A look at the idea of friendship and its various forms within the Christian tradition Friendship and the Body of Christ suggests that friendship is one of the great neglected categories of human relationship, despite the fact that it is one of the key images used by St. John to describe the relationship of God to humankind. The author explores the idea of friendship in the later Christian tradition - which was heavily influenced and refined by Greek philosophy - showing how at different times friendship, both of the same sex and between sexes, could be formalized liturgically and sacramentally. He affirms non-marital friendships between men and women, arguing that they need not be seen as in some way failed or half-hearted approximations to marriage but as relationships in their own right, which have their own integrity. Finally, having attended to scripture, to Christian tradition, and to the experiences of fellow believers in our own and other times, he suggests that a church that rediscovers the custom of spiritual friendship might be better placed to thread its way through the present perplexities about homosexual and heterosexual love and to see where God, who is all truth, is leading us.