When I became a Christian at age 19, I was kind of a mess, doctrinally speaking, especially where my view of Jesus was concerned.
Did I believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Check. My Savior? Check. Crucified and rose from the dead? Of course.
Continued below.
There are a lot of people out there celebrating the wrong Jesus this Christmas
www.christianpost.com
This is a very important point and underscores the widespread prevalence of crypto-Arianiasm.
I believe some of the worship services, not so much those in the liturgical tradition, certainly not the Tridentine, Ambrosian, Sarum, Mozarabic, Gallican and related Western Rite liturgies, some still used by the RCC, others preserved by Old Catholics and Western Rite Orthodox, nor by those parts of those liturgies properly translated by Anglicans and Lutherans.
Rather - aliturgical churches, which do not routinely or ever recite the NIcene Creed, and routinely refer to Christ our True God, a normal phrase in the Orthodox liturgy, and which erroneously accuse Roman Catholics (and Orthoodx, and Lutherans, and most Anglicans) of heresy for using the phrase Mother of God to refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, fail to provide their members with the Christological context required for recognition of Christ as God Himself, incarnate, in the prosopon of the Son and Word, one of three persons in the Holy Trinity, of one essence with the Father, having put on our human nature without change, confusion, separation or division.
I believe the solution is to promote the adoption of liturgy by aliturgical churches, and ecumenical reunification centered around the Nicene Creed, and for such churches to close ranks - we have already seen a recent shift in preference among members of Generation Z, fairly dramatically, in favor of liturgical churches (and indeed, among millenials and those of many other generations), the Eastern Orthodox in particular (with the exception of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese) seeing record growth. Orthodox parishes importantly have children in them, in large numbers, and a high birth rate, similiar to traditional Latin Mass Catholics , due to steadfast opposition to abortion, contraception and homosexuality, which cannot bear fruit.
I would note also that there are a few aspects even in the traditional Western liturgies that might warrant being supplemented in some cases - specifically, the Apostles’ Creed is insufficient to prevent Arianism, since it does not explicitly but rather implicitly declares the deity of Christ; I do not object to its use but I strongly support the requirement, for example, of Anglicans, that the Nicene Creed be used on Sunday and during the Divine Liturgy; what is more, I think the relegation of the Athanasian Creed (not written by St. Athanasius, but a sort of composite of two of his writings) to at most, use on Trinity Sunday, or in the case of the Episcopal Church, a mere historical document (the Episcopal Church has to my knowledge never required the use of the Athanasian Creed in the Book of Common Prayer) is extremely helpful; indeed, we Orthodox, while not using it liturgically, include it in our Psalters and certain other service books (a version of it lacking the filioque).
Additionally, more prayers addressed to the person of Jesus Christ are important, which should conclude with a phrase such as “who livest and reigneth together with Thine unoriginate Father, and the Holy Spirit our comforter and paraclete, three persons, ever one God, now, always and forever,” greatly helps. The Coptic Orthodox church has one anaphora addressed almost enitrely to Jesus Christ, aside from the Lord’s Prayer, the Anaphora of St. Gregory Nazianzus, which is their preferred liturgical prayer for the most festive occasions, such as Christmas and Pascha (Easter). Other Eastern usages that should be considered for inclusion in the Western liturgy include the use of the Psalm “Let God arise, and let Thy enemies be scattered” on the feast of the Resurrection, and splendid Christological hymns such as Ho Monogenes, which is written in such a way as to preclude Christological heresy:
O Only-Begotten Son and Immortal Word of God,
Who for our salvation willed to be incarnate of the Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary;
Who without change became man and was crucified;
O Christ our God, trampling down death by death,
One of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
Save us!
