The mediocre convert with mixed motivations may not be where he is meant to be, but at least some risk is being taken, something is being offered up or staked, and some important threshold is being crossed—whereas belief-in-belief is fundamentally too soft and settled a disposition to actually stand up to atheism when the cultural pendulum swings... See more

This is the category of person who likes religious ideas when other people believe in them, who wants religion to exist for its civilization-shaping qualities without personally accepting any of its impositions, who draws pleasure from what the late Richard John Neuhaus called “regretful unbelief,” who only really believes in belief .