Is The Slow Church Movement The Next Religious Threat?
According to the 7/23/14 Christian Century review of the book “Slow Church: Cultivating Community In The Patient Way Of Jesus”, these authors contend that the individual should stay in only one church.
This is because, “Every time we move from one church to another, we lose a little bit of our patience for all things religious.”
But what if the church is so small that the less desirable regions of the Afterlife will cover over with glaciers before the average person will be able to participate through means of other emptying pockets into the collection plate?
So will ministry positions and opportunities go to the people that have remained at a church for ages?
Or will this be more like the typical workplace where the gloryhounds swoop in when something opens up with the old timers overlooked because they aren’t the right demographic (meaning they are the wrong color or the plumbing hooked up incorrectly) with the excuse being that those at the bottom need to remain where they are (meaning there needs to be somebody to be stepped on).
But more importantly, this perspective could easily lead to the fostering of an atmosphere where the victims (oh, I mean members and attenders of the congregation) will put up with increasingly shocking forms of abuse and levels of generalized mistreatment for fear of endangering their immortal souls.
Even if that is not what the authors originally intended, that is most likely what will result in a world characterized by Jonestown, Waco, and the epidemic of sex scandals blackening the eyes of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of Christendom.
According to the authors of this manifesto on the Slow Church Movement, one is to remain in the same church more or less no matter what.
The authors clearly look like Emergent Church beatniks.
One of them is even a Quaker.
That means he does not view doctrine formulated upon the foundation of His unchanging word as the primary way that God conveys His intentions to mankind.
Rather, we are to fumble about being leading by what is assumed to be the Holy Spirit.
But with that given a higher status than the Bible, we don’t really have any proof that the message we are receiving is from the indwelling presence of the Triune Godhead or rather from demonic entities kicked out of the gates of Heaven.
In the end, this Slow Church mindset will no doubt be used to denigrate the character of those that get up and walk out once the gay weddings or the wife swappings commence and be used to applaud as spiritually awakened those willing to go along with such abhorrent practices.
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.
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