The love of friendship has, at the least, established its place as a necessary model of love in Christian tradition. This study shows the deep roots it has in Christian thought, among both ancient and modern writers, and is intended to facilitate further reflection on and exploration of its creative potential now and for the future.
Liz Carmichael recognizes that much of our religious talk about friendship or even love somehow misses the mark and threatens to become abstract. In this wonderful study, she argues, with a wealth of scholarship and experience alike, that friendship is the really radical and transforming category we need to make our hopes concrete and to flesh out love in action, mindful of how Christ himself uses the language of friendship and how theologians have thought about faith and love as friendship with God. This is a treasury of insight and resource.
—Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
With this book Liz Carmichael takes us on an expedition into a forgotten land of Christian life and theology. The category of “friendship” throws a surprisingly new light upon our relationship with God, with Jesus, with the life-giving Spirit, with other people, with the whole creation-community. Respect and affection, freedom and reliability, distance and closeness come together. The topic of this is not only true, but also beautiful. We warmly welcome this intensive study and we are happy for the author who took this great step forward into a promising direction of Christian presence in today’s world.
—Elisabeth and Jurgen Mültmann
This is a scholarly and persuasive rehabilitation of the love of friendship, which has much to offer us for living today.
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu