When author and theologian John P. Burgess first traveled to Russia, he was hoping to expand his theological horizons and explore the rebirth of the Orthodox Church since the fall of Communism. But what he found changed some fundamental assumptions about his own tradition of North American Protestantism.
In this book, Burgess asks how an encounter with Orthodoxy can help Protestants better see both strengths and weaknesses of their own tradition. In a time in which North American Protestantism is in decline membership has now fallen to below 50% of the population Russian Orthodoxy can help Protestants rethink the ways they worship, teach, and spread the gospel. Burgess considers Orthodox rituals, icons, the attention to saints and miracles, monastic life, and eucharistic theology and practice. He then explores whether and how Protestants can use these elements of Orthodoxy to help revitalize the mainline church.
