Being a single guy living on one of the most remote land-masses on the planet, I know the importance of relationships.  I’m not always good at them. but I’ve always felt something significant and necessary with friendship.  You get that a lot in good literature and thinking (Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Lewis’ The Four Loves come to mind).  You also get it in glimpses of Scripture: the stories of David, Ruth, and even Jesus.  Philosophical theologian Samuel Kimbriel tackles the subject in a different way in his book, Friendship as Sacred Knowing.  Like James K. A. Smith, Kimbriel responds to the thinking of Charles Taylor and sees friendship as God’s solution to isolation, especially in our contemporary, “buffered” reality.  Check out the video below for some of Kimbriel’s thoughts on friendship.