Loving humanity

The God of Christian prayer is an involved God, a social God. Involvement and society are among the essential marks of Christian prayer because this prayer is actually participation in God. God is involved in humanity, and so prayer is an involvement in humanity. God is social and not isolated and so prayer is a social, not an isolated, activity. There is a fundamental solidarity about prayer which is central to the Christian understanding. The taking of manhood into God embraces spirituality and politics, the inner and outer worlds, in one process. ... The quest for union with God and the quest for the unity of mankind is one quest. Prayer needs always to be seen within this social context, for there is no such thing as private prayer. The word private comes from the Latin privatio which means robbery. To the Christian, nothing is private, least of all prayer. God is not private, but personal and social, Being-in-relationship. That is the meaning of the symbol of the Trinity: that in God there is social life, community, sharing. To share in God is to share in that life.

Kenneth Leech, True Prayer (SPCK, 1980)