world."
Robert H. Gundry, "Is John's Sectarian?" in The Old is Better (WUNT 178; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2005), 316.
3 comments:
Do you want to expand on the last two sentences of Gundry's quote? I'm not sure the logic follows from the the lack of explicit silence? If Jesus is the instrument of God's love and he is one with the Father and his actions carry out his father's love . . .
Of course, John was sectarian. Throughout history, there have benn those who created a new theological understanding, when things did not work out according to expectation. This was to bring "hope" to believers, and the world, in times of despair.
John's Gospel was like Augustine's "City of God", after the sack of Rome, or Barth's Dogmatics, etc...Theologians undertake the disicpline to create a new vision for today that brings hope for tomorrow. It is re-creation of the historical.
The re-creation of the hisotrical is done through re-orientation to the transcendent, or re-interpretaion of the present, or systemization of the Bible's themes, or understanding people in a different light....
Worth reading Miroslav Volf's dialogue with Gundry (his father in law!) on this issue in the Bauckham/Mosser volume on The Gospel of John and Christian Theology.
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