“Nobody’s Listening!”
Andor is one of the most compelling stories from the Star Wars franchise. A particularly compelling episode is “Nobody’s Listening!” The theme of listening runs throughout the episode, but I want to pull out the most powerful scene from which the episode is titled.1 Andor is asking Kino Loy for information to help them escape their imprisonment and slave labor. Kino wants to keep his head down and reach the end of his prison sentence, so he presses Andor to shut up and “turn that part of your mind off” that thinks about escape. But Andor refuses to be quiet:
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Andor: You think they care what we say? Kino: You’re on your own with this. Andor: Why? You think they’re listening? You think they care enough to make an effort? Kino: Like you would know. Andor: I know this. They don’t need to care…Why bother listening to us? We are nothing to them…We’re cheaper than droids and easier to replace…You think they care what we say? Nobody’s listening. Nobody…Nobody’s listening. NOBODY’S LISTENING!!!
Is anybody listening? Why listen? To whom? And how? Those are central questions asked by
Scot McKnight and Tommy Preson Phillips in Invisible Jesus, a new book about deconstruction with a bold thesis:
“We believe deconstruction is a prophetic movement resisting a distorted gospel. It is not a problem; it is a voice. And we need to listen to what it is saying to the church” (1).
Ian Harber ’s critical review of Invisible Jesus, published The Gospel Coalition, intersects with two of my writing projects, Thesis 96 and Trust after Trauma, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to weave those together by responding to Harber’s review. What might go unnoticed, and what I want to address, is the ironic nature of Harber’s criticisms. Pointing out just a handful of ironies will, I hope, address some of those criticisms, and also help potential readers of Invisible Jesus. As his criticisms touch on deeper theological and pastoral matters related to the vision of Thesis 96, there might be more posts in the future. But for this post, I will tie in some of my own reflections on the Gospel of John that resonate with Invisible Jesus.
Church vs Jesus?
Harber’s criticisms fall under three categories: an incomplete picture of deconstructors (in both origin and destiny); fuzzy doctrine; and fuzzy ecclesiology. In conclusion, Harber writes,
“While attempting to speak prophetically to the church, Invisible Jesus undermines the church itself. That is tragic, because good churches are the best place for deconstructors to rebuild their faith. Many of its diagnoses and some of its prescriptions hit the mark. However, this book is more likely to entrench the divide between the church and those who’ve been hurt by it than it is to heal relationships, strengthen the faith of deconstructors, and solve the problems they encounter in the church. In those ways, it greatly misses the mark.”
There was a time when I might have had a similar reaction to this book. But not since 2022 when I committed myself to deep ongoing study of the Gospel of John. You see, McKnight and Phillips have captured the Johannine vision of Jesus and the church. I believe it is an accurate vision precisely because of Harber’s reaction. It’s a customary reaction to John when read through traditionally skewed filters that emphasize other “more clear” visions of the church in the New Testament. Here’s how Raymond Brown put it in 1984:
“Johannine ecclesiology is the most attractive and exciting in the NT. Alas, it is also one of the least stable. One rejoices that at the end of the first century, when much about the church was being formalized and institutionalized, there were [these Johannine] Christians who still marched to the sounds of a different drummer…[T]he community of the Beloved Disciple continues to bear warning witness that the church must never be allowed to replace the unique role of Jesus in the life of Christians.”2
Notice that last line. I believe it’s one with which McKnight and Phillips would wholeheartedly agree:
“the church must never be allowed to replace the unique role of Jesus in the life of Christians.”
If Harber—and presumably others on the TGC side of “the divide between the church and those who’ve been hurt by it”—reads Invisible Jesus and judges that it “undermines the church,” then, respectfully, he has missed the point.
Neutral Criticism
Before I explain further, let me offer some more neutral criticism of Invisible Jesus. McKnight and Phillips write for multiple audiences, and that left me somewhat confused in the design of the book. Initially, they emphasize their primary audience as “those sitting in the pews next to” deconstructors (3). At the same time, “We also want to address those who have been through or are currently walking through the ‘dark night of the soul’ of deconstruction” (4). So, combining both audiences, their “goal is to give everyone, both deconstructors and critics, the space to imagine a new way forward, a new vision of God’s people that is beneficial, wise, loving, inclusive, healing, merciful, and, above all, Christlike” (4).
I’m no expert, but it seems that writing for those two audiences is a big challenge for one book. The center of the book in chapters 4-12 presents a “new vision of God’s people” through the I Am statements in the Gospel of John (although other Gospels and NT letters are treated as well). Having studied and written extensively on the Gospel of John over the past two years, I can tell you that different audiences react differently to that vision. John’s Gospel—along with the Epistles and Revelation—are unique texts in the New Testament. They have a distinct voice, and it is a neglected voice today. I wrote about some objective evidence of the eclipse of John in Hierarchy vs Equality: Apostles, Disciples, and the John-shaped Whole in the Church.3 Because it is a neglected voice, it can sound strange and even threatening.
The Destabilizing Gospel
Within this broader Christian culture, I don’t entirely fault Harber for his negative reaction to Invisible Jesus. The heart of the book on the I Am sayings of Jesus seems written for deconstructors. However, many of Harber’s criticisms make more sense if the book was truly intended and written for “those sitting in the pews next to” deconstructors. That would describe Harber himself, as an author of a book on deconstruction that releases today. If I set out to write about John’s vision of the church for readers sitting in the pews next to deconstructors, I can understand it needing more material that he finds missing.4 Because I’ve seen the reactions; the reactivity; the guardedness; the misunderstandings; the hermeneutic of suspicion. After all, the earliest commentary on the Gospel of John on record was written by a heretic, Heracleon the Valentinian Gnostic. John was a favorite text for Gnostic Christians in the early church, which contributed to some concern over the canonicity of the Fourth Gospel.5 It’s nothing new for John’s writings to have a destabilizing effect. Francis Moloney put it well:
“this Gospel [of John] was not written as a collection of inspiring and comforting words. On the contrary, it came into existence to create crisis, not comfort. This crisis, to be understood in the sense of the Greek word krisis (a call to judgment), is not destructive. Stated simply, the Gospel of John will not settle for the established and safe. It is a challenge to think and think again about how Christians relate to God, to the Christ, and consequently, with one another. This Gospel presents a challenge at every turn. The Jesus of the Gospel of John summons the readers of the story to think again. Further decisions, more love and unconditional trust lie ahead. When characters in the story say ‘we know’ there is almost always a shock in store for them. Their ‘knowledge’ must be transformed if they hope to understand the God revealed by the Jesus of the Gospel of John (see, for example, 3:2; 4:25; 6:42; 7:27; 9:20, 24, 29, 31; 11:49; 16:30).”6
The Ironic Gospel
If the heart of Invisible Jesus is really more for deconstructors (as I read it), then Harber’s criticism misses the mark. As much as the book issues a call for the church to listen to the prophetic voice of deconstructors, it also calls the church to listen to the unique voice of the Johannine Jesus. Ironically, Harber ignores McKnight and Phillips’ material on that voice in Jesus’ I Am statements. That, I believe, is the crux of the issue.
Harber writes,
“McKnight and Phillips are right to be concerned with the ways some churches distort the gospel, but Invisible Jesus doesn’t bring the clarity necessary to strengthen the faith of deconstructors and the church’s witness.”
This is an ironic summary criticism. Invisible Jesus isn’t trying to provide clarity, as that isn’t what’s missing or needed. Jesus is missing, and it’s Jesus that people need. And so Invisible Jesus asks the church to ask questions: why is Jesus invisible? And where can he be found?
Doubling the irony, John frequently deploys irony to subvert religious/political leaders and their quests for certainty and control, whether that be “the Jews” (8:40; 9:40; 18:28), Pilate (18:38; 19:10), or Peter (13:6-7; 18:10-11; 21:20-21).7 So when McKnight and Phillips ask the church to question what it assumes to be clear, they don’t mean core doctrines like the deity of Christ or the Trinity. Rather, they invite readers to question their understanding of church and pastors. In a word, our ecclesiology, and how our ecclesiologies have given in to worldly temptations of empire.
McKnight and Phillips accurately present the distinct Johannine vision of Jesus and the church which is at once clear and mysterious. What’s clear is the voice of Jesus. No other Gospel shines the spotlight so directly on the words of the Son of God. Obviously Matthew, Mark and Luke are all about Jesus, but the proportions are noticeably different from John. “Scholars reckon that about three-quarters of the Fourth Gospel consist of Jesus’ sayings, monologues, and dialogues.”8 Ironically, while Harber is concerned that Invisible Jesus “undermines the church,” he misses the obvious: Invisible Jesus highlights the voice of Jesus, just as John elevated the voice of Jesus above all other speakers. As noted above with the quote from Raymond Brown, McKnight and Phillips are far from the first or only ones to notice that about the Fourth Gospel.
The Voice of a Deconstructor
Additionally, John elevates the voice of an anonymous spiritual abuse survivor. Sadly, McKnight and Phillips skip over John 9, which provides excellent echoes for their call to listen. As I’ve explored in a few posts (recently, and in 2023), the person whom John grants the second most amount of spoken testimony to Jesus is the healed blind man (185 words in the ESV, with John the Baptist foremost at 264 words).9 Surprisingly, and subtly, John portrays this man so that he resembles Jesus.
To see this in detail you’ll need to read Part 3 of my recent Advent series. But in line with the emphasis of Invisible Jesus on the I Am sayings, it’s worth briefly noticing how the man echoes Jesus’ I Am statements. When his neighbors debated, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging?”, the man answered, “I am,” egō eimi (9:9). Readers of John’s Greek text would recognize that Jesus has already used that phrase 10x (4:26; 6:20, 35, 48, 51; 8:12, 18, 24, 28, 58), so when the healed man uses it, it carries deeper significance. As Colleen Conway put it, “The man effectively stands in for Jesus in combating the opposing dark forces in the Gospel.”10
I know of no other Gospel narrative that similarly features a character other than Jesus (once Jesus has been born, of course). After the man’s healing, Jesus is noticeably absent. Standing alone, without even his family to support him, he faces off with religious leaders who are obvious and explicit in their rejection of his voice: “You were born entirely in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” (9:34). But John the evangelist allows this man, an anonymous beggar from the margins of society, to stand in for Jesus and teach his audience about the Gospel’s central questions on the origin and identity of the Son of God (9:17, 25, 30-33). Read with sensitivity to how religiously oppressed people might identify with this man’s experience, we can see how ch. 9 presents a powerful defense for calling the church to listen to the voice of deconstructors.
In that vein, the narrative directly contrasts the religious leaders’ claim to clear certainty with the man’s admitted ignorance. The leaders, as well as the blind man’s parents, repeatedly say “we know” (9:20, 24, 29), whereas the man starts with “I don’t know” before saying “I know” (9:12, 25, 39, 31). The door to Jesus and assured relational knowledge has “I don’t know” written over it; it is a door we must continue entering throughout our lives as disciples.11 In contrast to the dogmatic religious teachers, McKnight and Phillips imitate Jesus and John vis a vis the healed blind man’s faith journey—that is, they empower readers with agency to ask, seek, knock, and find answers to life’s most important questions, even questions that Christian communities assume to be settled.
“Teaching as Doctrines the Commandments of Men”
On that note, Harber’s request for “theological triage” asks for more than the Gospel of John itself provides. The deity of Christ was largely settled in the early church thanks to John. So the concern about mentioning Richard Rohr (37), who, Harber notes, “has tried to redefine the Trinity,” sounds like the anxious reactivity that McKnight and Phillips are trying to correct. Is there a legitimate need to “clearly define” doctrinal boundaries, as Harber complains? Surely. But the book does so within the vision of John’s Gospel: the deity of Christ shines clear as day (1:1, 14, 18); ethico-religious boundaries are at times painfully clear and bounded (eg 8:34-47; 13:8); but other doctrines, especially ecclesiology, are less clear and less bounded.
Indeed, as Andrew Byers observes, there is a broad consensus among influential interpreters “that ecclesiology is virtually imperceptible in John…One is left to wonder if the Johannine vision of community is every bit as elusory, if not more so, than the historical details of the Johannine community.”12
One of those influential interpreters is Rudolf Bultmann, who wrote that “no specifically ecclesiological interest can be detected” in John.13 Through the course of church history, the view and vision of Christ’s church has been dominated by other NT writers, especially Paul, Luke (Acts), and Matthew. Judging from my own theological journey, my sense is that most Christians read Johannine visions of the church through Pauline glasses. Or, to be more objective, Pauline lenses with clerical/hierarchical frames, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. This is understandable. I grew up in a congregational Baptist tradition that elevated teachers and had little appreciation—indeed, had more of a disdain—for the non-hierarchical teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit uniquely emphasized by John (John 15:26-27; 16:13-15; 1 John 2:20, 27).
Harber objects to the “less hierarchical, and less institutional” house-church model advocated by McKnight and Phillips (107):
“There’s no acknowledgment that traditional church structures serve a purpose. Chesterton’s fence would serve us well here: It’s best to know why something exists in the first place before you tear it down.”
I find this, again, amusingly ironic, for there is a large body of Johannine scholarship that thinks John was doing just that: tearing down the fence of hierarchical and institutional tradition.
Maybe they wouldn’t use strong language like “tearing down.” But as we’ll see in a moment, they use the synonymous language of deconstruction, and see John as subversively critiquing the growing institutionalism within nascent Christianity.14 While this is by no means the only view among scholars15 , part of the problem is that most conservative evangelicals are unaware of this literature. For example, consider this summary from Mary Coloe’s superb book Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality (and, by the way, notice Coloe’s choice of verb, in 2007, long before “deconstrution” was “sexy”):
“The household model [of the church] as imaged in the language of the Fourth Gospel essentially deconstructs the patriarchal household model of antiquity, since it takes as its point of reference the divine communion [between Father and Son]. The Fourth Gospel, while using “father-son” terminology, reconstitutes the relationship as a dynamism of mutual self-giving love…We do not have within this household a hierarchy of leadership other than the leadership of faith and love.”16
Subversive Symbols
Coloe is a first-rate Johannine scholar, and her study stands on solid ground. But we live in a left-brain dominated world and prefer the so-called “clarity” of the Pastoral Epistles over the right-brain symbolic imagery of “household” that pervades John, the Pastoral Gospel. Household is a symbol, and
“it is the nature of symbol to resist immediate understanding and to engage the reader with puzzling questions. Symbols are subtle, and their meaning will only be unraveled through repeated reading of the text, with each reading deepening the insights and awakening new perceptions to be brought to future readings...Read from a distance of two thousand years and from a different cultural experience, much of the Johannine symbolism may remain vague and undeciphered for modern readers.”17
I’m left wondering if we in the 21st century Western evangelical church can trust the symbolic wisdom of John. I believe he wrote his gospel for deconstructors. They had been tossed out of their “church,” ie, their local synagogues because they questioned what was deemed unquestionable: the oneness of God (Deut. 6:4; John 5:18; 9:22; 16:2). They were people wrestling with trauma and epistemological crisis. What does John do for them? He gives them Jesus. And he gives them a Jesus wrapped in symbols. The incarnation is the symbolization of God18, enabling the Son of God to be symbolized by mundane creaturely realities like life, light, temple, bread, water, flesh and blood, door, shepherd, and more. That “more” includes the temple-household people of God, who through their love make the invisible God visible (1 John 4:12), which is exactly what symbols do. Still, symbols are less clear means of communication. Indeed, Jesus’ symbolic communication is misunderstood time and time again.19
John’s medicine for deconstructors, people who experienced institutional betrayal, is not clearer doctrine about the institution that betrayed them. To treat their spiritual trauma and cognitive crisis, he gives them the medicine of Jesus the I AM through symbolic images. Ironically, those same mysterious symbols which heal Christ’s sheep also produce frustration for the religious establishment. 20
Quotes from Scot McKnight and Tommy Preson Phillips
“This is where many start. Knowing Jesus is God forms the foundation for their deconstruction. Why? Because deconstructors are not playing games. They are pleading with the church to remember who their God really is. To remember that God is Jesus and Jesus is God.” (51)
“If we are willing to listen, the deconstructors of today are saying, “I want this Jesus. I want him to be front and center. I don’t want religion. I don’t want an institution. I want a community centered on listening to Jesus and living like him during the week.” When they read of Jesus’ claim to be the I Am, they mutter, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” In their deconstructing, they are not motivated to leave the church; they are looking for a community built around a reconstructed faith that exalts Jesus as Lord of all. If church leaders are willing to listen, this is what their exit interview will reveal.” (61)
Questions for reflection
Where is Jesus invisible in your life, personally and in your church? Where is he visible? Have you risked questioning doctrine and theology that your church culture deemed unquestionable? If you have found ways and avenues to do that safely, what was that like? Who was that with? How can we provide safety for others to ask questions? And how can we foster safety within ourselves so that we can listen to the voices of deconstructors with the non-anxious presence of the Good Shepherd?
1 Another is from Mon Mothma, the future Rebel leader. She is speaking in the Galactic Senate on Coruscant about the rise of imperialism amidst vocal objections (“Boo! Keep it down!”) and support (“Listen to her!”). Senators leave the chamber as she’s talking, and it’s clear that many are not listening: “The Public Order Resentencing Directive is the next step on an all too predictable march toward complete unchallenged authority…I stand here today to speak with senators who’ve come with open minds, those of you who still believe that when we enter this building we are in a temple.”
2 Raymond Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 123.
3 We could also add the fact that I have found very few Johannine experts in my search for PhD programs in New Testament Studies, whereas there are plenty of Pauline and Synoptic scholars.
4 Although, Harber may be guilty of the cardinal sin of book reviews: critiquing an author for what he didn’t say, rather than focusing on what an author did say.
5 I think this is a reasonable, minimalist historical claim, but I hope to read Charles Hill who criticizes what he calls “The Orthodox Johannophobia Theory” in The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church. Basically, the prevailing scholarly view for some time was that the canonicity of the Gospel of John was highly contested among orthodox Christians. Hill shows that view to be inaccurate and overly simplistic.
6 Francis Moloney, The Living Voice of the Gospels, 238.
7 On this theme, I have a forthcoming academic article titled “Sheathing the Sword of Empire: A symbolic, intertextual reading of John 18:10, 21:7, and 21:18.”
8 Kevin Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2012**)**, p. 360
9 For fellow Bible nerds who read all the footnotes, runners up for most words are Pilate (166 words), the woman of Samaria (161 words), and Peter (116 words).
10 Colleen Conway, Men and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1997), 135. See also Peter Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, 200-204; David Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, 42; Thomas Brodie, The Gospel according to John: a Literary and Theological Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 353.
11 This pattern extends across all of John:
12 Andrew Byers, “Johannine Theosis,” 11.
13 Byers, “Johannine Theosis,” 11, quoting Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 2:91.
14 In addition to Raymond Brown’s The Churches the Apostles Left Behind, see C.K. Barrett’s study “Conversion and Conformity: the Freedom of the Spirit in the Institutional Church,” in Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament: Studies in honour of C.F.D. Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and Stephen Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 359-381.
15 For example, Byers has an intriguing argument for continuity between John and the apologetic for bishops in Irenaeus. See Andrew Byers, “Johannine Bishops?” Novum Testamentum, 2018, Vol. 60, Fasc. 2 (2018), pp. 121-139.
16 Mary Coloe, Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality (Collegeville, MI: Liturgical Press, 2007), 197-198.
17 Coloe, Dwelling, 200.
18 I don’t think this is a quote, but I get this way of putting it from Sandra Schneiders, Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, as well as Dorothy Lee, Flesh and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology In The Gospel of John. If it sounds heretical, please be assured I don’t mean “symbol” as opposed to the real thing. As Mary Coloe put it, “If ever you hear anybody say to you, ah, it’s just a symbol, you know they haven’t understood it. There is no “just” about a symbol. A symbol is the reality and the only way us humans can access it. The symbol is the reality.”
19 Eg, “The Jews” and destroying the temple (2:19-21); Nicodemus and the birth from above (3:4); The woman of Samaria and living water (4:10-11); The disciples and Jesus’ food (4:32-33); The disciples and the living bread from heaven (6:60-66); The crowd and living water (7:37-44); The Pharisees and the light of the world (8:12-13); The Pharisees/“Jews” and the figure of the sheepfold (10:1-7).
20 On the healing potential of symbols, see Dorothy Lee, Flesh and Glory, 236: “symbol and metaphor appeal to the experience of the reader more effectively than abstract, discursive prose is able to do. The pain of past suffering, the knowledge of incompleteness, the awareness of a restless spirit, the sense of inner emptiness and isolation, the longing for wholeness and cleansing: these resist articulation in most people’s experience and can often be touched only at a level deeper than the conscious or cognitive. It is this level which the symbols of the Fourth Gospel address, drawing the reader into that dual experience of knowing which is the purpose of the Revealer’s coming: the knowledge of the self and the knowledge of God. The symbols open the heart to the deepest longings and fill the reader with hope, drawing him or her into a divine world that transfigures through love and understanding. The symbols function to open mortal wounds and provide resources for their healing.”