One of the most popular and celebrated television sitcoms of the past few decades is a show called “Friends.” Still watched by many in reruns, it follows the life of six twenty-somethings as they set out as friends in search of love and happiness. The show highlights the way that friends help us to navigate life, for better or worse, and yet friendship on the show is a concept that is not defined. It is caught, not taught. Like the television show, many of us are guilty of taking friendship for granted. When we happen to think about it, we tend to analyze our relationships, lament our loneliness, or believe that our friendships happen by chance. We see examples in popular culture and wonder if those examples are the kinds of friendships that we should have too. Is friendship, as we experience it, the best it can be?

Chris L. Firestone (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of Philosophy at Trinity International University. Most of his scholarly work focuses on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and its relationship to religion and Christian thought, including In Defense of Kant’s Religion (co-author, Indiana University Press 2008) and Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason (Ashgate Publishing 2009). He has also co-edited works on The Persistence of the Sacred in Modern Thought (Notre Dame University Press 2010) and Kant and the Question of Theology (Cambridge University Press 2017). At Trinity, he teaches a broad spectrum of courses on philosophy and on the integration of Christian faith and doctrine with human reason and living. He is a member and Elder of North Suburban Evangelical Free Church on the North Shore of Chicago.

Alex Pierce is a Ph.D. student in the History of Christianity area of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame, where he studies patristic and medieval Christianity. Alex earned his M.Div. and an MA (Systematic Theology) at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2016. While at Trinity, he served three years as a Fellow at the Henry Center for Theological Understanding. Alex has presented his research at conferences held by the Evangelical Theological Society, the American Academy of Religion, and the Marquette Scripture Project. He has published his research in Augustinian Studies, The Journal of Analytic Theology, The Heythrop Journal, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, Trinity Journal, Themelios, Lexham Press, Eerdmans, and Zondervan.