Christ-Centered Orthodoxy

"Be that as it may, numerous consequences result from self-consciously making the gospel clearer and more central to our Church life. Once Jesus, in His trinitarian relations, is proclaimed in all the Church's sacraments and liturgical actions, then the Church's preaching, worship, missions, and education will reflect that Christ-centeredness. For example:

• Worship services will be more meaningful because the priest shows how Christheals us through the different sacraments.
• The Divine Liturgy will not focus on the Eucharist "per se," but on Christin the liturgy of the Word and in the liturgy of the sacrament, two inseparable aspects of the Sunday liturgy.
• Christian education will not simply be about learning the symbolic meaning of the priest's vestments, Church architecture, etc., but about the Bible itself and how Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity are the primary focus of those vestments and artistic expressions of theology.
• The Church's missionary work will not simply seek to "plant churches," but to "convert sinners" to personal faith in Christ through repentance, faith, and baptism. Moreover, its internal mission to parishioners who are Orthodox in name only may, for the first time, lead people into a saving relationship with Christ through rededicating their lives to the Lord as a renewal of their baptism.
• Finally, in the Church's preaching, the gospel of Jesus Christ will be applied to the marketplace of business, school, social, and family life.

Quite simply, we need to recover the evangelical dimensions of our Church's faith (see my chapter, "The Evangelical Theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church" in Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism, ed. James Stamoolis, Zondervan, 2004). We need to make the pulpit agree with the altar. Strange as it may sound, the Church's preaching needs to become more Eucharistic. Why? Because the Eucharist proclaims the gospel! It "proclaims the Lord's death, until He comes." The death, resurrection and second coming of Christ are the very core of the Good News."
-Dr Bradley Nassif, Orthodoxy Today