Christian Ritual is the Real World

For groups, ritual depicts the world as it ought to be, the real world as it is believed to be, especially the social and political realities of the world. Christian ritual displays the world as we believe and hope it one day will be. Ritual displays to public view who goes where, how each of us fits into the whole, how the members of the body are knit into one while yet remaining many, how the melodic lines of each individual life harmonize into a common symphony. By repeated display, ritual reminds us again and again that this is the real world, objectively real outside our imaginations, and encourages us to live on the confidence that this is the real world.

-Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, 82.