That’s What Friends Are For: Jürgen Moltmann’s Account of Friendship as a Means To Freedom

Following his 2024 death, Jürgen Moltmann leaves behind the theological idea of friendship, which as the potential to advance freedom amidst today’s sufferings and oppressions. He asserts that Christ’s friendship on the cross is the example for human friendship. Once touched by Jesus’s friendship, one replaces patterns of oppression with the kind of friendship which advances the care and liberation of the other. This paper will argue for Moltmann’s belief that Jesus’s example of friendship spurs the kind of human friendship which creates freedom. First, Jesus’s friendship with us will be examined. Second, the affection inherent in friendship for those who are both the same and different is argued. Third, this work argues that friendship launches one into public solidarity and advocacy for his friend. Human friendship, in the example of Jesus, has the potential to promote a freer society.