This book has investigated the relationship of friendship from the perspective of practical theology, with specific consideration given to practices and to the social and theological imagination. My research affirms friendship as a theologically rich relationship with multigenerational impact, and advocates for transformative friendship-shaped communities characterized by relationships of reciprocity, compassion, and active friendship. While friendship has been trivialized, it is not a trivial relationship. Rather, it is a relationship of ethical significance, with public, political, and spiritual dimensions.
Willie Jennings describes friendships as forming “on a social fabric before they create a fabric.”1 Although this fabric may be deformed, it may also be remade, as people listen to and learn from one another and pursue social justice. Thus, attention must be paid to the warp and weft of social fabric, including the interrelationship of God, land, and people, as well as to friendships themselves.
Indigenous understandings of relationality and friendship are interwoven with kinship concepts. In a number of contexts, Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada among them, treaties between Indigenous people and the leadership of the colonizing empire were understood to be treaties of covenantal friendship, creating kin-like relationships. The injustices of colonization, which include ignoring or dishonoring friendship treaties, have, however, deformed the social fabric. Unequal power relations and abuse of power have negatively affected friendship between nations, communities, and individuals for multiple generations. Nevertheless, practices of personal and civic friendship have contributed to a whakapapa (genealogy) of nonviolent resistance to oppression and have provided at least some examples of coexistence with, commitment to, and compassion for the other.
Resistance to oppression is encouraged throughout the biblical texts; friendship is inherent to key aspects of these texts. Human beings are called into relationships of mutuality with others, creation, and God, and to image a befriending God: “a life of friendship with God demands fidelity to the ways of God.”2 Although the term civic friendship is not used in the scriptures, relationships characterized by goodwill towards and action on behalf of the other are integral to the social fabric of covenantal community. As the covenant community images God in promoting justice, they are to extend personal–public friendship through empathy, affection expressed in action, and the honoring of those who are other, as well as through the pursuit of balanced reciprocity. The opening genealogy of Matthew’s gospel, which points back to the First Testament, indicates the potential for acts of friendship and compassion to positively impact subsequent generations. In the Second Testament, Jesus models open friendship and calls for creative responses to oppression, making space for the restoration of justice despite asymmetrical power relationships. Jesus demonstrates what it means to lay down one’s life for one’s friends in ongoing accompaniment. Further on in the Second Testament, friendship is inherent to Paul’s call for reconciliation.
In the writings of the classical philosophers, friendship is depicted as necessary to life (for men of status, at least) and friendly civic relations are explicitly identified as essential to any good society. While these philosophers wrote from a place of relative privilege and do not show the same concern for resistance to oppression, Aristotle emphasizes that friendship is indispensable to genuine justice.
Subsequent Christian writings upheld the importance of friendship, recognized the interrelationship of friendship and community, affirmed the appropriateness of speaking of friendship with God, and acknowledged friendship as sacramental and eschatological. While friendship has been a minor theme within Christian traditions, friendship was a significant consideration for some of the most important Christian thinkers.
Yet friendship became disconnected and isolated from community life in many Euro-Western contexts. Friendship was sentimentalized as a private relationship and pushed from the public square. As the concept and practice of civic friendship was neglected, the paternalistic and racist attitudes of colonization distorted and deformed social fabric.
Currently, neoliberalism presents obstacles to various forms of friendship and is yet another form of colonization to be resisted. Where human beings have settled for a reduced view of reality and a relationally impoverished way of life, an alternative stance to the cosmos, to communities, and to one another is needed. Friendship, broadly construed and enriched by Indigenous, biblical, theological, and philosophical insights, provides an alternative stance. There is potential for a Christian metaphysical vision of friendship to reveal the broader reality that envelops and informs friendships and communities.
Three sets of dynamically interrelated relationships, between God, people, and land, constitute who we are; a holistic understanding of friendship acknowledges the interplay of these various dimensions of relationality. Friendship is integral to being human, and relevant to God, to human relationship with God, and to life within broader communities as it fosters concern for the common good. Thus, this multidimensional formative relationship is not opposed to the neighbor-love encouraged within the scriptures.
Rather, personal friendship is a school of love, fostering equal regard and reciprocal self-giving, nurturing broader commitments through the willing of good for God and for others, and relevant throughout varying stages of life. As such, personal friendship is also a school contributing to civic friendship. Spirit-shaped friendships and friendship-shaped communities have the potential to reflect the character of God, and are used by the Spirit to shape human beings in the way of Jesus. Authentic friendship nurtures practices of compassion, wisdom, freedom, and hospitality. Spirit-shaped friendships are schools of hospitality, freedom, and wisdom; friendship-shaped communities nurture compassion and justice.
Friendships shaped by the Spirit reflect something of the life-giving, radically inclusive, and liberating nature of the Spirit. The human vocation is one of theologically-inspired civic friendship; this includes functioning in royal and priestly roles in caring for sacred space and exercising power in ways that reflect the nature and character of God. Friendship is central to the nature and mission of the church; common life in Christ is to be characterized by mutuality and open friendship. Will the church risk having its imagination shaped by a biblically-informed understanding of civic friendship, with the power to “give birth to a more just and humane world”?3 Will it protest and resist structures and practices that exploit and oppress through economic, social, political, or religious means?
The ideal of friendship that emerges through this research is one of holistic Spirit-shaped private-public friendships that overflow into civic friendship and reform. Such friendships are inclusive of extended family or family-like relationships and have a multigenerational impact as they confront ideologies that sabotage community and perpetuate injustice. Friendship provides a model for the sort of relationship to be fostered among neighbors, locally and globally. Without friendship we misunderstand our identity, calling, and telos. As has become evident throughout these chapters, friendship is inherent to human flourishing, integral to truly just communities, central to the nature and mission of the church, and indispensable to an accurate understanding of the Christian life. The impact of our relational practices is multigenerational. Thus, I advocate for the creative and proactive nurturing of various dimensions of friendship not only for its own sake, but also for the sake of further generations.
In closing, I acknowledge that in some respects this research resembles a broad survey course. It has not been possible to do justice to all themes that have emerged, nor to all writers that have been included. I have not focused on special, intimate, deep friendships. Important issues such as friendship in relation to identity, sexuality, and gender are deserving of greater attention. While aware of other traditions, including the Celtic tradition of soul friend, the Quaker Society of Friends, and the base-ecclesial communities of Latin American liberation theology, I have neglected to weave them into this project. Friendships in the workplace, civic friendship in the marketplace, and covenant in a public ethic require focused attention. There is scope for further exploration of friendship as a telos for parenting, teaching, and pastoring. The complexity of nurturing friendship within pastoral contexts is certainly worthy of further study. Threats to friendship, including ways in which personal and structural sin impacts and distorts the pursuit and practice of friendship and approaches to reconciliation and restorative justice require examination. Ideas related to civic friendship within specific contexts need to be more deeply explored.
Contributions to public life may draw on theological sources without requiring a specific faith commitment. Thus, while an overarching theological narrative can inform the imagination, it is also possible for alternative narratives to inform the social imagination and undergird many aspects of the multidimensional practice of friendship for which this research advocates. Further, there is potential for this practical theology of friendship to be extended into a public theology that addresses how people from different backgrounds (faith, ethnicity, and even political persuasions) can “live together well.”4
It is my hope that this project provokes further research and contributes towards the fostering of multidimensional private-public friendships, civic friendship, and ultimately transformed communities. As friendship is recognized as integral to what it means to be human, may friendship with those who are other be increasingly celebrated. As friendship is recognized as integral to what it means to be the new humanity, may communities of faith find ways to foster this school of love, freedom, wisdom, and to foster communities shaped by friendship, compassion, and justice. As friendship is recognized as integral to God and to relationship with God, may this practical theology of friendship provide inspiration and encouragement to imago Dei, evoke an alternate awareness and way of life to that of the dominant consumerist neoliberal culture, and nourish a prophetic imagination shaped not only by an eschatological vision of friendship, but also by the experience of the friendship-love of God.
How are we to speak of God and the life of the world in relation to God? Canadian theologian Paul Allen notes that “if one’s theological method is consciously chosen, then the scope and precision of the theological claims being made are bound to be clearer.”1 The research within this book has been consciously shaped by critical correlation methodology. This appendix outlines the development of this methodology and identifies objections regarding, challenges inherent to, and strengths of this methodology.
My tracing of the development of critical correlation begins with Paul Tillich, possibly “the most theologically attentive theologian of the twentieth century.”2 An existentialist philosopher and German-born theologian, Tillich emigrated to the United States in 1933 after conflict with Nazi authorities; he taught at Union Theological Seminary, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. Tillich became convinced that Christian theology must address the moral and existential questions of each generation. He referred to his approach as an answering theology.3 If the task of articulating a body of understanding by which people can live meaningfully in the contemporary world is integral to theology, then theologians must engage with the dilemmas that preoccupy people, and advance responses that are both theologically authentic and culturally relevant. Tillich described this process as correlation.4 Tillich’s correlative attempts involved a variety of spheres, including existentialist philosophy and psychotherapy; he identified points of convergence between the languages of therapy and of faith.5
Tillich contrasted a correlative approach with that of the kerygmatic theologians and their emphasis on eternal truth over against the relativities of the human situation. In his Systematic Theology he affirms the attempts by Martin Luther and Karl Barth to rediscover the eternal message within Word and tradition, in opposition to a “distorted tradition and a mechanically misused Bible” (1:6). Yet Tillich remained concerned that if theology did not participate courageously in cultural searches for understanding, it would establish an “exclusive transcendence” which failed to grapple with the creative self-interpretations generated by culture (1:6–7).
Tillich’s approach to correlation assumed that culture would supply the questions and theology the answers. His statement of theological method does not allow for the possibility that culture may provide real answers to its own questions.6 Other scholars advocated for a reciprocal process. Among these was pastoral theologian Seward Hiltner, a University of Chicago colleague and an “important forerunner” of the discipline of practical theology.7 While Hiltner was significantly influenced by Tillich’s correlation method, he argued that correlation should be more of a two-way street, with non-theological disciplines containing new insights, and the dynamic of question and response being mutual rather than one-way.8 Hiltner argued for a “full two-way” exchange.9 He recognized that culture might find “answers to questions raised by faith,” as well as faith having “answers to questions raised by culture.”10
Theologian and priest David Tracy further developed Tillich and Hiltner’s ideas, advocating for a mutually critical and corrective process, a process that promotes dialogue between the “meaning and truth” of the Christian theological tradition and the “meaning and truth” of contemporary interpretations.11 This allows for revision within Christian theology as well as within cultural understandings. Tracy accepted the need for a method of correlation between two sources. Yet he found Tillich’s methodology inadequate in terms of his preference for theology over common human experience. Tracy contended that we cannot accept Tillich’s model as one that truly correlates.12 Rather, he asserted that a commitment to two sources for theological reflection implies the need to correlate crucial questions and answers from each source. All Christian theology, according to Tracy, includes interpretations of the Christian tradition and current understandings of human existence.13 Even what we may now call orthodox theologies involved interpretations of Christian sources and interpretations of understandings of their time.14 Interpretations of common experience allows for common cultural practices and experiences to be one of the poles of the correlative process.15
Tracy’s revisionist model promotes a correlation that is mutually critical; it is this mutuality that makes this approach unique. The theologian then is to promote “mutual illumination and corrections” between the values and claims of “a reinterpreted post-modern consciousness and a reinterpreted Christianity.”16 Based on his critical correlation model, Tracy succinctly defined practical theology as “the mutually critical correlation of the interpreted theory and praxis of the Christian faith with the interpreted theory and praxis of the contemporary situation.”17
Don Browning, a professor at the University of Chicago who had studied under Hiltner, introduced the methodology of mutually critical correlation into the field of practical theology.18 Observing that questions are shaped by diverse sources, Browning advocated for all theology to be recognized as inevitably correlational.19 In A Fundamental Practical Theology, Browning turns Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle into a theological method that begins with (1) the description of specific questions, moves to (2) the interpretive concerns of historical theology, (3) uses systematic theology to reflect on the interpretive process, and moves to (4) ways to proceed with faithful action in the future through what he describes as strategic practical theological reflection.
More recently, there has been an increased recognition of the potential, indeed, the need, for correlation between theological traditions and sub-disciplines. In a 2009 conference address, Tracy expressed regret that he had not emphasized a further need for correlational practical theology, that is, “a theological correlation with the aesthetic, the contemplative metaphysical and the several spiritual traditions of Christianity.”20 Similarly, Presbyterian theologian Richard Osmer encourages practical theologians to include dialogue between theological sub-disciplines, tackling the complexity of conversation between them in ways that are “just as sophisticated” as the more customary discourse with the social sciences.21
Browning’s critical correlation methodology can be used to identify and promote social ideals; it can also be used to respond to the actual situation of vulnerable people. As Pamela Couture’s work on the feminization of poverty demonstrates, it is possible to employ a feminist version of Browning’s method. Whereas Browning employs the method towards the creation of social ideals for the future, Couture uses it to respond to the actual situation of vulnerable mothers and children.22 Robert Smith demonstrates the potential for “the critical correlation of African American church praxis, Christian tradition, and other sources of knowledge” to recover and re-create Black wisdom.23 While Browning focuses on European philosophers and philosophical ideals, his methodology has been adapted by Black and feminist researchers.
Given that Tillich, Hiltner, Tracy, and Browning were all associated with the University of Chicago, those advocating for a critical correlation approach to practical theology are sometimes described as The Chicago School.24 Several of the main critics of this approach were professors or students at Yale University, and are thus sometimes described as The Yale School. In describing the Chicago–Yale debate, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, herself a graduate of, and for a time professor in, the Chicago Divinity School, notes that the Chicago school is sometimes accused of “compromising Christianity’s distinctiveness” in its “revisionist attempts” to participate in public conversations.25 The Yale school, conversely, has been accused of lacking an authentic “public theology” in its “postliberal attempts” to preserve the uniqueness of the Christian narrative and community.26 Many of the narrativists and postliberals of the Yale school begin their critique with the work of Barth. Thus, this section begins by outlining Barth’s attitude to similarities between theology and cultural self-affirmations, before turning to the concerns of Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas, and others.
While Tillich is “methodologically aware,” Karl Barth demonstrates greater confidence in doctrinal traditions and theological identity.27 Barth, a Swiss Protestant theologianwidely regarded as having generated the approach to the Christian narrative that has now become a powerful force in contemporary theology, was a strong opponent of the critical correlation approach. He believed the revealed Word alone to be the sole source for theology. While Barth does not deny the potential for the theologian to have her work confirmed by cultural understandings, he deems this unnecessary. Thus, while acknowledging that theological anthropology is led to assertions similar to those describing humanity from other angles, he asserts that we need not be surprised at approximations and similarities. Indeed, a certain confirmation of our results from other sources is unnecessary and “will not cause us any particular excitement…”28 The correlationalist, on the other hand, does get excited when she finds approximations, similarities, and other forms of connection between Christian practices, symbols, or understandings and aspects of cultural self-interpretation. Without correlational work, the researcher is cut off from a necessary and potentially fruitful dialogue with non-theological thinkers and their ideas.29
To Barth’s student Hans Frei, the loss of confidence in the coherence of the biblical narrative is a significant danger for the church, as this loss of confidence is associated with the weakening of this narrative’s claim upon Christian practice.30 This Yale theologian asserts that for the mediating theologians (correlationists), interpretation becomes “a matter of fitting the biblical story into another world with another story rather than incorporating that world into the biblical story.”31 From this perspective, the danger in correlation is the distortion of biblical perspectives by current cultural perspectives.
George Lindbeck, a Yale colleague of Frei, shares these narrative assumptions, as he also places the canonical narrative in opposition to contemporary culture.32 His work is primarily focused on Christian self-understanding in cultural contexts that are alien to the traditions of Christian faith. He seems to envision the possibility of listening to the Christian narrative alone, and discounts the fact that the questions people bring to Christian texts are shaped by a variety of sources, Christian and otherwise.33
In the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, the focus moves to Christian practice.34 Hauerwas identifies significant difference between the church and the world as integral to the Christian life. His focus is on witness rather than dialogue. Intriguingly, there appears to be some methodological ambiguity in his early work.35 As William Werpehowski observes, while Hauerwas often seems to take Christianity to be “formed by a language that depicts the world ‘seen’ coherently and irreducibly on its own terms”, he “almost as often appears to correlate Christian language and its world with a general philosophical anthropology” based (more or less) on Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy.36 Thus, Hauerwas’s early work can be read as adopting a somewhat ad hoc approach to correlation, similar to Hans Frei’s “third type” of theology.37
The postliberal approach of Frei, Lindbeck, and others is admirable in its move beyond the rationalist and individualistic focus of liberal theology, and its return to a focus on community, tradition, and biblical narrative.38 The key critique of the correlational approach by these narrativists seems to be the apparent inevitability of the biblical story being forced into a preconceived pattern, such as a story told by psychology, philosophy, or sociology.39 These concerns must be taken seriously. Nevertheless, there remains not only a place but a need for mutually critical correlation. The strengths and benefits of the correlational approach are worth the risk; there is much to be gained from cross-fertilization of the ideas of philosophers and social scientists, on the one hand, and theologians, on the other.
Objections to critical correlation are also evident from within the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy. John Milbank, the founder of this movement, critiques the social sciences as a conversation partner. Milbank deems the social sciences to have attempted to displace the “vision” of Christian theology; he suggests that liberal theology has inadvertently absorbed secular values.40 These concerns highlight the need for the researcher to be aware of the bias of her sources, as well as her own biases. Moreover, they raise questions about the relative status of the conversation partners, a concern that also arises in the writing of James K.A. Smith.
Smith advocates for resistance to and rejection of the correlational model, with respect not only to theology, but also to our understanding of church practice, worship, and discipleship.41 He contends that if Christian theology essentially proceeds from “the primacy of God’s revelation” in Christ and in Scripture, then Christian practices should do the same. For Smith, understandings of what it means to be the church must also be shaped by revelation and Christian tradition, rather than by the needs of a postmodern culture. Thus, “a radically orthodox church practice will refuse the correlational idol of relevance without giving up the central tenet of hospitality.”42 Smith’s assertion that correlation always privileges culture, whether modern or postmodern, suggests a lack of familiarity with mutually critical correlation. As has become clear throughout my research, the stories of and behind Whale Rider that Smith references in his arguments against correlation do not negate but rather demonstrate the need for mutually critical correlation. The reality of the traumatic impacts of colonization, including dispossession of “identities, languages and lands”43 points towards the critical need for marginalized voices to be engaged in an authentically mutual correlative process.
It is not only narrativists who recognize challenges innate to the correlational approach. Correlationists themselves identify potential problems that may arise in the use of this methodology, including the danger of distorting one source to serve the needs of the other, the difficulty of doing justice to each discipline or conversation partner, the discernment necessary in selecting the most appropriate sources, and the relative status of the conversation partners. The ideal, as articulated by Jürgen Habermas, includes full inclusion (“no one capable of making a relevant contribution has been excluded”), non-coercion, and equality (participants have equal voice).44 While these ideals are rarely realized and cannot be certified, they nevertheless function as standards for a learning process guided by self-correction.
Tillich notes the question of determining “how far the door determines the structure of the house, or the house the door.”45 One danger is inappropriate application of cultural insights, resulting in Christian symbols, practices, and understandings being twisted out of shape. Another danger is distortion of cultural insights to serve the needs of theological understandings and interpretations.46
A similar challenge faces the preacher, who can be tempted to allow cultural concepts to take over, and to manipulate aspects of the text until they align with contemporary discourse.47 In order to avoid this pitfall, the correlational preacher must be “committed to maintaining the integrity of the text,” allowing the meaning of the text to unfold, rather than forcing it into alignment with pre-understandings emerging from particular theories.48 While theoretical concepts (psychological, philosophical, or otherwise) may reveal important aspects of the “deep, inner meaning of the text,” they are to be the servant rather than the master of the text.49
Methodological concerns can coexist with a clear theological identity; the polarization of methodological approaches as liberal and doctrinal approaches as conservative is unnecessary.50 Like the correlational preacher, the correlational theologian needs to be committed to maintaining biblical and theological integrity. The theologian is to sacrifice neither her theological concern nor her academic honesty.51 Moreover, given that many of our cultural values are implicit, theologians benefit from ongoing conversation with those from different cultures and backgrounds.
Further challenges include those of sources, disciplines, and focus. Practical theology attempts to bridge a wide variety of disciplines. Yet it is difficult, if not impossible, for a correlational theologian to do justice to all of them simultaneously. A thorough description of current practice requires a great deal of research. Likewise, thorough historical work requires significant time, effort, and energy. The theologian must make challenging choices about where to focus her energies.
There are challenges involved in the selection of sources. We must think through the most appropriate contemporary sources for critical correlation, recognizing that the preoccupations of contemporary culture may turn out to be the precursor of deeper theological understandings.52 In selecting sources, it is also necessary to take into account the background of the public with whom the theologian seeks to communicate. For Tillich, it was the modern scientific audience, whereas for Tracy, it was the scientifically disenchanted postmodern audience. For liberation theologians, it is those who have previously been marginalized, silenced, or even erased from social history, political voice, and theological mediation.53 For the correlational preacher and pastor, it is her congregation. For communities of faith it is particularly appropriate to bring various theological disciplines and traditions into conversation with one another. For my own research, it is communities of practice that seek to be more present to one another, to their broader community, and to the divine.
Both correlationists and those critical of this methodology recognize challenges regarding the relative status of the conversation partners. Yet one of the strengths of this approach is its flexibility in this regard, with some approaches to critical correlation privileging Christian traditions, and others giving equal normative voice to both contemporary experience and the tradition. Neither the social sciences nor classical theological positions are free from contextual and subjective influences.
Correlation emphasizes the importance of engagement between theology and contemporary culture; it is concerned with affirming difference as a source for further development and dialogue.54 Interdisciplinary conversations allow us to grasp important aspects of theology that would otherwise remain concealed. For example, it is possible to “see more than we saw before” when accompanied by an appropriate cultural self-interpretation.55 As mutually critical correlation is practiced by ministry leaders and faith communities, the community can learn to reflect on its practice “in light of the common good of all.”56
Further, there is room for variation in the use of this methodology. As previously noted, some approaches to mutually critical correlation privilege the Christian tradition; others give equal normative voice to both contemporary experience and the tradition. This methodology allows Indigenous insights to question and to bring fresh perspective to Christian traditions, and for the Christian tradition to critique and challenge contemporary writings. Correlation both allows other disciplines to help theologians uncover ideologies that constrain their practice, and helps theologians recognize normative horizons in other disciplines that require critique. This methodology can also be used to encourage conversation between theological fields and traditions. Claire Wolfteich, for example, describes the potential for a practical theological approach to the study of spirituality.57 While tradition may be drawn on to challenge and deepen contemporary spirituality practices, contemporary spirituality and practices may also question or bring fresh perspective to tradition. There is potential for mutually critical correlation to draw on other methodologies, including Indigenous research methodologies.
Mutually critical correlation can be very profitably employed in practical theology and a conversational correlative approach is particularly appropriate to this research, given the multifaceted nature of friendship and the range of relevant disciplines and traditions. However, drawing on conversations throughout the centuries regarding friendship requires a somewhat more nuanced analogy than Hiltner’s two-way street analogy. A preferable analogy for the correlation within this research is that of the reciprocity, give-and-take, and frankness of speech that characterizes communication among a diverse community of friends and conversation partners. As with a conversation amongst friends, the interaction may at times feel somewhat circular, involving re-statement, clarification, comparison, and the like.
This research has sought to avoid the potential pitfalls of the correlative method through an awareness of contextual and subjective influences, while also making room for the possibility of corrective insights to Christian theology and practice through dialogue with non-theological sources and marginalized theological sources, as well as between valued traditions and sub-disciplines of theology. While I have privileged the scriptures as a source, I am highly aware of the need for skillful exegetical and hermeneutical work.
Similarities in power dynamics must be taken into consideration when looking for analogies between ancient and contemporary contexts. Where scripture has been misused as a tool of oppression, biblical traditions must be reexamined in the pursuit of less distorted perspectives and practices. I acknowledge that certain themes are more fully developed in Christian tradition than in the scriptures, am sensitive to the concern that the perspectives of a privileged minority have all too often been allowed to stand as representative of “universal experience,” and have sought to listen to alternative voices, perspectives, and experiences.58
While some theologians have voiced a concern that in bringing together secular and theological sources, critical correlation risks becoming fatally wedded to the prevailing ideas of a specific time,59 this work draws on important treatments of friendship from across the ages and on Indigenous wisdom, rather than simply contemporary Western sources, and critically examines current cultural trends.
A key concern expressed by proponents of a narrativist approach to theological reflection is that bringing in perspectives from non-theological disciplines will introduce alien elements into the Christian story. Yet as other perspectives contribute to the recovery of neglected yet essential aspects of the Christian story and traditions, the opposite may well take place.
Another danger of correlational models is that they do not resist, and potentially even normalize, an individualistic, privatized approach to faith. In dialogue with biblical, classical, and Indigenous sources, this research argues against the privatization of friendship, advocating instead for holistic private–public friendships that overflow into civic friendship and reform. The challenges of mutually critical correlation are clearly not insurmountable, nor do they outweigh the many benefits of this approach.