Inviting faith communities to re(-)member their identity as community-of-friends

Abstract

This thesis is about a pastoral theology of participation, guided by the process of participatory action research. It explores through the lived experience of the participants practical ways of doing friendship.

On this research journey, I explore the discourse of individualism and how it blinds us to our connectedness as creations in the image of God. Without denying the benefits scientific development have to offer, I argue for a more richly textured individualism, inviting concern for the consequences of our actions on the well-being of others as part of our ethical ways of being. The Fourth Century description of a Christian as `friend of God' was the inspiration for the metaphor of friendship as a powerful counterweight against the isolating forces of a culture where the distorting ideology of consumerism and individualism are prevailing. I argue for the re-membering of this metaphor for God as friend, and the church as community-of-friends.

Through the telling of tales of living friendship, interwoven with and giving life to the philosophy of friendship, I build further on the metaphor for the church as community-of-friends. I propose a Friendship Position Map and the metaphor of a circle of concern, arguing that although it comes more natural to us to love those close to us, and reach out to them in friendship, in an ethical spirituality of participation and mutual care, we are to follow Jesus' example and show hospitality towards all others, including strangers and enemies.

Where many authors write about the importance of community, this thesis is about how to create the nourishing community we long for. It explores practical ways in which communities can overcome obstacles in their way to connect to each other through ethical ways of loving and doing friendship. It offers some ideas about learning to be friends in the inner circles of the circle of concern with those close to us, in order to do friendship in the outer circles. I explore the role of the church and faith communities as habitat for the nurturing and/or cultivating of living friendships, in inviting faith communities to live as community-of-friends; friends of God and of one another.