Mystical Christianity: A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John

Rating:
Summary: A fruitful read of John's gospel
Review: John is the most widely written-about of the four gospels; there is no end in sight of takes on this perennial favorite. John is also the favorite of many confessing Christians, I would imagine. This is fascinating, since John is by far the most difficult of the gospels to make sense of. Written in simple Greek, its ideas are anything but simple, and reward nearly any perspective on it with new ideas.

This polysemous quality of John's gospel makes Sanford's book possible. Such a rich and mysterious religious book is bound to attract the interests of Jungian scholars, and this collaboration between Jung and John is wonderful. Both are allowed to say what they need to say. Sanford, a well-known Jungian expert and writer, avoids the unfortunate mistake of many Jungians in saying that "what the text REALLY means is this..." Sanford exegetes the passages well, in a way that shows his willingness to familiarize himself with the literature on John out there. In other words, he doesn't come at the gospel in an ad hoc fashion that turns it into a springboard for Sanford's own spiritual agenda. Sanford's touch here is light: he tells us, not what the text MEANS, but what the text says to someone who approaches it from the standpoint of Jungian analysis and scholarship. This means that the book ought to be read by profession biblical scholars as well as interested laymen, because it brings another honest and intelligent reading of John's gospel to the table.

If you are interested in a fresh reading of a gospel that may be over-familiar to you in many ways, one that will (I promise) give you new things to think about in the midst of stories you may have been reading since Sunday school, you ought to pick up a copy of this book. You don't need to know anything about John or Jungian psychology to enjoy this book. You only have to want to learn something new about the way this gospel talks about God, and what that means to us. Sanford has written a unique and lasting book.

Rating:
Summary: observations on Mystical Christianity
Review: Sanford's work is an inspired and well constructed study on the Gospel of John that provides compelling insights into what for me was an unusual grounding in contemporary psychology. He accomplishes this in a manner that, despite it's academic bent, does not dilute the power of this inspired word of God, but in fact helps resurrect it given the general contemporary Christian view of things.

I enjoyed throughout Sanford's use of references to groundbreaking works by both theological masters and psychological pioneers that helped justify his narratives. Key and pivotal alternate translations of the original Greek were, in my opinion, much of the power of the work.

Perhaps the one weakness of the work is that the author, obviously a gifted and keenly intelligent man, might have forgone some of the background material to provide additional comments and insights into the relationship of the indwelling Holy Spirit that John describes with our own day-to-day life (John 16 5-33)