God bless us, everyone.
I have enjoyed reading your observations of Fr. Stephen’s comments since you both come at faith and religion from a different place than he does, or I do for that matter. There is very little similarity between Post Enlightenment (not necessarily Post Reformation) Protestant thinking and that of Orthodoxy. Three hundred million Eastern Christians, at least, think about the role of The Faith in individuals and society in a way that the Founders as products of the Enlightenment would never recognize. From an Orthodox point of view, they were indeed “practical atheists”. Let me give you one example, in Orthodoxy the concept of a God ordained Emperor is firmly entrenched. This isn’t to say that Orthodoxy is incompatible with democratic principles, by the way. The Founders would never accept the spiritual or social acceptability of a God ordained Emperor.