Author: Ron Belgau

Why don’t we talk about friendship more?

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I realize that, at this blog, that’s a somewhat silly question. But over at Fare Forward, Jordan Monge raises the question with regard to the broader Christian culture:

Friendship often is given short shrift in our culture. As every child knows, the Disney movie ends with the princess marrying her prince charming and not by her forming a lifelong platonic friendship. Where marriage is so significant it demands a wedding ceremony more expensive than a car, friendship is mundane, meriting less deliberate investment and certainly no formal declarations of mutual love and admiration. You could buy a library’s worth of self-help books about cultivating a better marriage, but there is little formal thought devoted to becoming a better friend or what friendship ought to look like.

It hasn’t always been this way. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero authored works on friendship. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, there is a ceremony called adelphopoiesis, which is literally translated as “brother-making.” Norwegian, Chinese, and Native American cultures were known to have had ceremonies to honor blood brothers. It’s ironic that, among Christians, we’ve privileged marriage so much highly over friendship despite the fact that our founder Jesus Christ was a man who never married but did invest quite deliberately in 12 friends.

Check out the whole thing.

Friendship and the Scandal of Particularity

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In a recent post, Wesley Hill discusses the apparent tension between the Christian ideal of universal, unconditional love and the particularity of friendship, and cites Samuel Johnson’s worry that “All friendship is preferring the interest of a friend, to the neglect, or, perhaps, against the interest of others… Now Christianity recommends universal benevolence, to consider all men as our brethren; which is contrary to the virtue of friendship, as described by the ancient philosophers.”

I want to draw attention to a serious problem with Johnson’s understanding of Christian love.

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Welcoming and shaming

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A friend of mine recently brought my attention to a video called “Homosexuality and Hope: My Journey to Truth in the Catholic Church.” In the video, the speaker says:

We can let go of any shame or guilt internalized on account of the existence of those attractions. Ok? This whole myth that we’re supposed to feel shameful? Forget it. It’s not part of Catholic Church teaching, and if you do have shame or guilt because of the fact that you might have same sex attractions, you can let that go. We’ve all been able to let that go. It’s absolutely liberating.

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Understanding the context of debate

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For almost 20 centuries, there was little controversy over Christian teaching about homosexuality. For the last few decades, there has been an extraordinary amount of controversy. How should Christians respond to this changing situation?

The core truths of the Gospel never change (Hebrews 13:8). However, each generation of Christians faces its own challenges in sharing the good news of God’s love. Different cultures ask different questions and require different approaches to preaching.

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Spiritual friendship in 300 words

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A friend of mine and I were recently discussing the difficulties of trying to explain the themes we discuss on this blog clearly and succinctly, in a way that does justice to the various aspects of the discussion. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to try my hand at explaining what I’m about in 300 words, in a way that was personal, hopeful, honest about obstacles, and in touch with the broader Christian tradition.

(Actually, Microsoft Word informs me that this is only 297 words.)
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Identity questions

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Yesterday, the Gospel Coalition blog posted an article by Jeff Buchanan of Exodus called “The New Sexual Identity Crisis.”

Today, Matt Anderson (of MereOrthodoxy) blogged about “The Trouble with Talking about Our ‘Identity in Christ.'”

I agree with Matt that there is a lot of confusion surrounding use of the term “identity.” I want to address this issue in more depth at some point, but I don’t have the time these days. So I will just throw out a couple of (relatively) brief observations.

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“Ask, tell”: Pepperdine chapel talk by A. J. Hawks

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Pepperdine University is a Christian school affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Like other Church of Christ schools, Pepperdine embraces the traditional view that sexual intimacy is only appropriate within marriage between a man and a woman.

The following chapel talk invites students to talk about gay issues with honesty and integrity:

Thomas Sundaram on friendship with Joshua Gonnerman

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I don’t particularly recommend reading the comments on Joshua Gonnerman’s commentary on Dan Savage over at First Things (or at least, if you’re going to read them, I suggest you take your blood pressure medicine first).

For example, “dadfly” responds to Joshua’s statement that “Christians have appealed far too quickly to their traditional moral views to avoid offering support to gay people” with this:

i believe that Jesus has called on me to do many things (and He knows i’ve fallen horribly short many times), but none of them required that i “support” any political faction or special interest group.

When Jesus was called a friend of sinners, it did not mean that He supported sin. Gay people cannot be reduced to a political faction or special interest group. They are, first and foremost, people.

However, there are a few roses amidst the comment box thorns. One comment in particular caught my eye, because it provides a beautiful glimpse of friendship in action. 

Thomas Sundaram is a straight friend of Joshua’s from their undergrad days at Thomas Aquinas College. His comment paints a picture of friendship that reminds us not only that he can support Joshua, but also that Joshua has often supported him. Friendship is a way of knowing the whole, three-dimensional, living and breathing human person. We do not befriend traits: we befriend people.

Anyhow, I strongly recommend Sundaram’s comment. It is a great example of spiritual friendship in action. Read the whole thing:

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