Discursive investigation into John's internalised spirit identity and its implication

What does it mean to live in a society where everything good is located within one ethnicity, and geography? In reading the gospel of John, one gets the impression that faithful disciples, the Holy Spirit and morality are exclusively located within the Johannine community and can only permeate to th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hervormde teologiese studies Vol. 72; no. 1; pp. 1 - 5
Main Author: Dube, Zorodzai
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Pretoria AOSIS 2016
African Online Scientific Information Systems (Pty) Ltd t/a AOSIS
AOSIS (Pty) Ltd
Reformed Theological College of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Pretoria and Society for Practical Theology in South Africa
Subjects:
Ethnicity
Morality
New Testament
Religion
Theology
ISSN:0259-9422, 2072-8050, 2072-8050
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:What does it mean to live in a society where everything good is located within one ethnicity, and geography? In reading the gospel of John, one gets the impression that faithful disciples, the Holy Spirit and morality are exclusively located within the Johannine community and can only permeate to the outside through the good work of the insiders - the disciples. Everything is asymmetric - morality, ideal disciples and good virtues - these originate from within John's community. Outside John's community, it is darkness that awaits the illuminating lights of John's disciples, without which they will remain in perpetual darkness. Despite recent theories that position John as a missionary and an open community, still it does not remove the asymmetric nature of the gospel. The study builds on views inspired by scholars such as Jonathan Draper (1992:13) to argue that John used the Holy Spirit to naturalise identities. From this perspective and if read from the South African context of racism, ethnicity and gender, John makes the reader think about the consequences and implications of exclusive social boundaries.
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ISSN:0259-9422
2072-8050
2072-8050
DOI:10.4102/hts.v72i1.3113