“If you liturgize it, they will come. Come and see. The services will teach them everything. Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved, right?”
Yes, right. The services will indeed teach them everything and that will transform them and creation around them will be saved too! By prayer they might “die to the self” and experience the uncreated light of God!
“As you may imagine, that kind of sloganeering does not much appeal to me, because it at least seems to me that its underlying message is “You don’t have to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. You don’t have to teach people the Gospel message.”
What a shame. This man made his way to the Western Church but failed spiritually there so now he shows up in the East and tells us how wrong we’ve been for the past 1800 years or so. The reality of lex orandi lex credendi is not sloganeering!
To be fair to Mr. Dreher, the lines you quote, Uncle K., are by one Fr. Andrew Damick at this website: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/roadsfromemmaus/2015/05/08/do-orthodox-christians-know-the-gospel-message/
Whether Mr. Dreher is presenting them with full agreement, I can’t say. My impression is that he believes different approaches work better for different people.
His use of large chunks of other people’s material reminds me of some college papers I wrote when I was in a hurry. “Shoot, I’m not up to five pages yet ... better find another quote!”