Covenanted Friendships
In the draft Prayers of Love and Faith published by the bishops a couple of weeks ago in response to the Living in Love and Faith process, there is a prayer ‘For a covenanted friendship’. The suggested prayer is as follows:
Faithful God,
in whose love we are called to abide;
give N and N the grace
to dwell in the gift of devoted friendship.
In their life together,
may they be bound in your love and promise
all the days of their lives,
seeking each other’s welfare,
bearing each other’s burdens
and sharing each other’s joys;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.
The latter part of this prayer is not new. One of the additional prayers listed for use in the Common Worship marriage service ends thus:
May they dwell together in love and peace
all the days of their life,
seeking one another’s welfare,
bearing one another’s burdens
and sharing one another’s joys;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The re-purposing of this prayer indicates that the covenanted friendship is envisaged as having substantial parallels to a marriage. These two people are bound to a particular, exclusive, lifelong commitment to each other’s welfare, and to sharing both burdens and joys. There is something about this friendship which is markedly different from other friendships.
Most of us have many friends, including a handful of very close friends. It is normal for married people to have shared friends as well as individual friends. It is normal for friends to be of the same sex and of the opposite sex. I am extremely grateful for my circle of friends, which includes many dear Christian brothers and sisters, as well as many who are not Christians. I am grateful for my single friends, male and female, and my married friends, male and female. For all of them I would seek their welfare, and share burdens and joys, to some extent. I don’t think I have any to whom I would want to make that a lifetime commitment, because circumstances can change so much. I certainly don’t have any for whom I would make an exclusive commitment to an especially deep level.
So what are these covenanted friendships?
In this excellent paper on the subject, Greg Coles talks about ‘celibate partnerships’, that is, relationships in which, ‘they don't consider their relationship to be a marriage in the eyes of God, and they are pursuing meaningful non-sexual commitment.’ Ed Shaw of Living Out offers his thoughts on Coles’s paper, noting that one of the obstacles to talking about such friendships or partnerships is the very wide range of situations that the terms are used to describe: “Some use these sorts of labels to refer to committed friendships that I could find no ethical or pastoral concern to worry about (and instead, much to commend), others seemed to be talking about marriage in every context but the bedroom, in ways that seriously alarmed me.”
Given that diversity, I think we must be extremely careful to make blanket statements either commending or condemning covenanted friendships.
It is not hard to imagine the pair of female missionaries who have spent many years making their home together as they serve faithfully overseas ending up with a friendship that has a different level of commitment from those most of us enjoy, without ever crossing a line into sexual impurity. We should be grateful for the co-workers God gives us to partner with like this!
But it is also not hard to imagine two Christian women who are attracted to each other and want to make their home together so that they can enjoy mutual companionship, love and support in a way that is exclusive and permanent. Even with a commitment to ensure that there is no sexual activity in such a relationship, this is not merely friendship.
A sexual relationship is not determined simply on the basis of whether or not sexual activity is involved:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)
You don’t have to have sex to commit the sexual sin of adultery. You don’t have to have sex, you only have to look at someone lustfully. Or kiss them. Or let that hug develop into something more. You don’t have to share a bed to be sharing inappropriate intimacy with a person you aren’t married to.
As soon as you look at someone lustfully, that relationship has taken on a sexual element. And as soon as there is a sexual element there is sexual temptation. Lust develops into fantasy; fantasy impels us to action; the tiniest action creates overwhelming desire for more. There is a reason we’re told to flee temptation: because we are not very good at resisting it. Flee temptation, don’t face it over the breakfast table every morning, and on the sofa every evening.
What are covenanted friendships for?
If this is a new idea to you (as indeed it was to me a few months ago), you may be wondering who would want to enter in to such a relationship. The most obvious answer would be those who are same-sex attracted but seeking to be obedient to the Bible and therefore have committed to celibacy, but who would still value having a partner in life. Simple loneliness is a strong motivator for many, according to Coles’s research. Sharing one another’s burdens is another, whether they are practical, financial, family or some other kind. For single people it can be hard to know who to turn to for help in different situations: you are never someone else’s most important person. This kind of friendship or partnership is a way of saying that you have someone you can always turn to.
The reasons for covenanted friendship are obvious as soon as you begin to consider it – they are very similar to the reasons many people want to be married. I do think the church needs to consider very seriously indeed why single people – why anyone – in the church family should be feeling as though they have no one to share their burdens with. There should always be people in the church that we can turn to for help. We should be opening our homes and families to welcome others, so that no one is lonely. The cultural focus on the nuclear family rather than wider communities needs to be challenged in our churches, by embodying a much broader model of inclusion.
And yet for some there will still be the reality of going back to an empty home. There will still be the burden of having to make difficult decisions alone. There will still be the financial burden associated with living alone. Why shouldn’t two friends join forces to support each other in doing life together like this?
To covenant or not to covenant?
In those situations where the friendship is truly a godly partnership, without the element of sexual temptation, or the faux-marriage commitment, is this something which requires or benefits from a formal covenant? Possibly.
Where such friendships have existed in previous generations, they have managed without any kind of formalisation. It’s hard to be certain, of course, when many of these historical lifelong friendships were in fact illegal homosexual relationships being discreetly covered up, but there have surely been some forerunners of the kind of partnership we are discussing here.
Perhaps this is one argument in favour of the covenant friendship: it is a public statement that this close friendship is not a sexual relationship, in an age where most people would assume otherwise. It is also a recognition that non-sexual relationships can be extremely important and valuable. These partnerships might be good examples of the ‘one another’ commands that are supposed to characterise the church as two people commit to bear each other’s burdens, to love each other and build each other up.
And yet, those commands are not given to two people. They are for the whole church. A married couple should bear each other’s burdens, love and build each other up. But they are also supposed to do that for everyone else in their church, as far as they are able. The same is true of two close, unmarried, friends. They may take a special responsibility for each other, but they also have responsibility for others in the church. The difference is of degree, not of kind.
Non-sexual relationships are, of course, extremely important and extremely valuable. The Lord Jesus himself had close friendships, particularly with Peter, James and John, and with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. The Bible commends close friendships by example and especially in the wisdom literature. Christ calls us his friend. We should all be valuing our friends, and I think that married people may need reminding of this sometimes: your spouse should not be your only friend.
A covenant is a particular kind of promise, establishing a particular kind of relationship. Covenant relationships include obligations, confer benefits, and can include consequences if the relationship is broken. Marriage includes the obligations of faithfulness, love and honour. It confers the benefits of sexual intimacy, family life, strength, companionship and comfort. Marriage is intended to be exclusive and permanent, but if the covenant is broken, for example by adultery, there is a loss of trust which may result in divorce.
While true friendship does involve obligations and confer benefits, it is not intended to be exclusive, and is not necessarily permanent. There are not normally consequences when a friendship ends. There are not normally consequences when one person develops an additional friendship. Christ has many friends, but only one bride!
In the end, I think that is what makes me most nervous about covenanted friendships. It seems to me to be elevating one particular friendship to a status that the Bible doesn’t give it. What if, for example, a person in a covenanted friendship fell in love and wanted to get married to someone else? Do they have to ‘divorce’ their friend? Surely not! But something will certainly change in the friendship. The categories do not line up.
We should certainly be encouraging and helping people to value friendship more highly and invest in it more deeply – single people and married people. We should be especially mindful of those who are single, to ensure that they are properly supported and loved in all aspects of their lives. We can encourage people to share more of their lives together, even to share their homes, provided due care is given to the potential issues of sexual temptation. Where it would be useful, such people might be encouraged to make a public statement of the non-sexual nature of their partnership.
I certainly don’t think we should be repurposing prayers from the marriage service to use for such a friendship. That is only going to confuse the issue further.