A Voice For Our Time: Radio Liberty Talks, Volume 1

by Alexander Schmemann, Rod Dreher (Foreword), Serge Schmemann (Introduction)

In his broadcasts on Radio Liberty, Fr Alexander Schmemann spoke to men and women behind the iron curtain who had endured the deprivation, persecution, and state-enforced propaganda of the Stalin years. But his words do not belong to that era alone. They are addressed just as urgently to our own time. He exposes the roots of the lies and misperceptions that abound in our age, and brings all to a proper perspective in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the first of two volumes in the Radio Liberty Talks collection, with a foreword by Rod Dreher and introduction by Serge Schmemann.

374 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2021

About the author

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was a prominent Eastern Orthodox theologian and priest of the Orthodox Church in America.

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do like reading Fr Schmemann and find many things comforting and inspiring in what he says. This book is a collection of the talks he gave that were broadcast into the Soviet Union when it was an atheistic communist fortress oppressing all religion. Schmemann is an apologist for Christianity, answering many of the anti-Christian claims of the Soviet spokespeople. Schmemann was an evangelist for the joy, goodness and life-giving nature of Christianity whose last and main enemy is death. Schmemann tends to write in broad strokes, giving us a big picture of things. A criticism of his work might be that he does at times do what he criticizes the opponents of religion for doing: setting up a straw man and then demolishing it. Some of his barbs at the atheists attack their weakest points, and he usually avoids taking on their serious criticisms of the church or church history. But his apology for Christianity does point to what is the foundation of Christianity: not dogma, not hierarchy, not morality, not politics, not ritual, but Jesus Christ. When we keep our eyes on Christ, then there is rejoicing, love, forgiveness, mercy, peace.

[w gall · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, Fr. Alexander was targeting the people of the Soviet Union, who were being indoctrinated into an atheism supposedly based on science. In short snippets (about 2 pages each in this book) he deconstructs the shallow Soviet arguments. Taken as a whole, this body of talks amounts to an excellent, thorough, and convincing Christian apologetic. Digested a little at a time, intellectually challenging arguments are more easy to grasp. A truly inspiring effort!