I see two major flaws in the father’s writing. One, he uses the term “practical atheist.” The definition of atheist by its very nature means a person who does not believe in God or any supreme being in any form. The individuals he is critiquing may be many things, but atheists they are not. If a person believes there is a God but that this God does, or does not, do thus and such, that in no way means they do not believe in God, only that they do not believe in God in the way orthodox Christians (and when I say orthodox I include Catholics and Protestants)believe. We can call them pagans or many other terms, but atheist is the improper term.
Two, he states that the more secular the world becomes for Christians, the more political Christians will become. Scripture tells us, “When the foundations crumble, what will the righteous do?” God wants us to keep our foundations strong and I believe with all my heart that the United States was brought about by divine, yes, providence; meaning that we would not be without God’s hand in this; and the only reason we are even what we are is because God has allowed it towards His good purposes. Just as He allowed the Holocaust to work towards His good purposes; one of which was the establishment of Israel as a nation.
There is a host of problems that go with being either only political or only religious. I would not want our political system to be run by ecclesiastical law for the simple reason that men are corrupt, whether secular or not.
I watched so many so-called Christians and Catholics do awful things over the years, the only reason it DOES NOT shake my faith is that it is not God who does these things and I know that. My husband’s sister threatened to sue him for some trivial matter(of course this was after her husband just graduated from law school this past year). In fact, we joked the other day that they have threatened to sue so many people, we have compiled a list of those they have NOT threatened to sue. So far, the list comprises the Pope and Casper. She has criticised me in the past because I am not a Catholic, yet she does not even know what the Catholic church teaches. She is, in fact, what I call a “cultural Catholic.” There are cultural Lutherans, cultural Jews and so on. They practice it only insofar as it occupies a certain realm in their life but they have no real understanding of the God who is living and active, the “God-Who-is-among-us” as this author states. These people occupy every denomination that ever existed.
Furthermore, after watching the debacle that occurred within the Catholic Church, wherein the Church moved priests they knew were practicing debauchery to unsuspecting parishes where these evil men could damage forever the souls of children, some of whom will NEVER go back to the Catholic church or any other church.
The deeper my faith, the more political I become. When I see what the 5 of the 9 judges on the SCOTUS are doing, I am going to be working very hard to stop more of these people from getting a lifetime appointment to destroy all that is good and sacred in this country. Of course, I pray, but like that one quote says, “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.”
I think the father has it all wrong here. I think the deeper your faith becomes in God, the more you care and the more you see what is going on - how families are turning on each other; the natural affections they have are no longer there and so on. Yes, I am political and it is BECAUSE I love my Lord. It is no different than why I care for the hungry, those in prison, widows and orphans, and all other things Christ taught us to care about.
This is what Fr. Stephen said:
I have here introduced the notion of “practical atheism,” meaning by it, that although a person may espouse a belief in God, it is quite possible for that belief to be so removed from everyday life, that God’s non-existence would make little difference.
It seems, he acknowledges that this "practical atheism" is not the same as internalized atheism of conviction. He simply says that it has the same effect to an outside observer.
On the second point, I think you object to what he did not propose. Of course Christians should be engaged in the political world. We've always have been. But he gives us a forgotten model of doing so, with personal witness, rather than relying on the modernistic model of democratic politics, or on military force. See his comments reproduced here at #10:
When Christians have become a serious political force in the various states they have inhabited they have as often been coopted by the state as they have had an influence on the behavior of the state. As my Archbishop says, “On the whole, in Church State relations, we have not done so well when we were the state Church.” But much that is political action or action by political bodies is only secular action, use of the power of the state for the ends of the state. Caesar will always be Caesar, I believe. We should care deeply about the things that matter, so deeply we do something and the something very likely should be more than vote. Though I do not advocate not voting. But voting and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. When I think about these matters, I think about Christians becoming the answer rather than using the coercive power of the state to make someone else be the answer. Interestingly, one of the things I always liked best about St. Francis, was that during one of the Crusades, he simply took passage to the mideast and went to the court of the Sultan and witnessed to him about Christ. The Sultan listened and dismissed him, but did not kill him. It would be like looking for Osama Bin Laden in order to forgive him and tell him about Jesus. I can’t help but like such people and think there is more there than we allow.
I concur with your observation and the author’s regarding Deism vs. atheism.
I also assert those who lay claim to deism come closer to supporting an antiChristian belief, in its early stages than simple faith alone through Christ alone.
I suspect there was a time when many freemasons were Christian and sought to perform good works with fellow brethren, and this was possible still through faith in Christ. Today, I know very few masons whom even associate outwardly with Christ, and most are vocally antiChristian.
The largest impediment in the builder’s craft/art has been to succomb to their works independent of faith in Christ alone, but instead upon their own works and brethren’ first. While in its initial stages with the Founding Fathers, such a system might seem humanly good, it ostentatiously reveals its lack of divine good in its later stages of degeneracy.