John and the Others

The Johannine literature has inspired the Church’s christological creeds, prompted its Trinitarian formulations, and resourced its ecumenical and social movements. However, while confessional readers find in these texts a divine love for "the world," biblical scholars often detect a dangerous program of harsh polemics arrayed against "the other." In this frame, the Johannine writings are products of an anti-society with its own anti-language articulating a worldview that is anti-ecclesiastical,