Trump and Johannine Literature (1)

 After such great comments through the past week on my last post on John's Gospel, I can scarcely not continue to think out loud about John's Gospel.

After Trump's election, I can scarcely not comment on it.

Might the two topics come together?

Definitely if we consider Johannine Literature, i.e. move more widely from John's Gospel to John's Revelation (yes, I know likely two different Johns are involved) and Trump. Next week's post has just about written itself in my mind and the key word is "madness." Perhaps a second key word is "false" and its synonyms.

How about John's Gospel and Trump.

First, a few thoughts about John's Gospel, working from some of the comments made below to last week's post.

It is a stretch to see John's Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels as equally "histories" of Jesus of Nazareth. Sure, if the Synoptics have access to historical facts about Jesus then John's Gospel likely also had access, and potentially to historical narratives of Jesus based in Jerusalem and surrounds compared to the heavy emphasis in the Synoptics on Galileee-based narratives. But the resulting histories of Jesus read quite differently - despite some important common ground re matters as diverse as the centrality of Simon Peter among the twelve disciples, miracles such as the feeding of the 5000 and healing of a blind man, and importance of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. John's Jesus talks differently to the Synoptics' Jesus - so differently that he comes across in the former more as sophisticated Jewish theologian with mystical interests, occasionaly performing dramatic miracles compared to the latter where he comes across more as a wise Jewish teacher frequently communicating through parables and performing numerous miracles, including exorcisms. By contrast no exorcisms appear in John's Gospel. Notwithstanding the robust comments made through the past week, I still think John's Gospel is well explained (if not best explained) by presupposing that John knows the Synoptics and uses their stories of Jesus, along with some of his own, to compose a theological history of Jesus which has more theology than history in it.

I agree that the history of Jesus is important: The word became flesh in a specific individual, Jesus of Nazareth. His words and deeds are God speaking and God acting in a manner which is different in important ways from whatever God spoke through (say) Moses and did through (say) David or Elijah. Not least we say this because the death of Jesus matters for our salvation in a way in which no other death of a human being makes one iota of difference, salvifically, to you or to me.

Each gospel is, of course, an interpretation of the significance of the death of Jesus because the death of Jesus by itself is just a bare fact of human history: Jesus was crucified by Roman authority, as so many thousands were in the era in which Jesus lived. Paradoxically, the death of Jesus is important for salvation not because the death of Jesus itself conveyed any message about its significance but because God revealed its importance to us, partially through Jesus' own words (e.g. Mark 10:45) and more fully through other human beings (notably through Saul of Tarsus, but also through John the Evangelist).

John's Gospel is, ultimately, a revelation of the truth about Jesus which no mere history of Jesus could give - though words of Jesus give us many clues as to that truth. Even Jesus himself does not disclose that he is the word made flesh (John 1:14).

What then can we say about Trump from a Johannine perspective?

Here is a thought: he is a kind of incarnation - an embodiment of words (to be very clear NOT an embodiment of THE WORD!!). That is, and not the first politician to be such an embodiment, he is seen to embody an extraordinary collection of policies and proposals ...

- someone who will galvanise business in the USA (and make America great again = MAGA), despite wishing to impose tariffs etc which potentially will contribute to inflation, and despite proposing tax cuts which will make the rich richer while the poor will pay the tariffs;

- someone who will uphold free speech, undoing perceived censorship controls from left-wing do gooders (and MAGA), despite also threatening to "go after" various critics of himself;

- someone who will save (conservative) Christianity in the USA (and MAGA), despite being a man of very low morals, convicted as a felon, openly not a churchgoer and, in all likelihood, an intentional manipulator of voting Christians (e.g. note how he changed his tune on abortion going into this election);

- someone who will save Americans from their (deep state, inimical, ordinary people hating) government by becoming President (and MAGA) and essentially maintaining the apparatus of government.

Themes of "Saviour" and "Messiah" emerge from the list above!

But Trump is not the Saviour, not the Messiah, and not the Incarnate Logos. He is a very naughty boy ... If anything he is the antitype of Saviour, Messiah, Logos.

And that takes us to the Book of Revelation ... more next week.