Reviews for For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

The average rating for For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-08-04 00:00:00 William Austin This is the best book on worldview I have ever read. Hands down. I come from a protestant background but most protestants argue for worldview in gnostic categories. Even the most creational of them merely reduce the Christian faith to the intellectual. This is the oldest heresy the church faced: gnosticism. Fr. Schmemann, on the other hand, demonstrates how the Christian worldview cannot be separated from the more "earthly" elements of the faith: the sacraments. For him, the world is sacramental. The sacraments are life to the world. My favorite part was the discussion on the Eucharist. I almost felt like I had entered the very throne room itself. Behind the pages was a glimpse at how the Christian church may oppose secuarlism in sacramental terms. I apologize for the way I have been doing apologetics. It's all gnostic. From now on, I will never do apologetics apart from the other dimensions of the Christian faith. Fr. Schmemann appeared able to combat secuarlism in a way that the secularist had no rebuttal.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-01-17 00:00:00 Charles Kessler Simply put, this is one of the greatest books of any genre I have ever read. I am not sure how even to begin describing this incredible book. Ultimately it is about living all of life liturgically and understanding the world as sacrament. We come to know the world through the lived liturgy of the Church. In this book, Schmemann rejects the false dichotomies between secular and religious, nature and grace, supernatural and natural. He orients the reader to living life liturgically. I feel as if I am just jumping around trying to find a good way to describe this book and I realize that I cannot do it justice. Perhaps a few quotations will help to explain the profound nature of this book: "If the Church is truly the 'newness of life' -- the world and nature as restored in Christ -- it is not, or rather ought not be, a purely religious institution in which to be 'pious,' to be a member in 'good standing,' means leaving one's own personality at the entrance -- in the 'check room' -- and replacing it with a worn-out, impersonal, neutral 'good Christian' type personality. Piety in fact may be a very dangerous thing, a real opposition to the Holy Spirit who is the Giver of Life -- of joy, movement and creativity -- and not of the 'good conscience' which looks at everything with suspicion, fear and moral indignation." "[T]he tragedy of a certain theology (and piety) was that in its search for precise definitions, it artificially isolated the sacraments from the liturgy in which they were performed." "The Church is the entrance into the risen life of Christ; it is communion in life eternal, 'joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.'" "A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not 'die to itself' that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of 'adjustment' or 'mental cruelty.' It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God." "Feast means joy. Yet, if there is something that we -- the serious, adult and frustrated Christians of the twentieth century -- look at with suspicion, it is certainly joy." "[T]he term 'sacramental means that for the world to be means of worship and means of grace is not accidental, but the revelation of its meaning, the restoration of its essence, the fulfillment of its destiny. It is the 'natural sacramentality' of the world that find its expression in worship . . . Being the epiphany of God, worship is thus the epiphany of the world; being communion with God, it is the only true communion with the world; being knowledge of God, it is the ultimate fulfillment of all human knowledge." "Thus the very notion of worship is based on an intuition and experience of the world as an 'epiphany' of God, thus the world -- in worship -- is revealed in its true nature and vocation as 'sacrament.'" I hope those quotations give a flavor of this book. It really is incredible. I don't know if there was one page on which I did not underline or star a passage. Do yourself a favor, buy and savor this book.