Issue 21 Changing MindsBlog | Offering a better theology of friendship
Offering a better theology of friendship
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 09.12.19
‘ I would like to ask you to forgive me. I sometimes think people won’t accept me and so I draw myself away from everyone and do not talk. I am afraid often. But the truth is, I do want friends and I am sorry for when I have not been a friend to you.’ These words from one of my neighbours, a young Romanian woman who has lived opposite me for the past couple of years, caught me off guard. In the process of playing out on the street with her kids and swapping some homemade desserts the night before, something in her had softened and without warning or prompting, she confessed to not being as good a neighbour as she had hoped to be. She wanted to repair any damage she might have caused me by her isolation. I told her there was nothing to forgive (there really wasn’t as far as I was aware!) and we hugged and agreed that people need each other.
As headlines increasingly proclaim a ‘loneliness epidemic’ across our society, especially in our young adults, I have become increasingly convinced that we need to preach a better theology of friendship, to paint a picture of the Kingdom of God’s incredible vision for this highest form of love and human relating.
