Throughout his nine-year term as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold has taught about reconciliation: conversation, conversion, communion—all grounded in Jesus' meeting us in all our particularities and isolation and calling us into the ever greater friendship of the Holy Spirit.

It seemed natural, then, that a book of essays in honor of the Presiding Bishop at the end of his term should take reconciliation as its theme. Each of the contributors-church leaders from all over the globe—focuses in his or her own way on reconciliation and our participation in what God has already accomplished through Christ.

I Have Called You Friends is a proper and loving gift to man who has served as the overseer of the Episcopal Church, and as a teacher and a friend. But it is more than that. It is an enterprise in theological reflection on a vital topic for citizens of the twenty-first century.