Multireligious Reflections on Friendship

This book presents a multi-religious discussion of spiritual and ethical formation through friendship. Contributors from six global traditions draw on different spiritual concepts to show how friends help us establish diverse societies, healthy ecosystems, trauma healing, inner virtues, social action, and divine connection.

Multireligious Reflections on Friendship: Becoming Ourselves in Community presents a multi-religious discussion of spiritual and ethical formation through friendship. Contributors discuss the positive effects of friendship and some of the culturally diverse ways that friendships develop. Friends help us co-exist in diverse societies, live sustainably in our ecosystems, heal from trauma, develop inner virtues, engage wisely in social action, and connect with the divine. While friendship is a core human value, cultural traditions have used different tools to build friendships. For example, Indigenous communities emphasize reciprocity on the land; Jewish traditions encourage respect for study partners; Buddhist teachers suggest discernment in befriending; Christian texts speak of bringing God’s love into community. The fifteen scholars contributing to this book draw on the teachings of six different global traditions: Indigenous, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian. Each scholar applies the tools of their tradition—reciprocity, respect, discernment, love, and more—to discuss how we might become our best selves in community.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Hussam S. Timani, and Anne-Marie Ellithorpe

Chapter One: Friendship, Treaty, and Family: Indigenous Insights

Raymond C. Aldred and Allen G. Jorgenson

Chapter Two: Friendships of Equality: Mitratva, Hindu Traditions, and Interfaith Possibilities

Jeffery D. Long

Chapter Three: Civic Friendship and Reciprocity: Ancient Biblical Exhortations, Contemporary Opportunities

Anne-Marie Ellithorpe

Chapter Four: Becoming a Friend to the World: Śāntideva on “Bodhisattva Friendship”

John M. Thompson

Chapter Five: Sacred Fellowship Among Learners: A Kabbalistic Pedagogy for Our Times

Laura Duhan-Kaplan

Chapter Six: God, Prophecy, and Friendship in Islam: A Theological Perspective

Hussam S. Timani

Chapter Seven: Ineffable Accompaniment: Towards a Theology of Friendship and The Human Animal

Dorothy Dean

Chapter Eight: “I have called you friends”: Friendship in the New Testament and Early Christianity

Liz Carmichael

Chapter Nine: Seeking God Together in Christ—Friendship in the Christian Life

Paul J. Wadell

Chapter Ten: Love, Friendship, and Solidarity: A Christian Theology of Friendship

Marcus Mescher

Chapter Eleven: A Path Through the Hell of War Trauma: Pavel Florensky's Theology of Friendship

Adam Tietje

Chapter Twelve: The Project of Friendship: Biblical, Butlerian, and Beer-Brewing Reflections

Brandy Daniels and Shelly Penton

Chapter Thirteen: Religion Has No Bo(u)nds?: Expanding the Dimensions of Religion to Account for the Attachment of Spiritual Friendship

Sarah Ann Bixler

About the Contributors