The Philosophy of Friendship and Its Place in Constructing Interreligious Encounters

Abstract

This chapter will explore the role of friendship can play in making sure that relationships built on hospitality can endure the tensions that originate from creedal differences. I will focus on concrete ways friendship can be used to construct a healthy relationship among religions, particularly in Christianity, Islam, and Ihievbe Traditional Religion. To do this, I intentionally appropriate the definition of friendship by Reformed theologian Jurgen Moltmann. According to Moltmann, friendship “is therefore a deep human relation that arises out of freedom, consists in mutual freedom, and preserves this freedom” (Moltmann in The Changing Face of Friendship. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, p. 31, 1994). I would add that, in the context of interreligious encounters, friendship affirms the role of God as a witness to the friendship as well as the source for its possibility.