Communal Worship

I've been poking around the internet to find information on two of my favorite theologians: Colin Gunton and John Zizioulas. I came across a website hosted by Douglas Knight who studied under Gunton at King's College, London. Gunton's theology has stood out to me because it has proven time and again to be thoroughly Trinitarian, thoroughly God-centered. As Gunton interacts with what it means to be human, he always holds in tension the unfathomable reality that creatures are able to commune with their Creator; that we are images of God and therefore capable of knowing him. Douglas Knight here reflects on how this impacts our worship of God:

"Gunton taught that we creatures are able to know God because the Holy Spirit enables us to confess Jesus, who confesses God the Father. Often quoting Irenaeus to say that the Son and the Spirit are the two hands of the Father, Gunton showed that the doctrine of the Trinity provides us with a doctrine of mediation - God himself is not only the (christological) content but the (pneumatological) medium and bearer of that content. He argued that God is now at work making possible not only our worship and knowledge of him, but also our recognition of one another. God is the means by which I may see you for who you are, and let you become what God intends you to be – a unique and particular person." quoted from www.douglasknight.org

As Knight points out here, the same way we come to know and love God we come to recognize who our brothers and sisters are. The Spirit who carries us in our worship of God also carries us in our relationships with one another, enabling us to recognize the dignity and nobility that we are created with. With the Spirit bearing the truth of Christ's confession concerning the Father, we are simultaneously drawn into God's own love for himself as well as for his people. Consequently, learning to know and love one another occurs alongside learning to worship God. I don't think there could be a stronger argument for communal, or corporate, worship.