Beyond secularism: The theological vision of Fr. Alexander Schmemann

Like many contemporary intellectuals from a variety of schools of thought writing in the 1960s, Father Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) believed "secularism" to be the "crisis" of his time. This dissertation explicates and evaluates Schmemann's understanding of secularism and his response to it as it is embodied in his published writings. The author argues that, if read preeminently as a response to modern secularism, Schmemann's work was a successful appropriation of the patristic attempt to explain how God is experienced in this world through symbolic Christian worship. In chapter one, an analysis of the terms relating to "secular" in ancient Hebrew, Greek and Latin terminology reveals an ancient problem of reconciling time and eternity, the Uncreated God and the created world, and an attempted resolution to this problem in the New Testament understanding of Jesus Christ and the new aeon initiated by Him (part one). Part two traces the evolution of the concepts related to secularism, from the patristic era through twentieth century. Part three surveys the writings of other sociologists, historians and theologians contemporaneous to Schmemann writing on secularism during the 1960s. In chapter two, Schmemann's understanding of secularism is offered through an analysis of his formative life experiences (part one), his historical vision (part two), his secularization thesis (part three), and his own existential experience of the modern world (parts four and five). Specifically, part four examines Schmemann's reflections on modern understandings of the Christian faith, while part five evaluates Schmemann's critique of explicitly non-religious modern ideologies, such as materialism, feminism and American democratic philosophy. In chapter three, Schmemann's resolution to secularism is illustrated as an experience and proper understanding of symbolic Orthodox Christian worship (part one), particularly as articulated by St. Maximus the Confessor (part two), with whom Schmemann is compared (part three). Finally, Schmemann's work is evaluated in terms of patristic Mystagogical, Russian Neo-patristic (the Paris School), Modern, and Postmodern schools of thought.