Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.09.2008, Page 30

important words of criticism for those who lead. If we understand that
the Gospels were written in the late first century, after the writing of the
Pauline letters, and if we remember that these books were written primarily
as theological proposals to the then current churches, we should see their
critical, reforming intent in the actual life of the churches of the time, also
in respect to leadership.
That this reforming intent is important and unique can be seen by
comparison with two other ways that late first-century or early second
century Christian books chose to go. The Johannine letters demonstrate
one alternate approach. For this writer, called the “elder,” there are leaders
who are wrong — “Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first,” for example
(3 John 9) — and leaders who are right — himself and the missionary
“friends” or “brothers,” for example (3 John 3, 7, 10). Here, the book
envisions an alternative set of true leaders, not an ongoing reform of
whatever leaders there are. The probably second century Gospel of Judas
demonstrates yet another way. Here the disciples are indeed massively
criticized, in language reminiscent of the Fourth Gospel (“How do you
know me? Truly I say to you, no generation of the people that are among
you will know me.”).3 But then here the rejection of the twelve — who
are presented as “priests” and teachers in the current church4 — is paired
not with an alternative leadership but with the announcement of a way
supposedly without leaders, the Gnostic way of the star-guided, escaping,
individual soul, the way of “Jesus” and of “Judas.” Here not only leadership,
but also assembly, sacraments, and creation itself are denounced.
I think that these alternatives make the way of the four Gospels all the
more precious to us. It is a realistic and flesh-affirming way, quite aware
that communities will inevitably have leaders and religious communities
will have sacred leaders. It is also a way of reform, setting out a continuing
critique of leadership in Christian communities and a continuing set of
criteria for that critique. I think it is a way we need today.
It is, of course, a paradoxical way. Peter is both Satan and the Rock.
3 Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, The Gospel of Judas (Washington, D.C.:
National Geographic, 2006), 21.
4 ihid., 25-29.
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