Getting to the heart of Slow Church

If there is one short work that gets to the heart of what Slow Church is about, it is the chapter “Eucharistic Table Manners” from Norman Wirzba’s new book Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating.

It is from Wirzba, and from John Howard Yoder before him, that we borrow the central image of the Slow Church as that of a shared meal:

The ritualized character of the Eucharist sometimes causes people to forget that the supper was a meal.  It was not a nibbling session, but the place where the disciples came together to obtain their inspiration, strength and sustenance.  The evidence of the early church suggests that the community of followers eat together regularly and often, and that in their eating they tried to bear witness to Christ’s way of dwelling on earth (149).

You can read a good chunk of this chapter (and other parts of this superb book) via Google Books: