Alexander Schmemann is an Orthodox theologian that every Protestant should read if for no other reason than the paucity of decent reformed literature on ecclesiology, sacraments, and liturgy. The great spiritual battles of our generation do not divide on Catholic/Protestant lines (much less Orthodox), and for scouting more insidious neighbors like secularism, there is no better guide than Schmemann. The purpose of For the Life of the World is to describe what the sacraments mean for a Christian 'worldview'. Schmemann presupposes that man is not primarily a thinker or maker but a worshiper, homo adorans. Likewise, creation exists in order for man to experience, worship, and ultimately commune with God. Schmemann declares the great heresy of our day to be the supposition that something real exists outside of the sacramental world; in other words, the supposition that one can know anything apart from the love and enjoyment of God. Thus rather than being an aside within the dogmatic category of 'Church', sacraments for Schmemann are the mysteries that most clearly refract the Light of the World. The church is a cosmology, not ecclesiology; she is the vantage point that makes sense of time and space in our militant age.
There are two terms that must be defined in order to understand Schmemman, worship and sacrament. Worship is the essence of knowledge for humans, a knowledge itself defined as communion with God and the world. This connection of knowledge and world means that humans cannot experience God without the senses: "We need water and oil, bread and wine in order to be in communion with God and to know Him." Yet this is not some kind of shallow empiricism. Matter by itself signfies nothing but death. Sacrament, then, is Gods epiphany in matter. A physical form expresses, communicates, and reveals God's splendor without losing its own ontological reality. This latter point is far from superfluous. Only bread as bread is able to signify Christ's body. Only wine, his blood. As such these mysteries elicit wonder, awe, and joy - not to mention gratification - while imparting knowledge of God.
Why might a reformed person fear Schmemann? Perhaps because he's too sacramental. He doesn't concede any room to a secular order of common grace. No ghetto hedges sacred bread within profane. Once a person becomes catechized within the church, all bread signifies Christ, though not all is liturgical. Time gains meter by the already, not-yet. Space is filled with the presence of God. Life becomes a crescendo moving toward the final feast of Lamb and bride. Christ death is For the Life of the World.
