I believe churches should teach on Christan friendship ten times more than they teach on Christian marriage. Okay, the “ten times” is just a number I picked out of a hat, but the point is that Christian friendship as a concept is going to benefit people significantly more than a focus on Christian marriage. Should we still teach Christian marriage? Yes. But we should teach friendship more.
Here’s why:
1. Not Everyone is Married
Though a common topic for church-based education, not everyone in a given community will be married. Roughly 50% of all U.S. adults are married, and roughly 70% of adult Christians are married (Pew Research). Teaching on marriage, while not bad, necessarily excludes people. Teaching on friendship excludes no one because EVERYONE can and should have friends. The church should strive to be as inclusive as possible.
2. Connections are in Crisis
There is a crisis in the developed world when it comes to genuine connections between people. This is due to a wide variety of factors including gender stereotypes, social media, and general preferences for isolation (which was a problem even before COVID). The church CAN and SHOULD speak into this problem because this crisis is damaging the world and the church.
3. Friendship Education is Intergenerational
Teaching on Christian friendship is intergenerational. It’s a topic that’s safe for all ages. As the first point mentioned, everyone, can benefit from this. But more than that, it is a topic suitable for whole church settings and is most of the time going to be rated G.
See also my post about getting young people in the church and how intergenerational relationships are key to the survival of the church.
4. Friendships are the Most Unit of Society
While American Christianity sees “families” as the most basic unit of society–and thus a threat to the family is a threat to the nation–I don’t believe the connection is as strong as some people think. It is also interestingly exactly what Rome thought, who persecuted Christians as threatening families because people were abandoning family gods and religious practices. While I’m not going to root for the destruction of the nuclear family (though let’s not pretend our image of family is totally Biblical when it’s really just 1950s propaganda half the time), friendships cross boundaries that I believe can better lead to unity in society. Friends can sow the divide of Us vs. Them. How strong the family dynamics of the Smiths will impact the nation less than how strong the dynamics of my friendship with people different than me who live in my community. Again, far more people are in friendships than in marriages–so it’s a numbers thing.
5. Not Everyone Will Get Married
The church needs to stop glorifying the marriage unit when there are people who choose not to go that route or cannot go that route. It’s time the church recognizes the legitimacy of celibacy as a godly vocation. And there are a plethora of reasons someone might choose to not get married or were previously married and that ended. In these cases where marriage isn’t chosen or isn’t an option for whatever reason, we need to communicate that these individuals aren’t any less in God’s eyes. I mean, our two big New Testament figures, Jesus and Paul, both didn’t get married.
6. Church Teachings on Marriage Can Use Some Work
PERSONALLY, I find church teachings on marriage to be lacking. There is good in there, to be sure, but so many Christian marriage speakers mutilate Scripture in a way that makes me cringe and would likely make Paul roll over in his grave. Also, too much content is outright sexist and destructive to women. As a trained Biblical scholar let me be clear: the Bible doesn’t talk about everything. And there are many facets of a marriage that aren’t addressed in the Bible–let’s not force it. I believe we need to better draw from psychology and communication studies when discussing marriage. The church has some improvements to do in this area.
[As one starting point, I suggest checking out the work of Shelia Wray Gregoire about how evangelical sex ed has proved a disaster]
7. Friendships are Key to Influencing Culture
But back to friendship–friendship is also going to be key in evangelism efforts and influencing culture. I’m sure it’s not news to learn that trust in the institutional church has plummeted, which means we can’t tell people to COME TO US we have to GO TO THEM. Old methods of influence involving yelling at people to stop sinning don’t work anymore. Instead, what’s going to move the culture forward into a more Christ-like society (not a “Christian” one though, let’s protect freedom of religion) is one-on-one connections.
Funny enough, this is exactly what the early church did. It was their hospitality that ultimately spread the faith through the Roman Empire. Sure, “events” like preaching turned out some real numbers, but later conversions were on a more relational level and I imagine those involved in mass conversions needed personal relationships to further flourish their walk with Christian.
NOTE: Obviously we shouldn’t make friends with people just to convert them–that’s manipulation. But friendship is a core part of influence.
8. Friendship Improves Church Experience
Teaching on friendship improves the life of the local church community. The church is supposed to be a loving, encouraging, build-up-one-another kind of place. We can talk of “loving one another” in the abstract, but a focus on teaching Christian friendship can more concretely help us create a loving community. It’s time the church learned that saying hi to a person and commenting on the weather each Sunday is not actually a relationship. The church is supposed to be more than that. Friendship is such a significant part of why we gather.
9. Friendship is the Foundation of Marriage
Friendship is actually the foundation of marriage. Now, there is some debate on if your spouse technically counts as your “friend” (my wife is my friend, in my opinion) but hear me out. Basic principles of friendship, including communication, listening, sharing, navigating conflict, etc. are all good things to know in a marriage as well! With marriage, you only add a few extra things such as the sacramental component, sex, and debates about what to do when he leaves his beard hairs in the sink. You aren’t losing much good content if you tone down teaching about marriage and instead shift to more broadly talking about friendship.
I know some have argued that we go the other way, that marriage can teach us to have better friendships. But I don’t believe that’s always an effective strategy. Marriage is a specific type of relationship with certain “rules” while friendship is much broader. As I explained above, if the basics of marriage are already key to good friendships, then why don’t we just go right to the source–to teach friendships!
10. Friendships Have No Contracts
I think what makes friendships such an interesting case study in Christian behavior is how easy they are to end. Obviously, we have things like no-fault divorce, but still, it’s harder to end a marriage than it is to end a friendship. We can be tempted to drop friends at the earliest whiff of conflict or when we realize they voted for the other guy. As Jesus said, if we are faithful in the small things, we will be faithful in the big things. If we can learn to have a fruitful relationship with a non-relative who I am consciously choosing to hang out with but there’s no contract or anything binding us together, then how much more can we have fruitful relationships with those that are harder to ditch? Again, friendship is the root of a good marriage.
NOTE: Obviously I’m not saying you should 100% of the time stay in bad friendships, family relationships, or marriages as there are circumstances where cutting the tie is needed.
The Church Should Teach More About Friendship
Churches, please DO teach about marriage. We do need those seminars and classes. Totally. But too many churches hold marriage up as a prize and spent an inordinate time in sermons and studies talking about that. But I believe a turn toward teaching on friendship will impact more people and will fundamentally improve the state of the church today, both inside her walls and outside on the street.
I’ve given you enough to think about, so I won’t go on for now. This is the theological rationale for churches having the responsibility to teach about creating meaningful friendships. Of course, what’s needed now is a discussion of implementation. HOW do we teach this? But that’s for another time. As always, I appreciate any feedback. But please come to the comment section with humility, as will I, so we can both learn something.
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