Way deep in the catacombs of comments to my post on being in relationship as essential to being a person, Micah made the brief and important statement, “Fortunately, I can’t think of a single real-life difference either of our positions would make.” This is an important statement in that if our views—whether mine or my dissenter’s—do not affect the way we live, it likely isn’t worth the time and effort to either hold that position or to argue for it. I don’t mean to belittle the long discussion we had and I especially don’t want to belittle the position Timbo argued for as he was my main challenger in the discussion. This post is not intended to continue that debate, but to respond to Micah’s claim through a personal narrative. Of course, one should always be wary when reading a post that opens with a disclaimer, especially a disclaimer this long.

I came to my view of communion as necessary for personhood rather late in the game, as it were. As I said in the post I mentioned, the view as articulated by John Zizioulas that relationship is essential to personhood came to me through my studies in systematic theology during my time in seminary. It immediately resonated with me and like so many things that resonate with me, the view did not so much show me something altogether new, but put into words what I had been thinking and experiencing for quite some time. Zizioulas may have put matters in terms I would have never considered prior since philosophy and systematic theology have never been the disciplines I naturally gravitate toward.

In an earlier post I discussed a bit of my journey in faith. For the majority of my time as a disciple of Christ, I have had a very individualistic view of what it means to be a Christian. I would read the Bible for my development, I wanted to know what I could get out of a worship service and a sermon, and participation in a community was mostly something that was good for me. I saw my attendance at weekly worship services as a means strengthen my walk, to give me some material to reflect on during my private quiet times (or devotionals if you prefer) throughout the week. Whether I developed this individualistic view on my own or it was somehow given to me doesn’t really matter because I owned it and held it closely to my chest.

I would have experiences later in life that challenged my individualistic relationship with God. As an evangelical Christian, I most certainly do not want to give up the belief in a personal relationship with God, but my experience showed me that the personal and corporate are not mutually exclusive. Both are radically important.

My first experience came as a college student in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF). Actually, my time as a camper and staff worker at Calvin Crest Conferences was the first real experience of the beauty of being in regular community with Christians. I simply did not have a community like that when I went back home down the mountain. In IVCF I did find that kind of community of fellow disciples wanting to follow Jesus with their whole lives in a setting that was not separate from the rest of society. Here my fellow Christians wrestled with God in their studies, in their relationships with others, in their jobs, etc. All of the sudden I found that my experience in the group setting did strengthen my private time with God, but the opposite was also true. My private time with God related more to what was happening within the community. I was not left alone as I began to discover God’s heart for reconciliation across the barriers that separate us, but learned about it and experienced it with others. These two aspects of the faith began to work in concert with each other.

In the subsequent years, through other experiences and study, I began to believe that God’s goal was not to save me as an individual, but to create a redeemed people as a part of redeeming all of creation. Being a part of a community was no longer an option of the Christian faith. And yes, those advantages of community such as mutual support, accountability, and wisdom from others are absolutely true. More importantly, however, I have come to believe that the communities of the people of God are the primary locations of God’s activity in this world. It is in community that God speaks and where we can discern the Holy Spirit’s activity and direction. Jesus called his disciples to follow him in community, not to follow him as a group of individuals who have no real relationship to one another.

But why is this so? As I came across theologians like the Cappadocian Fathers, Zizioulas, Jürgen Moltmann, Stanley Grenz, and Miroslav Volf, I saw that that piece of our doctrine, the Trinity, which for years I had believed because I was supposed to but found to be supremely esoteric all of the sudden began to matter. These theologians emphasized that the Trinity is God in community. The three persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—are in eternal communion with one another. They love and give to each other. They serve and support each other. They send and glorify one another. The other aspect of Christian doctrine which I have held is that as human beings, we are created in the image of God. Combine the doctrine of the image of God with the doctrine of a social Trinity and I saw that why I experienced God in surprisingly beautiful and strong ways in community was because I was being true to who God created me to be. To be in communion with God and with other persons is (partly) what it means to be created in the image of God. God is communal. Humans are communal. Membership within a community—and I do not mean church membership specifically—is not extracurricular to the Christian faith, but it is something Jesus calls us into when he calls us to follow him.