Good conversation is hard-won and rare, but when it happens, it is among life's most powerful experiences. We humans are not meant to be alone. In good conversation, we experience a vitalizing transcendence of the alienation and solitude of life. 7 Real dialogue has to be inclusive of real differences of viewpoint and experience. It has to be safe and supportive, yet critical and evaluative.
Friendship is the place for such dialogue.
The calling of the churches to public conversation is an opportunity for faithfulness and for love of neighbor. It is also an invitation to the wonders of friendship. Per Anderson is associate professor of religion at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota. See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics , ed. by Eberhard Bethge and trans. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age , trans.