I recently read the book “Forbidden Friendships:Retaking the Biblical Gift of Male-Female Friendship” by Joshua D. Jones and I found it to be an excellent resource on how we, as Christians with integrity, should respond to our culture; and I would greatly recommend it. Once I sat down and started it I kept being drawn to read more. I found this book to be an excellent look at male-female friendships and how for the sake of integrity we have lost the goodness that they bring to the table. I loved how he begins by addressing the boundaries we create for male-female relationships that cause male pastors to connect really well to males, but not to females and vice versa. It has good intentions, but has gone too far. There were so many rich quotes all throughout that I found the best way to review this book would be by looking at a few of them.
I would like to begin with the quote that I find summarizes most of the book in an excellent way. This is when Jones says, "We are now brothers and sisters. Christ’s work transforms the full spectrum of human relationships be they between race, class, age or gender.” Within the Church we need this reminder for the sake of integrity and equality. Paul tells us that we are neither male nor female, Jew or Gentile and so we need to stop letting our culture’s oversexualization prevent us from being the Church as brothers and sisters together. From the very beginning of the book there is this focus on how both males and females have something to bring to the table and by segregating them we do a disservice to each other and towards our mission to work towards God's Kingdom here on Earth. We are both made in the image of God, so we should work together to further the Kingdom and not separate.
“We are called to be the Family of God. But we often seem more like of a collection of families who fail to celebrate celibacy, deep friendships and opposite-gender relationships - other than marriage - of any sort. I don’t know of any man who has “too many” female friendships. I don’t know of any Christian woman who loves men “too much”." This quote shows us the importance of highlighting that we truly are meant to be a Family. We are meant to be brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, fathers, and mothers to those within the Church body. That is how a lot of healing takes place especially in broken families. We need to be a family to those coming to Christ from all paths of life.
I did find that it was worth noting that our current state within the church “is quite a sharp contrast to the second and third centuries in the Church when friendship was exalted and marriage belittled. Then it was celibate culture which dominated Christianity and married people struggled to fit in. Fortunately, early church leaders like John Chrysostom and Augustine (both celibates themselves) wrote on the sanctity of marriage and helped to save Christianity from becoming a singles club.” It appears we have bounced from one extreme to another and we, as the Church, need to find a middle ground. We need to both affirm celibacy and marriage as both good in the eyes of God and both ways to live within the Church Body.
Within the Church we need to be affirming, welcoming, and even encouraging to both paths of life: those who pursue marriage and those who pursue celibacy. Jones reminds us that, “When God’s Church accepts and affirms people in their celibacy (whether it is chosen or not) it is a sign to the world around us that God’s future Kingdom is breaking through among us now. It is a step towards living out relationships “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This does not mean that a celibate life is superior to sex and a married life (as some in the past have thought) but it is a sign that another life force is present with us, enabling some individuals in our midst to live without those things." We need to realize we are in the “already and not yet” and stop just focusing on the “not yet.” We need to remember that the Crucifixion and Resurrection began the ushering in of the Kingdom and we need to already begin living like the Kingdom is breaking in...because it is!
In establishing this model of being a Family of God we should pursue this idea of anamchara that the author discusses. He talks about how we should have a “goal of mentoring someone” which would lead to having “a spiritual friend and co-worker in mission. A part of this large history of spiritual mentoring is represented by the Gaelic word anamchara or “soul friend”. An anamchara was one you intimately engaged with for the purpose of edification. Anamchara was often initiated when one of the two was a more mature, mentor figure. Even when it started as a mentorship, however, the goal was to grow up together into friendship in Christ.” Our goal is equal friendship within the family.
I have found overall this book to be a wonderful call towards embracing the Truth that we are called to become a Family of God and that within that we do not need to pursue marriage over celibacy or vice versa. We need to affirm both callings in life and find ways to be anamcharas to others within our world. It is also important to end this post with the reminder that the book ends with: Yes we were made for community, yes it is not good for “man to be alone”, but ultimately no person--spouse or friend--can truly ever satisfy the longing within our soul. The longing for our Creator, our Sustainer. That longing can only be fulfilled by the Trinitarian friendship that we will one day be whole with. So lets let our “true inter-gender friendship...be one of the most powerful apologetics for the gospel we can display in the 21st Century.”
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