Our Brother Beloved

"Draws on Positioning Theory to offer a fresh reading of Philemon and challenge traditional interpretations that argue for a pro-slavery perspective in the letter"--

"Draws on Positioning Theory to offer a fresh reading of Philemon and challenge traditional interpretations that argue for a pro-slavery perspective in the letter"--

The “beautiful and wise account” of Martin Luther King Jr. and Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, who “gave greater life to all of us through their remarkable friendship and shared vision of nonviolence” (Joan Halifax, author of Standing at the Edge). The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a heartbroken letter to their mutual friend Raphael Gould. He said: "I did not sleep last night. . . . They killed Martin Luther King. They killed us. I am afraid the root of violence is so deep in the heart and mind and manner of this society. They killed him. They killed my hope. I do not know what to say. . . . He made so great an impression in me. This morning I have the impression that I cannot bear the loss." Only a few years earlier, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote an open letter to Martin Luther King Jr. as part of his effort to raise awareness and bring peace in Vietnam. There was an unexpected outcome of Nhat Hanh's letter to King: The two men met in 1966 and 1967 and became not only allies in the peace movement, but friends. This friendship between two prophetic figures from different religions and cultures, from countries at war with one another, reached a great depth in a short period of time. Dr. King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He wrote: "Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity." The two men bonded over a vision of the Beloved Community: a vision described recently by Congressman John Lewis as "a nation and world society at peace with itself." It was a concept each knew of because of their membership within the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international peace organization, and that Martin Luther King Jr. had been popularizing through his work for some time. Thich Nhat Hanh, Andrus shows, took the lineage of the Beloved Community from King and carried it on after his death.

In his letters, the apostle Paul commonly refers to his fellow believers as adelfoi, as his brothers and sisters. Here, Reidar Aasgaard offers the first in-depth, and by far the most profound, analysis of this sibling vocabulary in the Pauline epistles.

Matthew V. Johnson is senior pastor at The Good Shepherd Church (Baptist) in Atlanta. --

Who is the mysteriously-unnamed Beloved Disciple of Jesus, in the Gospel according to John? Evidence from Mark's Gospel indicates that Jesus' brother Jacob (called "James" in the English New Testament) was a boy at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. Following this premise, an examination of the Greek text of John's Gospel reveals that this young brother Jacob is the Beloved Disciple - "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Further, it is (the future adult) Jacob of whom Jesus speaks at the Supper, as the Paraclete/Spirit of Truth who will, in the following years, guide the disciples and remind them of Jesus' words to them. It is Jacob's own death by stoning, in 62 C.E., which lies behind the deeply-moving story of the illness, death, and raising to life of "Lazarus." Implicit in John's Gospel is a post-resurrection community, centred around, and led by, Mary Magdalene. Jacob's own letters (1 and 2 John) to Mary Magdalene and her community reveal the tensions which arose in that community. John, the evangelist, set out to record not only his understanding of the meaning of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, but also the significance of Jesus' brother Jacob and Mary Magdalene for the fledgling church in the years between c30 and 62 C.E. "I think that if anyone wants to write on the topic [the Beloved Disciple] then they have to take this book into account and give reasons for either agreeing or disagreeing with it." Robert Crotty - Emeritus Professor of Religion and Education, University of South Australia Katherine C. Linforth, MTS, is a graduate of the MCD University of Divinity, Melbourne. Her current interest is the early church and the men and women who formed and influenced it, in the years between c.30 and 70 C.E.