COUNTERCULTURAL CHARACTER OF JOHANNINE CHRISTIANITY

Abstract

The paper presents the rhetorical aspects of Johannine literature and shows the countercultural character of the community that produced it. Although different in genre, content and scope, the Gospels, the three Epistles and the Book of Revelation exude the same countercultural mechanism. To recognise these mechanisms on the literary level, the first part of the paper shows the impulses of countercultural interaction with the audiences. They are marked as a confrontation with religious and political authorities. Being in constant conflict with the Jewish synagogue and God-defying structures of the Greco-Roman world, the Johannine community built its own world. This world is legitimised as countercultural, i.e. constructed in opposition to the prevailing social structures and cultural practices. René Girard's anthropological concept of the scapegoat serves to observe the countercultural basis of Johannine Christianity, which is contained in the Christological symbol of the lamb. In the second part of the paper, examples of the operation of the countercultural mechanism are listed, and how it reshapes cultural practices and social structures is shown. The Johannine motifs of love and sacrifice are crucial in this process. Finally, the paper's conclusion briefly discusses the potential of the countercultural contribution of Johannine literature to Christianity and contemporary society.