Wesley Hill on Spiritual Friendship
A foundational interview exploring Hill's theology of friendship as a spiritual vocation and its recovery in evangelical churches.
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Spiritual Formation
On Christian Friendship
Why are deep friendships so rare in evangelical churches — and what does Scripture teach about the community we were made for?
Last updated: April 17, 2026
TL;DR
Deep friendships are rare in evangelical churches due to busyness, consumerist church culture, and programs that prioritize attendance over relationships. Scripture presents friendship as covenantal, sacrificial, and central to spiritual life, not optional. Churches often lack structures that provide time, vulnerability, and consistency needed for genuine intimacy and belonging.
American evangelicalism faces an epidemic of loneliness. Despite being the most connected generation in history, Christians report fewer deep friendships than previous generations. The problem is particularly acute in evangelical churches, where an emphasis on nuclear family life, geographical mobility, and cultural individualism has systematically squeezed out the conditions for genuine friendship. We treat friends as nice-to-have amenities rather than essential to Christian formation. The church building becomes a place we gather weekly, not a community we inhabit together.
Theologians like Wesley Hill and Jonathan Holmes are recovering a thicker, more biblical vision of friendship as spiritual vocation. Drawing on patristic and medieval theology, they show that friendship is not peripheral to the gospel but central to it—rooted in the Trinity itself, where the three persons exist in perfect communion. The New Testament portrait of early Christian community (Acts 2:44–46, living κοινωνία) offers a radical alternative to our atomized culture. A gospel-shaped church will be a community that makes space for deep friendships across all states of life—single, married, celibate—and understands friendship as a primary channel of discipleship, accountability, and joy.
Key Questions
- What biblically distinguishes true friendship from mere casual acquaintance?
- How can single and celibate Christians experience profound community and belonging in churches built around marriage and family?
- Is digital friendship and online community a legitimate substitute for embodied, geographically proximate friendship?
- What structural changes do churches need to foster the time, vulnerability, and intimacy that deep friendship requires?
- How does friendship function as a means of spiritual formation and growth in Christlikeness?
The Debate
Three Evangelical Approaches to Community and Friendship
Evangelical churches approach friendship and community in strikingly different ways. Some recover a theological vision of friendship as essential to Christianity. Others lean on pragmatic small-group structures. Still others call for radical proximity and shared life. Each perspective offers insights—and each carries blind spots.
Position A
Theological Recovery
Wesley Hill, Jonathan Holmes
Friendship is a spiritual vocation that must be theologically reclaimed in evangelical Christianity. It is not a luxury but a necessity, grounded in the very life of the Trinity and exemplified in the incarnate Christ. The New Testament assumes deep friendship as normative. Evangelical culture's nuclear-family centeredness has left single and married Christians alike bereft. A gospel theology of friendship opens space for celibate vocations, deep same-sex friendships, and meaningful community that transcends biological kinship.
Position B
Small Group Pragmatism
Church growth leaders, small group advocates
The practical answer to biblical community lies in intentional small group structures and relational programming. Churches grow intimate through targeted groups—life groups, community groups, Bible studies—where consistent, regular gathering fosters genuine connection. This view acknowledges that community is difficult at scale and requires deliberate structure. Programming and systems can create the conditions where friendship naturally emerges. The small group becomes the primary vehicle for discipleship, accountability, and care.
Position C
Radical Proximity
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, new monasticism
Programs and small groups cannot manufacture the conditions for true community. Genuine fellowship requires geographic nearness and shared daily life. We need neighbors more than committees. The new monastic emphasis on "radical proximity"—living near one another, sharing meals, being present to actual needs—recovers the logic of Acts 2 and the desert fathers. Digital connection and weekend gatherings are no substitute. The church must relocalize and relearn what it means to inhabit shared space together.
Our Take
Friendship is not incidental to gospel health in the local church—it is a mark of it. A congregation where people only know each other by name, where vulnerability is confined to prayer requests, where single adults are marginalized or pitied, where the texture of daily life together is reduced to weekend services and programmed groups—such a church has lost something essential. The scandal of evangelical loneliness reveals a crisis of ecclesiology. We have a weak theology of community.
The recovery begins with theology (friendship as a spiritual good), extends through intentional structures (small groups, shared meals, deliberate hospitality), and ultimately requires willingness to relocate our lives toward actual geographic proximity and shared life. The goal is not novel monasticism for its own sake, but a realization that the gospel creates a people, not merely a collection of individuals. Churches that make space for deep friendships across all demographics—mentoring relationships, same-sex friendships, intergenerational bonds—will find themselves stronger in witness, more resilient in trial, and far more joyful.
Curated Articles
2
The Loneliness Epidemic in the Church
An examination of how American evangelicalism has created conditions for isolation despite its emphasis on community.
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Friendship as Spiritual Formation
Holmes explains how deep friendships are not optional but essential to discipleship and growth in grace.
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Single, Lonely, and in Church
A vulnerably honest look at how evangelical churches have failed single adults and how friendship offers an alternative to compulsory coupledom.
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What Biblical Friendship Is—And Isn't
A biblical framework distinguishing true friendship from superficial networking and explaining friendship's role in the body of Christ.
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Building Real Community in a Digital Age
Explores the limits of digital community and why embodied, local friendship remains irreplaceable in the Christian life.
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Beyond Small Groups: Making Friends in the Church
A thoughtful critique of church programming and a call to allow friendship to develop organically alongside intentional structures.
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The Gospel and Embodied Community
Moore argues that the gospel creates a people who live together, not just believe together—and what that demands of local churches.
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Hospitality as the Gateway to Friendship
Butterfield reflects on how radical hospitality in the home becomes the incubator for deep Christian friendships.
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Why Loneliness Is a Spiritual Problem
An investigation into how loneliness isn't just a psychological crisis but a theological one that the church is uniquely positioned to address.