Digital Commons @ George Fox University Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies College of Christian Studies 2014 The ommC unity that Raymond Brown Left Behind: Reflections on the Johannine Dialectical Situation (Chapter in Communities in Dispute : Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles) Paul N. Anderson George Fox University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ccs Part of the Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Anderson, Paul N., "The ommC unity that Raymond Brown Left Behind: Reflections on the Johannine Dialectical Situation (Chapter in Communities in Dispute : Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles)" (2014). Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies. 287. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ccs/287 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Christian Studies at Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Community that Raymond Brown Left Behind: Reflections on the Johannine Dialectical Situation1 Paul N. Anderson Among the paradigm-making contributions in Johannine studies over the last half century, one of the most significant is the sketching of “the com- munity of the Beloved Disciple” by Raymond E. Brown (1979). Extending beyond Johannine studies, Brown’s (1984) work on the history of early Christianity and “the churches the apostles left behind” is also among the most practical and interesting of his forty-seven books.2 Here, Brown’s analysis of the unity and diversity of early Christian approaches to leader- ship and community organization3 have extensive implications, not only for historical and sociological understandings of the first-century Chris- tian movement, but also for approaches to Christian leadership in later 1.