Alexander Schmemann:
For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

released 3/22/2019

Mars Hill Audio presents the first available audiobook of Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s classic work on theology and liturgy, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy. Fr. Schmemann begins his essay into the sacraments of the Church with the observation that man is a hungry being and that the world is presented to him as his food. Man must eat in order to have life. From this observation, Fr. Schmemann follows with the question: “Of what life do we speak, what life do we preach, proclaim, and announce when, as Christians, we confess that Christ died for the life of the world? What life is both the motivation, and the beginning and goal of Christian mission?”

Throughout the book, Fr. Schmemann confronts challenges of clericalism and secularism and identifies subtle dualities between the spiritual and the religious, the active and contemplative, Word and sacrament, and finally sacrament and liturgy. As he walks through the Church’s life by way of the sacraments, Fr. Schmemann offers an account of the sacraments and their liturgies that reunites through Christ the eschatological and worshiping life of the Church with the cosmos and time that is its mission.

This recording is read by Ken Myers from the newly revised 2018 edition published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

5 hours 48 minutes

Links to posts and programs featuring Fr. Damian Ference:

David Fagerberg on Alexander Schmemann’s liturgical theology — David Fagerberg describes how Alexander Schmemann illuminated a deeply sacramental view of liturgy, the Church, and the Kingdom of God. (22 minutes)
The meaning of “secularism” and its antidote — Alexander Schmemann on the grand modern heresy
The impact of the rise of non-liturgical worship — Peter J. Leithart reviews Lori Branch’s book Rituals of Spontaneity, in which Branch argues that an “ideology of spontaneity” has led to the modern rise of non-liturgical forms of worship. (29 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 159 — FEATURED GUESTS: Kirk Farney, Andrew Willard Jones, James L. Nolan, Jr., Andrew Kaethler, Peter Ramey, and Kathryn Wehr
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 137 — FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 117 — FEATURED GUESTS: Matthew Dickerson, Jennifer Woodruff Tait, Jeffry Davis, Philip Ryken, and Robert P. George
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 101 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Davison Hunter, Paul Spears, Steven Loomis, James K. A. Smith, Thomas Long, and William T. Cavanaugh
Is religion just moralistic therapy after all? — Alexander Schmemann on the secularization of religion
Hans Boersma on For the Life of the World — Drawing from Alexander Schmemann’s book, Hans Boersma asserts that a recovered understanding of the relationship between God and Creation is essential to addressing a host of modern cultural crises. (17 minutes)
Fr. Chad Hatfield and Peter J. Leithart on Alexander Schmemann — Alexander Schmemann’s book asks a set of questions about “Christianity and culture” that typically don’t get asked, questions that re-center our lives in gratitude and worship. (20 minutes)
Festivity and the goodness of Creation — Drawing on Josef Pieper’s ideas, Ken Myers explains why the spirit of festivity is the spirit of worship, and that “entertainment” is ultimately an artificial, contrived, and empty effort to achieve festivity. (25 minutes)