On the one hand, ideology reflects reality, on the other hand, there is no ideology, which corresponds to reality as it is.139 Moreover, reality affects ideology. Since this is so, ideology, particularly at the textual level, needs to be interpreted in order to comprehend reality in history.140
In the Gospel of John, there seems to be ideology, in particular Christology (whether or not it is regarded as a political issue), which reflects not only the real Johannine world but also that which could be employed to reveal the ideal world which the Johannine Jesus/John/the Johannine community might pursue. Hence, ideology in the Gospel needs to be interpreted at the textual level to discover the reality of the Johannine world with which the Johannine community was confronted. The Johannine reality also needs to be reconstructed to seek for the influential elements in the formation and development of ideology in this Gospel.141 In the case of the Fourth Gospel, for example, the author might put his ideology into the composition of the Gospel, reflecting the real world to which he and his community belonged, in order to describe the ideal world where Jesus as the king reigns using terms, concepts and literary devices which had developed through the mixture of the cultures of the center and the margins.142
As a result, no interpretation of ideology in the text can be done in a vacuum. The important thing in the interpretation of Johannine ideology and reconstruction of the Johannine world, therefore, is to discover the relationship of the Johannine community and the conditions of the world in which the community is represented.
The difference and gap between the reality of the Johannine world and the ideological Johannine world occurs and exists because ideology reflects reality and reality has an effect on ideology. Consequently, it might be true that a greater or lesser gap (description with different angles, hyperbole, maximization or minimization) of representation of the real world would occur in the author’s representation of ideology in the text. Furthermore, more twist and gap of representation of the real world would occur in the readers’ interpretation of the ideology. In spite of the series of twists and gaps, however, through interpretation of ideology in a particular text we can reconstruct a hypothetical world, which reflects the real world, as described in the text and can discover the factors that influenced the formation of the ideology, though an interpretation is dependent on the interpreter’s circumstances. We cannot help but being interpreted by our circumstances when seeking to interpret the ideology of the Gospel.143 Therefore, an analysis of the interpreter is necessary in order to interpret the ideology of this Gospel from a postcolonial perspective.144
Postcolonialism vs. Colonial Imperialism145
First, to read the Gospel of John from a postcolonial perspective, it is important to know that one of the main topics of postcolonial reading in biblical studies is a discourse on “identity matter.” In terms of identity, differences and similarities between the colonizer and the colonized have been recognized as one of the most important factors. That is, postcolonial theory has been employed to clarify various identities and the complex relations between them in colonial society. For example, Bhabha146 scrutinizes the matters of similarity and mixtures between the colonizer and the colonized, while Said147 describes differences and opposition between them in his colonial discourses.148 Likewise, the Fourth Gospel implies that the identities of the individuals and the groups in the Gospel perform their various and complex mutual relations with difference and similarity.149 In addition, the relationship between the center and the margins as encompassing both social and cultural reality from a number of different angles shows a range of disciplines within postcolonial studies.150 Among postcolonial themes, perspectives on the relations between the center and the margin and hybridized identities in the colonial society will be employed in my book. In short, clarifying their identities in a colonial society can be a key to postcolonial interpretation of the Gospel of John, particularly regarding the identity of the Johannine Jesus as decolonizer,151 knowing that difference and similarity between the colonizer and the colonized is a major contact point between postcolonialism and the Fourth Gospel.
Secondly, one of the topics of postcolonial reading in biblical studies is a discourse of resistance and emancipation. Segovia says,
The proposed postcolonial optic in biblical studies is obviously a discourse of resistance and emancipation. It takes as its reading lens the geo-political relationship between center and periphery, the imperial and the colonial, not only at the level of the text but also at the level of interpretation, of readings and readers of the text. It does so, moreover, with decolonization and liberation in mind, as it proceeds to highlight the periphery over the center and the colonial over the imperial.152
Sugirtharajah also says,
[Postcolonialism] is an active confrontation with the dominant system of thought, its lopsidedness and inadequacies, and underlines its unsuitability for us. Hence, it is a process of cultural and discursive emancipation from all dominant structures whether they be political, linguistic or ideological.153
In the Gospel of John, we can discover a discourse of resistance and liberation. By the employment of a variety of christological titles from the center as well as from the margins, the Gospel presents the identity of Jesus as king. It challenges its readers in the colonial world to believe and follow him as the real king who liberates the margins of the colonized world and eventually, from the darkness.
Thirdly, when “postcolonial studies engage in examining the complex web of desire and distantiation between the colonists and the colonized,”154 three major concepts, such as ambivalence, mimicry, and hybridentity, become “touchstones for debates over colonial discourse, anti-colonial resistance, and post-colonial identity.”155
1) Ambivalence is used to describe a continual interchange between both opposites, namely the center/the colonizer and the margins/the colonized. Therefore, it suggests both compliance and resistance in a colonial subject. In postcolonialism, it refers to a simultaneous attraction and repulsion, which marks the complex relationship between them.156 In this respect, collaboration and resistance in a colonial society become unavoidable. In addition, postcolonial ambivalence gives the margins room for collaboration with the central power and/or resistance against the center. As a result, “ambivalence decenters authority from its position of power” to that of the margins.157 For example, the Johannine readers as the margins could see a resistant tendency in the Gospel against this earthly Imperialism, but a collaborating tendency toward the heavenly kingdom (the Johannine new world), when they met its ambivalent usage of the Johannine christological titles, which could imply various definitions in different contexts.
2) Postcolonial mimicry is also used to describe the ambivalent relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The phrase, “a difference that is almost the same, but not