The Gospel of John and the Religious Quest. Johannes Nissen

58. Cracknell, Towards a New Relationship, 99.

59. Cf. Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 94; Nørgaard-Højen, “Kristendommens absoluthedskrav,” 234. Various nuances differentiate the thought of these three church fathers. Yet, in the main lines their Logos-Theology shows a remarkable consistency, see Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology, 70.

60. Several scholars argue that the Johannine community has undergone a development before it reached its present Christology and its special ecclesiological form. Brown (The Community of the Beloved Disciple) points out that the Johannine community originated among Jews who believed that Jesus had fulfilled well-known Jewish expectations, e.g., of a messiah or of a prophet-like-Moses. At a later stage there developed within the Johannine community a higher Christology that went beyond Jewish expectations by describing Jesus as a pre-existent divine savior who had lived with God in heaven before he became man.

61. Senior and Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission, 280.

62. Vellanickal, “The Gospel of John in the Indian Context,” 150–51.

63. Reference is made to searchers for the truth among Buddhists, Taoists, Confucianists and others. “They style themselves spontaneously ‘Tao-Yu’, i.e., ‘Friends of Tao’ (Logos). Christ is for them the full realization and incarnation of the wonderfully rich Tao-idea which holds the supreme sway in all three religions in China (Buddhism included).” (Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 99).

64. Reichelt, Fra Kristuslivets helligdom, 53.*

65. Riisager, Lotusblomsten og korset, 163–64.

66. Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 95.

67. Ibid., 95. The terms tathata or bhutataka mean the Absolute, conditioned by nothing, which is in itself that which is; cf. Raguin, The Depth of God, 111–12.

68. Vellanickal, “The Gospel of John in the Indian Context,” 151.

69. Koyama, Theology in Contact, 60.

70. Ibid., 61.

71. Ibid., 62–63.

72. On the problem in general see also the paragraph “Transcending Categories—Toward a ‘More Than’ Christology” in Part Two below.

73. Indigenization “is not the transplantation of a grown tree, say from Amsterdam to Djakarta. Actually, indigenization is a critical antithesis to this whole process of big-tree-transplantation. The shift from transplantation to rooting is a difficult and painstaking process” (Koyama Theology in Contact, 67–68).

74. Ibid., 67.

75. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 19.

76. Ibid., 118.

77. Steiner’s own translation of John 8:58: “Before Father Abraham was, was the I AM.”

78. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 57.

79. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels, 33–34.

80. Romarheim, “Various views of Jesus Christ,” 95.

81. Damm, Kristendommen i antroposofiens lys, 16–20.

82. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels, 38. Steiner argues that the writer of John’s Gospel strongly emphasizes the existence of something divine in humankind, as well as the fact that this appeared in its most grandiose form as God and the Logos itself. “In the individual human being a great and mighty event can take place that can be called the rebirth of the higher ego” (ibid., 9). “Then, when the human principle had reached its height in Jesus of Nazareth, his human body having become an expression of his spirit, he was ripe to receive within Himself the Christ at the Baptism of John” (ibid., 18).

83. Tro i tiden, 18–19; Thelle, Buddha og Kristus, 142–52.

84. Tro i tiden, 17.

85. Tro i lære, 25. This is a free translation from the Danish text: “Kristus-forankring gør det muligt at være rummelig.”

86. Ibid., 25.*

87. See also the paragraph “In the Master’s Light” in chapter 7 of this book.

88. Madsen, “Theology in Dialogue,” 267.

89. Ibid., 269.

90. Månsus, Vägen hem och resan vidare, 108–14.

91. Ibid., 255–56.

92. Ibid., 111.

93. Ibid., 113.

94. Cahill, “The Johannine Logos as Center,” 65.

95. According to Dupuis (Toward a Christian Theology, 328) there are several manifestations of the Word in history. But not all of them have the same significance. Incarnation, as compared to enlightenment, has a historical density of its own. In other words, there is a clear distinction