J. Bonner Ritchie - Security Religion vs. Growth Religion

Security religion provides refuge.  It builds an ecclesiastical wall which protects from the onslaught of questions and doubts and decisions.  Growth religion, on the other hand, forces its adherents to grow, to accept responsibility, to assume the burden of proof, to move beyond extrinsic constraints.  Growth religion provides not a wall but stepping stones to climb for the purposes of understanding, analyzing, serving, and making choices. We all seek the safe harbor at times.  We need to be protected, to rest so we can go back for the battle.  Security needn't be an inhibiting force; it can and should be positive.  Whether it is or not depends more on how the member responds to the system than how the system makes demands of the member.

J. Bonner Ritchie, "The Institutional Church and the Individual",