Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship

Conclusion

This book has investigated the relationship of friendship from the perspective of practical theology, with specific consideration given to practices and to the social and theological imagination. My research affirms friendship as a theologically rich relationship with multigenerational impact, and advocates for transformative friendship-shaped communities characterized by relationships of reciprocity, compassion, and active friendship. While friendship has been trivialized, it is not a trivial relationship. Rather, it is a relationship of ethical significance, with public, political, and spiritual dimensions.

Willie Jennings describes friendships as forming “on a social fabric before they create a fabric.”¹ Although this fabric may be deformed, it may also be remade, as people listen to and learn from one another and pursue social justice. Thus, attention must be paid to the warp and weft of social fabric, including the interrelationship of God, land, and people, as well as to friendships themselves.

Indigenous understandings of relationality and friendship are interwoven with kinship concepts. In a number of contexts, Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada among them, treaties between Indigenous people and the leadership of the colonizing empire were understood to be treaties of covenantal friendship, creating kin-like relationships. The injustices of colonization, which include ignoring or dishonoring friendship treaties, have, however, deformed the social fabric. Unequal ...