Dwight Longenecker is the pastor of the parish we used to attend. He’s a prolific author, and the title of one of his books caught my attention. It purports to be a “radical plan” for believers in an age of atheism. As a once-Catholic-now-atheist, I thought it would be interesting to see how Longenecker defines the problem and what this radical solution might be.

The problem of what Longenecker seems to see as a predominately atheistic society is a “perfect storm” which is “the culmination of five hundred years of devious philosophies, half-truths, godless ideologies, false religions, and rebellion against God, his Church, and His timeless truths” (7). That’s quite a list of problems there, but what’s key to me is the five-hundred-year timeframe. What really began happening then? Modern science was slowly emerging from the mix of alchemy, philosophy, and superstition that had been used to explain the world in the past. The rise in atheism tracks closely to the success of the scientific method. Granted, what I’m suggesting here is one of the “-isms” that Longenecker claims is problematic, namely scientism, which is the claim “that science alone can render truth about the world and reality” (Source). I certainly don’t believe science is the only source of truth in our world, but when it comes to the physical world itself, it is certainly the most successful. Science continually knocks at religion’s door and says, “Here, we’ll explain that now,” whereas religion never offers explanations that supersede previously accepted science.

But the book is not about just scientism but a whole bunch of “-isms”

1. atheism
2. materialism
3. historicism
4. scientism
5. utilitarianism
6. pragmatism
7. progressivism
8. utopianism
9. relativism
10. indifferentism
11. individualism
12. tribalism
13. sentimentalism
14. romanticism
15. eroticism
16. Freudianism

That’s a whole lot of “-isms” to tackle in a book just a bit over 200 pages in length, but Longenecker plows through them all, explaining how they’re problematic for Christians and how they contribute to this “atheistic age” he sees us in.

But how can this be? How can we live in a largely atheistic society when most atheists point out the number of elected officials who are Christian is many times larger than the number of elected officials who are atheist (to use one simple metric)? It’s simple: “most atheists are blind to the fact that they are atheists” (21). I read that and immediately realized where he was heading: if you’re going to call yourself a Christian, you’d better act like a Christian and a Christian as I define it. He frames it by saying that this tide of atheism can be slowed with people living authentic Christian lives, but suffice it to say his definition of “atheist” would leave most atheists scratching their head.

“But I’m not an atheist!” I hear you say. Really? Then why do you live like one? If you do not pray, if you do not tithe, if you are living without a real relationship with God, then your belief in God is only a theory (144)

That’s the answer: prayer, tithing, and creating a close community.

While the book is not an effort to disprove these “-isms” definitively, he does take some time to point out what he sees as flaws in them. Regarding atheism and materialism, for example, he makes the argument that miracles “remind us that weird things happen,” and then gives us examples: “Friars float. Dead saints smell like flowers thirty years after they were buried. Seventy thousand people said they saw the sun spin and plummet to earth at Fatima” (30).

This short list he makes refers to

1. St. Joseph Cupertino, who had “the gift of levitation” (27).
2. St. Bernadette’s body, which smelled like flowers thirty years after her death.
3. The appearance of Mary at Fatima.

Cupertino lived from 1603 to 1663: this was a time when people were burning witches, so that Longenecker takes these fanciful claims that he could levitate seriously suggests to me a naivety that I would not have expected. Bernadette’s body does indeed look lovely, but that’s because of the efforts of the faithful: she’s not that way naturally. And Fatima? It’s just as hard to take that seriously.

It’s easy to understand why Longenecker might willingly accept these things: “The spiritual person sees miracles–divine interruptions–all around him, and and through his everyday experience” (31). If you’re looking for it, you’ll find it. That might be advice he’s giving believers, but I think it’s a double-edged sword: when you go so far as to believe in 17th-century floating friars and someone else says, “Wait a minute,” you’re creating a crack in your belief system that doesn’t have to be there.

What are his suggestions for dealing with all these “-isms”? It’s to develop a “creatively subversive alternative.” Real Christianity. Deep Christianity. Prayerful Christianity. After all, it’s happened before: “Every five hundred years, there seems to be a major crisis in the Faith, and at each juncture, a new wave of witnesses rise up.” First there was ancient Rome, but “the first Christians simply lived a graced life of charity and peace, and the pagan world was drawn to their example and converted.” Then, in the sixth century, “St. Benedict stepped out and established simple communities centered on prayer, work, and reading,” which served as a bulwark against the “listless and corrupt” church. By 1000 CE, there was more corruption and crime but the “Benedictine Order surged forth in the great Cistercian renewal.” Finally, there was the Reformation and the Catholic Church’s Counter-Freformation which “brought renewal simply by living out the creatively subversive alternative” (133).

Yet Longenecker’s suggestion that this same kind of solution (returning to a prayerful traditional Christian life) will work in 2023 is almost laughably naive. The forces at work now are much more powerful than the forces at work in the previous periods, and they’re driven by one thing: the internet. Subversion and alternate views can reach even the most sheltered people now, and the amount of material available that simply picks at thread after thread in the tapestry of Christian belief is overwhelming. Skeptics have methodically taken apart argument after argument and shown how the arguments simply don’t make sense. They constitute an ever-present “yeah, but” to everything Christian apologists say, and no amount of praying is going to make that go away.

Really, the only answer is complete sequestration, and that is in essence what Longenecker is suggesting, and it’s what he was doing in the parish, and it’s a significant reason we left.