A Ritual Theory View of Communion: ‘goal-demoted behaviour, ‘special relationships,’ or a mode of knowing reality?

This paper examines communion, as reflected, described, and enacted in the early church, through two prominent theoretical perspectives: the cognitive science of religion and anthropologically informed conceptions of agential relationality and ritual entailments. Arguing this second body of thought superior, a move is then made to develop ritual relationality through consideration of ritual practice as one among many modes through which we do more than generate relations among people, objects, places and idea, but also to describe, encounter, articulate, and disclose truth.