TY  - BOOK
AU  - Hunter, Claire Gabrielle
TI  - Reframing, transforming and deepening faith: John's pastoral response to a community in crisis
PY  - 2016///
CY  - Johannesburg, South Africa
PB  - South African Theological Seminary
KW  - Synoptic problem
KW  - Johannine school
N2  - SUMMARY: This thesis begins with the observation that the Fourth Gospel presents a markedly different picture of Jesus compared to the one found in the Synoptic Gospels. This is clearly seen in the evangelist‘s selection of material, unique use of language and imagery,  and  his  particular  presentation  of  the  Jesus  tradition.  How  do  we  account for these differences?I begin by looking at what scholars have said concerning the community behind the Gospel, and highlight reasons to suggest that this was a community in crisis.The hypothesis I propose is that the Fourth Gospel is different to the Synoptics because the  evangelist  has  reshaped  the  Jesus  tradition  in  such  a  way  as  to  address  the spiritual and pastoral needs of this community in crisis. The  core  of  this  thesis  is  an  exploration  of  the  evangelist‘s  strategic  pastoral response to the Johannine community in crisis.Referring to the work done by the U S  Department  of  Justice  in  their  online  publication  of The  Community  Crisis Response Team Training Manual (Young 1998), I reflect on the effects of crises on spiritual  beliefs. Young suggests  that  crises  can  serve  as  an  attack  on  meaning systems  and  cause  people  to  re-examine  their  beliefs. As a result, a person‘s faith can remain unchanged, or may be rejected, or it may become transformed(1998b).Applying these and other insights from the field of Social Work, Pastoral Counselling and  Sociology,  I  show  how  we  can  use  some  of  these  concepts  to  understand something of what the evangelist is doing in the writing of John‘s Gospel. I present a simple three part model to demonstrate the evangelist‘s strategic pastoral response to  the  community  in  crisis –namely  the  reframing,  transforming  and  deepening  of faith.I select and exegete specific passages from the Gospel of John which I believe best illustrate these concepts. I end with what in my view is the glue that holds the evangelists  three-fold  pastoral  response  together –namely  his  presentation of  ̳the other  Paraclete‘.  This,  I  suggest,  is  the  evangelist‘s  ultimate,  unique  and  special contribution  to  the  Jesus  tradition.  He  (the  Paraclete)  is  given  as  the rhetorical fulcrum of John‘s strategic  pastoral  intervention  to  address  the  needs  of  his community in crisis.I conclude that one of the possible reasons for John‘s Gospel being so different to the Synoptics is because at the heart of the Gospel we hear the voice of a pastor –his  Gospel  is  fundamentally  a  pastoral  document.  He  has  reshaped  the  Jesus tradition  and  written  a  strategic  response  to  the  pastoral  and  spiritual  needs  of  his community  in crisis.In  this  way  the  Gospel  itself  fulfills  the  pastoral  commission given to  the  early  church  in  its  concluding  chapter:  ―Feed  my  lambs‖;  ―Tend  my sheep‖; Feed my sheep‖ (Jn. 21:15-17)
ER  -