I've Never Heard This Preached in Church

john's gospel, dr. hugo méndez, and january's podcast episode

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Friends.

Today I recorded a conversation with Dr. Hugo Méndez. We talked about his book, “The Gospel of John: A New History” and … wowzers.

Hugo is an Associate Professor in Ancient Mediterranean Religions at UNC Chapel Hill and a practicing Catholic. My favorite thing about this conversation is that he shared some really interesting scholarship around the Gospel of John …

Who wrote it?

How does it differ from the other Gospels?

Are the stories historical?

… and then tied it into the spiritual journey, talking to us about the implications of John’s theology on the life of a modern day follower of Jesus.

John’s theology?

Yes.

Here’s a quote from the book …

“John casts the Logos (which we get from John 1) as an entity worthy of being called ‘The Son of God’ and to be called ‘god’ or ‘divine. What many easily miss, however, is the fact that the Gospel indicates that other humans will participate in the same status. According to the Gospel, Jesus came to create fellow ‘children of God’ who like him are also ‘born of God’. The Gospel does not shy away from the notion of human beings being called ‘gods’ in some participatory manner.”

Phew.

I mean - it’s IN there. This stuff is IN John’s Gospel, plain as day.

BUT.

Have you heard this preached in church? Sure, maybe it’s been alluded to a little bit here and there … but that’s about it. The Gospel of John’s Jesus has (I think) been radically tamed to fit into the neat little boxes of Orthodoxy and in this episode (and in his book!) Hugo is taking us right into the heart of John’s theology and the implications of it for our lives and faith.

We packed a lot into the 50-ish minutes we talked so stay tuned for the episode on January 5 (the first episode of SEASON NINE! and EPISODE 355!) followed by a blog post later in the month where I’ll share some takeaways from the book and our conversation.

Thanks for being on the journey with me.

Much love.

• Glenn || SUPPORT / ART STUDIO