Ethics and the Gospel of John: Toward an Emerging New Consensus?

If we consider the Johannine literature to have primarily espoused an exemplary (rather than an imperatival) ethical paradigm, our understanding of its moral teaching becomes much richer. The Gospel of John does not provide a moral grammar primarily by conveying a set of commands or prohibitions, but through conformity to a moral example (Jesus Christ himself). More specifically, this paper initially approaches the issue by surveying the uses of the imperative in the Gospel of John, the appearances of ὀφείλειν and καθώς, related moral themes, the descriptions of the two Johannine commandments, and the statements of John 13:14–15. The essay then focuses particularly upon the recent work of Cornelis Bennema on the imitative or “mimetic” ethics of John. Bennema has emphasized the “cognitive mimesis” and “performative mimesis” of Johannine ethics, engendered and enabled by the Paraclete. Finally, through an exposition of John 8 and other relevant texts, this essay contributes to the conversation by adding “desiderative mimesis” to Bennema’s proposed framework. As one’s identity (who I am) is transformed, one’s desiderative inclinations (what I desire) are renewed, resulting in changed behavior (how I act).

Johannine Ethics: An Exegetical-Theological Summary and a ‘Desiderative’ Extension of Mimesis

Hartog

2022

An Insider’s Church for Outsiders: The Johannine “Come and See” Passages and Christian Engagement with the World

McDowell

2022

The Gospel of John has a reputation among some New Testament scholars as a factional text designed to reinforce the Johannine Community’s unity amid persecution and excommunication. Recent work, however, has proposed that John is in fact deeply ethical, with an outward-facing mission. This essay builds off this work to propose that John has a definitive missional praxis that he hopes his community will embody as it engages with the world. Examining specifically the “come and see” passages of John 1:39, 1:46, 4:29, and 11:34, this article suggests that John’s method is dialectical: he simultaneously wants those in the church to remain in the church and resist assimilation with “the world”, but he also wants those in the church to go into the world to understand it, empathize with it, and even befriend it, all for the sake of discipleship.

Trauma & TYPOI: The Fourth Gospel as Warning Not Example

Pruszinski

2022

There are at least four traumatic events that likely lie behind the Gospel of John: (1) Jesus’ death and inaccessibility, (2) the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, (3) the Johannine community’s excommunication from the synagogue, and (4) the loss of the Beloved Disciple. Evidence of all of these traumas can be found in the Gospel itself and, as extant, the Gospel exhibits a number of strategies for addressing these experiences of suffering. Working from Gaston Bachelard’s observations regarding literature produced in response to suffering, this paper outlines the textual evidence for each of these experiences of suffering, notes the responses to them that the Gospel displays, and seeks briefly to evaluate the responses for the TYPOI (patterns/examples/warnings) they provide. In short, the Fourth Gospel employs psychologically attractive, compensatory responses to experiences of loss. However, it deploys in parallel a toxic cocktail of anti-Jewish polemic, condemnation of “the world”, and self-protective, sectarian insularity. Regarding whether the text’s trauma response can be viewed as exemplary for ethically-minded Christians, Desmond Tutu’s 2009 statement, “there are certain parts [of the Bible] which you have to say no to”, is directly applicable, while the warning the text’s example suggests is significant.