Author: ppadmin

Interpretation of John’s gospel has traditionally focused on its unique Christology, a spiritual gospel (according to Clement), meaning that John’s story is less Jewish than what we see elsewhere. Horsley and Thatcher argue that “the Gospel of John portrays Jesus engaged in a renewal of the people of Israel against the rulers of Israel, both the Jerusalem authorities and the Romans who placed them in power” (p 1). They also articulate that religion was inseparable from political-economic life. The gospels are about all of life, life that is “inseparably political-economic-religious” (p 6).

We need to understand John’s story in its historical context. The fundamental social form in Roman Palestine was the village community, comprised of many multigenerational families. Rome ruled through a succession of client kings (Herod and his sons) or of religious collaborators (the Judean priesthood).

While Galilee was under the control of Herod’s son, Judea was under the control of the temple and its priesthood. During the lifetime of Jesus, Galilee and Judea were under different administration, but each had stories of resistance to the Romans. “There was a cultural divide that corresponded to the political-economic tradition, and the scribes and Pharisees who served the temple state” (p 33).

Horsley outlines the force of culture and the historical context of Jesus’ time that puts new perspective on the Roman occupation. The major conflict was not between Judaism and Hellenism, but between the Romans and their client Herodian and high priestly rulers on the one hand, and the vast majority of people living in villages on the other. “Jesus was catalyzing a movement based on the village communities that constituted the fundamental social form of Galilean and Judean society” (p x).

Horsley summarizes the popular movements in Judea, Galilee and Samaria that came into open conflict with the Romans and the temple authorities, the “messianic movements and popular prophetic movements” (p 39). He also points out the difference between what subordinates and superiors say and act, the difference between public transcripts and hidden transcripts (p 40). Peasant compliance was “a mark of acquiescence, not of support, and considerable discontent with Herod’s temple and the high priests had been building up precisely as the people acquiesced in Temple ceremonies and requirements under Herodian rule” (p 41).

In the context, Jesus’ words are not just “teachings” but speech acts (“performative speech”) that make something happen. Jesus’ call for renewal of Israel under the direct rule of G-d, in the tradition of the prophets, marked a politics of resistance and renewal, .ie., the religious political festival of Passover was the occasion and context for speaking truth to power (p 52).

In the western world, by the middle ages, church and state had become pillars of the social culture, supporting each other. Where at one time followers of Jesus had met secretly, now they were given some of the greatest temples and meeting spaces of the empire. Christianity moved from being a dynamic, revolutionary, social and spiritual movement to being a static religious institution with its attendance structure, priesthood and sacraments. It became Christendom.

But it has been in decline, where the institutions and values no longer have a major role. The church is experiencing a “sharp and dramatic deterioration in its influence and impact on western society” (p 5), as “the institutions that have been developed to express Christian convictions decline in influence’ (p 6). Some see the church as dying; others express hope not in the reconstitution of Christendom but that the end of this epoch “actually spells the beginning of a new flowering of Christianity.

The death of Christendom removes the final props that have supported the culturally respectable, mainstream version of Christianity” (p 7).  The passing of Christendom might be compared to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, best described as exile, where we can no longer rely on temporal, cultural supports to reinforce our message, moved by the confronting message of Jesus.