Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship. Anne-Marie Ellithorpe

by Dr. Monte Ohia, in 1996, and to learn from storytelling by and conversations with Sir Kim Workman.

      5 5 The gift of friendship and collaboration with Dana Maniapoto has been particularly enriching. With encouragement from a number of us, Dana initiated the development of a small team to facilitate bicultural understandings within our faith community. I was asked by Dana to be a participant, and also to assist her with the planning and facilitating of these small team meetings, trialling a process that could then be facilitated with the wider faith community. We initially undertook activities to facilitate a greater understanding of our own cultures, before covering Treaty issues. This was a rich learning experience for all of us. On a more personal level, I remember being particularly struck with the encouragement Dana received from her whānau (extended family) to pursue her vocation on behalf of her people.

      6 6 Department of Health and Human Services, “Updated restrictions – 11.59pm Wednesday 22 July 2020,” Victoria State Government, https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/updates/coronavirus-covid-19/updated-restrictions-1159pm-wednesday-22-july-2020. Accessed 22 September 2020.

      7 7 Linda Besner, “Friendship is Magic. But is it Legally Protected? In the Postpandemic World, We Need a Clearer Answer,” Globe and Mail, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-friendship-is-magic-but-is-it-legally-protected-in-the-postpandemic. Accessed 23 January 2021.

      8 8 “Health Equity Considerations and Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html. Accessed 22 September 2020.

      9 9 Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel, Rediscovering Friendship: Awakening to the Power and Promise of Women’s Friendships, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 34.

      10 10 See Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship and Community: The Monastic Experience, 350–1250, 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), 339.

      11 11 McGuire, Friendship and Community, 427.

      12 12 Guido de Graaff, Politics in Friendship: A Theological Account (London: T&T Clark, 2014), 4.

      13 13 Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 2. Italics original.

      14 14 John H. Perkins, “Practical Theology: What Will it Become?” The Christian Century, 1 February 1984, 116.

      15 15 Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, “Introduction: The Contributions of Practical Theology,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, ed. Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 5.

      16 16 Richard R. Osmer, Practical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), ix–x. As practical theology experienced a resurgence in the 1980s, various developments in liberation theologies (European and Latin American) contributed to “a strong turn to a more public, church-world focus.” Claire Wolfteich, “Time Poverty, Women’s Labor and Catholic Social Teaching: A Practical Theological Exploration,” Journal of Moral Theology 2, no. 2 (2013): 42.

      17 17 Eschatology is concerned with questions of ultimate destiny.

      18 18 Miller-McLemore, Christian Theology in Practice, 103.

      19 19 Terry A. Veling, Practical Theology: On Earth as it is in Heaven (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), 3.

      20 20 Gerben Heitink, Practical Theology: History, Theory, Action Domains, trans. Reinder Bruinsma (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 4–5.

      21 21 Miller-McLemore, Christian Theology in Practice, 103–104.

      22 22 Don S. Browning, Equality and the Family: A Fundamental, Practical Theology of Children, Mothers, and Fathers in Modern Societies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 3.

      23 23 See, for example, Robert L. Smith, “Black Phronēsis as Theological Resource: Recovering the Practical Wisdom of Black Faith Communities,” Black Theology: An International Journal 6, no. 2 (2008): 179, 180.

      24 24 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2004), 289.

      25 25 Browning, Equality and the Family, 8.

      26 26 See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

      27 27 Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 47.

      28 28 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 187–188.

      29 29 David Smith and James K.A. Smith, “Introduction: Practices, Faith, and Pedagogy,” in Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning, ed. David Smith and James K.A. Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 9.

      30 30 Smith and Smith, “Introduction: Practices, Faith, and Pedagogy,” 8–9.

      31 31 Craig Dykstra and Dorothy C. Bass, “A Theological Understanding of Christian Practices,” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 18.

      32 32 Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass, eds., Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 21.

      33 33 Dykstra and Bass, “A Theological Understanding of Christian Practices,” 27–28.

      34 34 Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 23. The term imaginary is used to talk about shared life, although used in slightly different ways by different scholars.