Jesus Christ should be the singular point of emphasis upon which all matters hinge. For that reason I am especially grateful for those notable ministers, many of whom are nationally recognized, who maintain a Christological emphasis in all things. Ministers, en toto must always infix their attention upon Christ in all oratory, discipline, doctrine, counsel et cetera. For present interests particularly all ministers are to govern their preaching and/or pedagogy Christologically. Christ must be inexhorably advanced in and through the teeth of our every assertion. Otherwise, variegated forms of religion prevail.
This singular and central priority was unabashedly reclaimed within the epistemological matrix of Medieval Christianity so much so that it was a defining schema. Yet, the seminal cry, "Solus Christus", which was dogmatically celebrated in that re-formative period, seems to have faded into the recesses of the evangelical consciousness. Inauspiciously, it would seem that, on the whole, priority pertaining to the primacy of Christ has greatly diminished in our day. Many high-churchmen and purist liturgists transpose the centrality of Christ with forms and symbolic representations. Many television evangelists attract crowds by way of supernatural lures and elaborate productions to dazzle the eyes and ears.....Christ is noticeably absent or marginalized. Outreach efforts are commonly designed simply to counteract poverty or provide charity. Often times these do-gooder efforts fail to pronounce Christ. Many a minister have transformed themselves into ethicist's and moralists without adequately couching such categories in the gospel of Jesus Christ thereby mass producing self righteous and mechanistic loyalists. Academia has been reduced to an impotent reservoir of pluralistic derelicts who deserted biblical Christology long ago for popular eccentricity and shadows of liberal pluralism. There is hardly even a noticeable vestige of the legacy they were founded upon.
Whatever else could be added, and the addition could indeed go on, I surmise at the very least that the primacy of Christ has been reduced to a passive whisper or benign assumption. This is perhaps not always sweepingly true within the technical equations of doctrine and theology (albeit, it is becoming more pronounced within this discipline as well) but it is glaringly obvious within the bounds of pedagogy and clerical pontification by and large!! And I endeavor to say that the former is met with Christological dissolution as the latter predominates.
If the entire compass of scripture is Christ-centered then it stands to reason that all we say and do within Christendom should hinge upon Christ and Christ alone!!! As Paul reminded the Corinthians, "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (I Cor. 2:2).
Michael Horton's remarks and statistical conclusions below underscore the disastrous implications of abandoning Christological pedagogy and the associated thrust of Solus Christus in particular:
"Today, once more, this affirmation is in trouble. According to University of Virginia sociologist James Hunter, 35% of evangelical seminarians deny that faith in Christ is absolutely necessary. According to George Barna, that is the same figure for conservative, evangelical Protestants in America: "God will save all good people when they die, regardless of whether they've trusted in Christ," they agreed.
Eighty-five percent of American adults believe that they will stand before God to be judged. They believe in hell, but only 11% think they might go there. R.C. Sproul observed that to the degree that people think they are good enough to pass divine inspection, and are oblivious to the holiness of God, to that extent they will not see Christ as necessary. That is why over one-fourth of the "born again" evangelicals surveyed agreed with a statement that one would think might raise red flags even for those who might agree with the same thing more subtly put: "If a person is good, or does enough good things for others during life, they will earn a place in Heaven." Furthermore, when asked whether they agreed with the following statement: "Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others all pray to the same God, even though they use different names for that God," two-thirds of the evangelicals didn't find that objectionable. Barna observes "how little difference there is between the responses of those who regularly attend church services and those who are unchurched." One respondent, an Independent Fundamentalist, said, "What is important in their case is that they have conformed to the law of God as they know it in their hearts."
The aforementioned effects are resultant wherever and whenever Christological pedagogy is lost. A people's attention and faith inordinately shift from Christ to peripheral matters at the time a healthy and thriving Christology is on the wane. A ministers duty, nay, every Christian's duty and privilege is to be Christ centered in all things. I close with the words of Charles Spurgeon, "Preach Christ, always and everywhere. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our one great , all-comprehending theme"
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