Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity A Missing Dimension in New Testament Studies
Johnson is convinced that the dominant ways of studying early Christianity tend to miss its specifically religious character, because of a disjunction between formal religion and "popular" religion. He proposes in this book, by means of three case studies-baptism, glossolalia, and meals-to show how a more wholistic, phenomenological approach can be made. This makes possible the inclusion of the world of healings and religious power, of ecstay and spirit-in short, the religious experience of real persons in the study of early Christianity. Johnson concludes that there is still much to be learned about early Christianity as a religion, if we can find a way to get at the category of real experience. He maintains that early Christian texts reflect lives that are caught up by and defined by a power not in their control but controlled instead by the crucified and raised Messiah Jesus.