What’s been constant with me is the importance of friendship. I think that’s why God gave us Christ, to make us friends with God, and friends with each other, so that our relationships are nourishing and not so alone in this world. Loneliness is the besetting pathology for Americans. It’s a part of the human condition, but Americans are worse because we don’t want to have to depend upon anyone. Learning to be vulnerable again is crucial.

So I continue to praise God for the people who claim me as a friend. That’s what the church makes possible. In the Gospel of John, at the end of Jesus’ ministry, he said that before I called you disciple, but now I call you friend

Source: EverythingChristian News: Resident Aliens – A Conversation With Stanley Hauerwas

In another setting,  I heard Hauerwas say that the Church should be modeling what friendship is all about.  Amen.  It is FAR from that in nearly all cases.  It has become EVENT rather than LIFE;  so little conception of the church as the CENTER of how we live and breathe and HAVE OUR BEING.  It is represented now as a religiously coated presentation of “tips for surviving and being happier”.  But it does not succeed at either.  We can only survive and be truly happy when the church is being the church,  which is a whole different plane of relating to each other and through that,  relating to the world.