Spiritual Friendship
Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian
Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian
Christianity Today Book Award Winner Friendship is a relationship like no other. Unlike the relationships we are born into, we choose our friends. It is also tenuous--we can end a friendship at any time. But should friendship be so free and unconstrained? Although our culture tends to pay more attention to romantic love, marriage, family, and other forms of community, friendship is a genuine love in its own right. This eloquent book reminds us that Scripture and tradition have a high view of friendship. Single Christians, particularly those who are gay and celibate, may find it is a form of love to which they are especially called. Writing with deep empathy and with fidelity to historic Christian teaching, Wesley Hill retrieves a rich understanding of friendship as a spiritual vocation and explains how the church can foster friendship as a basic component of Christian discipleship. He helps us reimagine friendship as a robust form of love that is worthy of honor and attention in communities of faith. This book sets forth a positive calling for celibate gay Christians and suggests practical ways for all Christians to cultivate stronger friendships.
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Short Review: This is a good followup and I think natural next step after Hill's first book. I think he is largely right that we need deep friendships and that the church should be facilitating and encouraging deep friendships. This is memoir-ish look at friendship because this is largely Hill's own story. Because he is Gay this look at friendship is through the lens of same sex friendship, but I think it is easy to see similar insights with cross gender and same sex (but straight) friendships as well.
This is s a quick read but well worth reading. I started Hill's academic book on Paul and the Trinity but put it down (new parent lack of sleep problems). This encourages me to pick it up sooner rather than later.
My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/spiritual-friendship/
