Becoming Friends: Worship, Justice, and the Practice of Christian Friendship

by Paul J. Wadell

Overview

How do Christians understand friendship and intimacy? How does worship form Christians into a community of the friends of God? What virtues does God call us to incorporate into our lives? In Becoming Friends, Paul Wadell explores the connections between worship, justice, friendship, and the life we are called to live.

This engaging and accessible book offers a fresh viewpoint from which to explore the nature of Christian friendship. Such friendship, Wadell contends, is more than a bonding of people with similar interests, a "ritual of hopeless consolation." True Christian friendship summons us to love all of our neighbors. Wadell examines obstacles to and characteristics of true friendship and, drawing from the works of Augustine, Aelred of Rievaulx, and other Christian exemplars, contends that we are called to serve God through friendship and that this calling requires us to cultivate certain virtues—especially hope, justice, and forgiveness.

Becoming Friends offers a provocative look into the nature and importance of true Christian friendship. Anyone looking to reflect on the indispensable role of good friendships in the Christian life will find this a hopeful and encouraging book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587430510
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/2002
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul J. Wadell is associate professor of religious studies at St. Norbert College, DePere, Wisconsin. His previous works include Friendship and the Moral Life, Friends of God: The Primacy of Love, and Morality.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Worshipping Dangerously: The Risky Business of Becoming Friends of God
2. Exploring the Mysteries of Intimacy: What Hinders and What Helps the Friendships of Our Lives
3. Why There Are Some Debts We Can Never Repay: The Good Things Good Friends Do For Us
4. Confronting the Riddles of Intimacy: Augustine on Friendship in the Christian Life
5. What Medieval Monks Can Do For Us: Aelred of Rievaulx and the Life of Spiritual Friendship
6. Astounding Them By Our Way of Life: What Friends of God Can Offer the World
7. Setting the World on Fire: Friendship With God and a Commitment to Justice
8. Not Letting Hurt Have the Final Word: Friendship and the Practice of Forgiveness

Notes

Editorial Reviews

While this book and its chapter titles promise challenging insights about the nature of Christian friendship, Wadell only occasionally gets beyond platitudes and statements of the obvious. Everything he says rings true, and a few of his observations provoke thought and self-examination, but he almost never moves from stating evident truths (e.g., "friendship should not be self-serving") to providing strategies for living these truths. He begins by challenging readers to worship authentically, thereby risking true friendship with God. This could be a provocative idea, but it doesn't go anywhere. Instead, Wadell gets bogged down in restatement of this thesis. This unfortunately happens in other chapters, such as those about the goodness of friendship and the importance of justice. Some chapters promise analysis and exegesis of the work of other authors, such as Aelred of Rievaulx and Augustine, but in these Wadell does little more than summarize. These shortcomings are regrettable, because he correctly identifies many of the barriers to intimacy that we have constructed in contemporary society, such as our addiction to busyness and unwillingness to be troubled by the needs of others. Such flaws obviously grieve him, and he wants the church (he writes to all Christians, but most specifically to his fellow Catholics) to create a radical counterculture in which true love and friendship abound. This book would have been well served by generous helpings of detailed stories of Christian friendship in action, but contains only a few brief and superficial illustrations. (July) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly