Rediscovering Friendship: Awakening to the Power and Promise of Women's Friendships

by Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel

Overview

"Friendship is a broad sphere which unites heaven and earth..."Less beholden to traditional models of family and to classical male ideals, a new generation is re-evaluating and transforming friendship, says Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel.

Observing this phenomenon, particularly among women, she elaborates its biblical affinities and its potential for enriching an often-friendless culture. In an honest and meditative style, Moltmann-Wendel finds in friendship new dimensions of adventure, consolation, self-knowledge, love, and political relevance, as well as profound resonances with Jesus' friendships with women, especially Mary Magdalene, and with his friends at the Last Supper.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780800634452
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	06/20/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.32(d)

About the Author

Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel is a theologian and journalist and author of Freedom, Equality, and Sisterhood (1978), The Women around Jesus (1982), A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey (1986), and I Am My Body (1995).

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
1.	Traditions of Friendship with God	10
	The biblical basis	10
	Later traces	14
2.	From Friendship with God to Friendship between Women	17
	Jurgen Moltmann	17
	Sallie McFague	18
	Carter Heyward	20
	Mary Hunt	23
	Hildegund Keul	25
	Earthing friendship	27
3.	Jesus, the Friend	31
	Dying for friends	32
	Wisdom's friendly meal	35
	The friend in everyday life	38
4.	The Last Supper as a Meal of Friendship	41
	Self-surrender instead of sacrifice	43
	The life-giving body of Jesus	45
	Theogusty - tasting God	47
5.	The Separation of God and Goodness	51
	Women's experiences	52
	Complicity	57
	Forgiveness and healing	60
6.	Jesus' Friend - Mary Magdalene	66
	Motherhood versus friendship	68
	The counter-story	70
	The church in the spirit of Mary Magdalene	75
	Mary Magdalene as a social symbol	78
7.	Friendly Contacts: Tenderness and Eros	82
	What is tenderness?	83
	Political tenderness	86
	Men discover tenderness	88
	Eroticism as women's power	90
	Eros in Christianity	93
	From Eros to housework	96
8.	My Body - My Friend	99
	New knowledge of the body	101
	Freeing oneself from false attributes	103
	Healing self-insight	104
	Natality and curiosity	106
9.	Friendship with the Earth	108
	The creative earth	110
	The earth interceding for justice	111
	The helping earth	113
	The transforming power of the earth	115
10.	Closing Thoughts	119
	Notes	121