Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship

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Anne-Marie Ellithorpe. Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship

Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities. A Practical Theology of Friendship

Contents

List of Illustrations

Guide

Pages

Illustrations

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Why Friendship?

Practical Theology

Practical Wisdom, Practices, and the Social Imagination

Critical Dialogue between Diverse Sources

Looking Backward and Forward

Part I: The Current Reality

Part II: A Deep Remembering

Part III: Friendship, Theology, and the Social Imagination

Part IV: Practicing Friendship

Conclusion and Appendix

Notes

References

Part I The Current Reality

1 The Place of Friendship

What Is Friendship?

Is Friendship Essential or Peripheral to Being Human?

What Is Friendship in Our Social World?

How Does Technology Shape Contemporary Friendships and Communities?

What Theological, Ethical, and Spiritual Dimensions Does Friendship Have?

Is Friendship a Private, Public, or Political Relationship?

Summary

Notes

References

2 Coexisting Friendship Worlds

Relationships as Social Glue

Friendship and Indigenous Relational Understandings

The Interrelationship of Various Forms of Friendship

Treaty: From Friendship Covenant to Legal Nullity

Resistance: Expressions of Friendship in the Face of Oppression

Coexistence, Commitment, and Compassion

Summary

Notes

References

Part II A Deep Remembering – Friendship, Community, Resistance

3 Friendship and First Testament Writings

Terminology of Love and Friendship

Imago Dei and Friendship within the Creation Accounts

Reciprocity within Community: Friendship and the Prophetic Challenge

Befriending the Stranger: Imaging God within the Covenant Community

Friendship and the Wisdom Tradition

Summary

Notes

References

4 Friendship and Second Testament Writings

Foundational Whakapapa in Matthew and Luke

Friendship and the Broader Community within Matthew and Luke

Love, Friendship, and Accompaniment within the Johannine Writings

Reconciliation as the Restoration of Friendship: Pauline Letters

Summary

Notes

References

5 Friendship in Classical and Christian Traditions

The Essentialness of Friendship

Characteristics and Practices of Friendship

Friendship with the Divine

The Relevance of Friendship to Communities

Summary

Notes

References

Bridge: Shifts in Vision

Attunement, Displacement, and Disengagement

The Marginalization yet Tenacity of Friendship

Conversation Partners in the Pursuit of an Alternative Stance to Friendship and the Cosmos

Summary

Notes

References

Part III Theology, Friendship, and the Social Imagination

Note

6 Mutuality God, Creation and Community

God and Friendship

The Mutuality of Creation

Theological Anthropology and Friendship

Community, the Common Good, and Civic Friendship

Summary

Notes

References

7 Open Friendship, Becoming Kin, and the Human Vocation

The Spirit and Friendship

Friendship within a Christological Frame

Ecclesiology and More: The New Humanity and Friendship

Summary

Notes

References

8 Love, Spirit-Shaped Friendships, and Friendship-Shaped Communities

Imaging a God of Love

Mutuality and Equal Regard

Self-Giving in Mutual Accompaniment

Life-Cycle Variations

Concern for the Greater Good and the Reign of God

Imaging God through Spirit-Shaped Friendships

Hospitality

Freedom

Wisdom

Imaging God through Friendship-Shaped Communities

Summary

Notes

References

Part IV Practicing Friendship

9 Friendship and Community Ideals and Implementation

Ideals of Friendship

The Implementation of Ideals within Communities of Practice

Friends

Families and Whānau

Communities of Faith

Authors, Educators, Academics

Transformative Communities of Practice

Summary

Notes

References

Conclusion

Notes

References

Appendix: A Correlational Approach to Theological Reflection

I. Objections

II. Challenges

III. Strengths

IV. My Response

Notes

References

Glossary

INDEX

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Anne-Marie Ellithorpe

A small gift given in loveto the people of the land and the people of the Treatyin Aotearoa New Zealand

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While the term imaginary inherits a tendency towards“cultural abstraction,”44 one may also speak of a social imaginary on a smaller scale, for example, a Benedictine, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal social imaginary. This term may also be used in a more person-centered manner, recognizing that learned cultural understandings are not necessarily a fixed entity fully held in common by a group. Rather, while groups may share some understandings, they may be fractured regarding other understandings.45 Further, some understandings may be shared among those who have experienced similar “formative experiences despite living in different parts of the world” and lacking a common cultural identity. Thus, for example, a Chinese Australian Christian living in North America may share some cultural understandings with other Australian citizens, and some cultural understandings with other Asians, while being part of a Christian faith community will shape yet other understandings or imaginaries. The experience of living internationally is also likely over time to contribute to the reshaping of certain understandings.

The relationship between background understandings (imaginaries) and practices is reciprocal. While practices shape the imagination, the imagination also shapes practices. As Taylor notes, “a transformative understanding might enter a social imagination to unsettle and shift its ‘seeing’ of the way things are.”46 Alternatively, changes to the imagination may be attributed to changes in practices. Indeed, Taylor notes that these may be inseparable.47 With certain ideas being internal to specific practices, one cannot distinguish “Which causes which?” Shared imagination both sustains the meaning of practices and is sustained by practices.48 Thus, the social imagination leads to specific practices of friendship, while simultaneously relational practices of friendship contribute towards the formation of the imagination.

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