The friendship based on enjoyment is involves more affiliation. The basis for the association is because the two people enjoy each other's company. They are a pleasure to be around. You might have a neighbor you find pleasing to be around near not because he lends you tools (he may) but because you like his personality or agree with his politics or share his worldview. It must be noted if one of the traits experienced as enjoyable changes in you or the other person, the friendship could diminish or even end because its basis has dissolved.

The third kind of friendship is based in virtue. This basis here is not utility or agreeable, enjoyable traits but virtue. Aristotle posits this as the highest form of friendship; it is noble. The friends do not use each other for a common end. They do not relate to each as an enjoyable means for a pleasurable experience. They are friends because they hold each other in high esteem. They respect each others virtues such as obedience to truth, courage in facing peril, willingness to sacrifice, honesty, fairness, wisdom, humility. Perhaps this summary of Aristotle's threefold understanding of friendship sheds a helpful light on the ongoing division and fragmentation of the Episcopal Church.

Lord Jesus told his disciples, "I no longer call you servants but friends...." (John 15:17) It is easy to see the quality of friendship Jesus offers us is the kind based on a virtuous (truthful) love. It follows that all Christian relationships: from marriage and family to friendships; fellowship in the local church to the parish existing within a Diocese; Dioceses compromising a national Church; national churches in the Anglican Communion (let's stop there!) are to be based in this same virtuous love of Jesus. In considering the division and fragmentation throughout the Episcopal Church over the past 6 years, in spite of the rhetoric of "bonds of affection," and "deep conversation" there seems to be a great paucity of friendships based on virtuous love. Perhaps now is the season in which God wants us to recognize, honestly, in a civil manner, many of us can no longer remain friends (if we ever were) in this true sense. Perhaps we must part ways amicably.

Imagine a large congregation with an average Sunday attendance of 900 souls and annual budget of over two million dollars is a member of the Anglican Communion Network yet exists in a diocese whose bishop is liberal in word and deed on the homosexuality issue; i.e. permits same sex blessings and same sex clergy couples to serve and live in rectories. It is difficult to imagine a friendship of virtue or even enjoyment existing between the clergy, vestry and people of such a parish and such a bishop. All that is left, if any thing, is utility. Perhaps the Bishop mandated by Diocesan Convention happily receives a sizable assessment from this Network parish to support Diocesan programs. Yet, one could see the clergy and people of the parish find themselves in the position of being used. They exist to the diocese, nor as true friends or even for mutual enjoyment but as a means to a financial end. The relationship with the Diocese is purely utilitarian, in this case financial.

To honor the theological variety across the church, we can change the scenario and likewise imagine a theologically liberal parish existing under an ACN bishop where there is no true friendship or enjoyment of one another. The clergy and people of the parish experience themselves, in a similar way, as being used as their interaction with the Diocese is primarily on the basis of paying a diocesan assessment; a utilitarian friendship.

I hear some people in the church espouse well-intending versions of inclusivity. There is the "big tent "approach (a Republican Party concept from the 1990's?) as well as the "Why can't we all get along?" sentiment (Rodney King). Such inclusiveness seems terribly naïve when the common basis of virtuous love does not exist.

Love and truth (with beauty and goodness) are inextricably bound together as transcendent properties of God. Christians are expected to embody them. It follows, then, that a "friendship" based on utility, or even enjoyment of one's company, will not endure. This makes "church" in whatever form (parish, diocese, national, or communion) either an intriguing convenience or a self-selecting club. Celebrating Holy Eucharist does not magically confer an active virtuous love to a disparate gathering of theologically incompatible people. It seems the efficacy of the Sacrament requires souls, en masse, to be disposed in word and deed, to Christ's virtuous love for them and them for each other (as imperfect as it may be) in order to "be church" and "make church happen" in actuality.

I doubt Lord Jesus envisioned friendships of utility or enjoyment when he chose his disciples to be his friends and friends to one another. To know the virtuous love of Christ and live this with other Christians is to recognize this love cannot exist apart from truth as both equally "of God."

Perhaps it is time for Bishops and Standing Committees, Rectors and Vestries, to do some mature problem solving. It will require sacrifice. They can make canons and control, money and property values a lesser priority and the ending and beginning of friendships the top priority. As realignments occur some friends will become acquaintances. Some may become strangers. New friends will emerge. Finally, regardless of where we live, which is our parish, who is our bishop and the diocese and province within he serves, we can still love our neighbors (even former friends) as ourselves. This the Lord demands.

----The Rev. K. Brewster Hastings lives and works in Abington, PA where he serves as rector of Saint Anne's Episcopal Church.