Blogging The Friendship Factor. Chapter 1

A group of us are doing a book discussion on The Friendship Factor (Alan Loy McGinnis. Augsburg Publishing House. Minneapolis. 1979). I am going to blog about the what I am seeing as I read it. I may also blog about the actual book discussion.

Lord, I give you this book. Bring revelation and conviction. Keep me from the condemnation and self-criticism that usually bothers me when I read self-help books.

[Update: we are only doing the first 6 chapters of the book]

The first friendship that is described is the legendary friendship between George Burns and Jack Benny (page 9). George had only to look at Jack and Jack would dissolve into laughter. Laughter in that kind of friendship is a result of ‘overflow.’ They knew each other so well, that a mere look would pull up years of happy memories, shared jokes, and simply living life with each other. Both were comedians on radio and TV and stage. They could have been rivals, and bitter. They were not, they were friends.

“The basic ingredients for a good marriage, according to sociologist Andrew Greeley, are friendship plus sex.” (Page 9)

OK. This is true, but rather coarsely phrased, Father. Next thought please.

Richard Farson, professor at the Humanistic Psychology Institute in San Francisco, says, "Millions of people in America have never had one minute in their whole lifetime where they could 'let down' and share with another person their deeper feelings."

The first place where we need to do this is with God in prayer. Out of that intimacy, and the security of that intimacy, intimacy with other people can flourish. In reverse, difficulty in being intimate with others may reflect an inability to be intimate with God.

Why are such friendships so rare among men? Conditioning, of course. In our society, except to shake hands, men are not even allowed to touch each other. Dick and Paula McDonald explain the phenomenon:

“Most men have had no practice in the art of intimacy nor role models to point the way. Little girls can walk to school hand in hand, hold each other up skating, hug and cry and say, "You're my best friend. I need you. I love you." Little boys wouldn't dare. The enormous blackening cloud of homosexuality is always present, and the devastating power of the snicker begins in playground days. "Fag" is a word every little boy learns to fear, and it forever after affects his behavior toward other men who might become his friends.” (Page 10-11).

Ouch! Men are still suffering from the wounds of elementary and junior high schools. Twisted by peer pressure to reject intimacy in friendship. Lord, deliver me from fear. [John 14:27. NASB95. “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”]

“Since so few males have been allowed the luxury of openness and vulnerability in a relationship, they are not aware of the gaping void in their emotional lives. In short, they don't know what they're missing.” (Page 11)

No comment.

“Its okay to be an introvert.” (page 12)
“Some people suppose that their basic shyness is the problem.” (p 12)

McGinnis makes the point that being a introvert (or extrovert) bears no relationship with whether or not one has many or few friends. A glad-handing extrovert can have many acquaintances, and still have no friends.

“One of the dangers of being a psychologist-reformer is that you may be tempted to try to remake all patients in your own image. But God made each of unique, and there is vast mystery and beauty surround the human soul.” (page 13)

Wonderfully put. It sounds something from CS Lewis.

John 13:34-35. NASB95.
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 15:12-17. NASB95.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
14 “You are My friends if you do what I command you.
15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
17 “This I command you, that you love one another.

philos - beloved, dear, friendly - the usual word that is translated “friend” in the New Testament.

McGinnis quotes John 13:34-35. I added John 15:12-17. Our ability to make friends is rooted in something God placed in us at the creation of universe. Friendship is something that pre-existed man and we were made to have friendship with God and with each other. It has, like all else, been damaged and twisted by the fall. And it can, like all else, be redeemed.

Philos, the "brotherly love," actually carries more with it than I had suspected. "Beloved" is term I use for my daughters. It is not a word I would to use for my male friends, at least not many of them. I can only think of two brothers in Lord that I have addressed that way.

Lord, redeem friendship from the damage of the fall. Allow us, as men reading this book and in the church, to approach each other as beloved friends. Thank you.