The status of modern friendship isn't good. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the

point. It's precisely because of the atomized, customized nature of our lives that we rely on

friends so very much. Jennifer Sr. recently wrote over at the Atlantic, we're recruiting them into

the roles of people who once simply coexisted with us, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, fellow

parishioners, union members, Rotarians.

Friendships, however, are in short supply.

According to one survey, nearly half of Americans have three or few or close friends.

12% save they have none.

Senior rights, one could argue that modern life conspires against friendship, even as it requires friendship all the more. Well, complicating the

problem is that friendship was never meant to be our only social relationship. People need

churches, families, neighbors, all relationships that are in steep decline in this culture

that prioritizes autonomy over responsibility. The unique beauty of friendship, to paraphrase

C.S. Lewis, is that it's about something

bigger than itself.

But all human relationships are.

Christians who know this have much to offer a world that doesn't.

I'm John Stone Street.