Liberatory Politics and Friendship with God

According to an influential tradition in Christian theology, human flourishing is at least partially constituted by enjoying friendship with God. One worry about this tradition is that it encourages disengagement from the world, and thus functions ideologically to support an unjust status quo. In this paper, I argue that seeking friendship with God need not be in tension with striving to achieve social justice and freedom from oppression. Indeed, it can provide powerful motivation for participation in liberatory politics, and participation in liberatory politics can serve as a site for enjoying friendship with God. Whether the goal of sharing friendship with God is repressive or liberatory depends principally on one’s conception of what God cares about and seeks. If one conceives of God as caring deeply about justice and seeking to end oppression, then a theology of friendship with God can be a valuable resource for liberatory politics.