Practicing Christians Who Don’t Believe, by James Baresel

Most of us have probably wondered why people who clearly do not believe in Catholicism choose to remain within the Church, actively working to undermine its doctrines, structures, and practices. I have thought of more and more such reasons as time has gone on, some of whose validity has recently been confirmed by my reading of a novel which celebrates an Anglican priestess’s entry into a lesbian relationship following her rejection of belief in God.

The book is Aftershocks. Its author, A.N. Wilson, a one-time student for the Anglican priesthood who rose to prominence leading the “Young Fogey” movement’s defense of traditional aesthetics, went through an atheist phase and returned to some form of professedly Christian belief which he seems to be again abandoning. From a purely technical artistic point of view, Aftershocks is well constructed. Its attempt to present a case against religion is worse than inane, resting on arguments refuted by even the most basic works of apologetics: Asserting that it is a contradiction to believe that God can at the same time be omnipotent, be loving and permit evil, the circular logic of disputing the Bible’s reliability on the basis of an assumption that the supernatural does not exist, alleging that “sexual repression” is responsible for molestation of children, claiming Christianity teaches that “God wants gay people to go to hell” without distinguishing involuntary attraction and voluntary acts. ….