Gilbert K. Chesterton, the renowned Catholic apologist, was great friends with George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright, even though Shaw, an agnostic, had major issues with Chesterton’s belief in God and especially with him becoming a Roman Catholic. Indeed, when he heard that Chesterton had become a Roman Catholic, he wrote him a letter expressing his disappointment.

Ever the colorful writer, Shaw ended that letter describing to Chesterton a vision he had of him going to confession: “You will have to go to confession next Easter, and I find the spectacle – the box, your portly kneeling figure – all incredible, monstrous, comic. …. Now however I’m becoming personal (how else can I be sincere?).”

But these differences didn’t deter them from being great friends. They had a deep respect for each other and valued each other. Indeed, at one stage, Chesterton felt a need to defend Shaw from well-intentioned Christians who were vilifying him because of his agnosticism. Speaking in Shaw’s defense, he wrote: “There is one fundamental truth in which I have never for a moment disagreed with him. Whatever else he is, he has never been a pessimist or in spiritual matters a defeatist. He is at least on the side of Life. Everything is wrong about him except himself.”

Most of us, I suspect, have friends like that, people who no longer walk the path of explicit faith with us. From a certain Christian point of view, most everything is wrong with them, except themselves. They aren’t professed agnostics or atheists, but they don’t fit the description of a practicing Christian either. They rarely go to church, mostly disregard the church’s teaching on sex, pray only when in crisis, consider us church-goers naïve, and are too immersed in life here-and-now to think much about God, church, and eternity.

Yet they radiate life, often in ways that challenge us. There’s something about them that’s very right, inspiring even, and life giving. They may be practical agnostics and ecclesial atheists, but their presence often brings positive energy, goodness, love, intelligence, sunshine, and humor into a room.

Don’t read this wrong: This does not imply (as does an over- simplistic, rationalizing notion that’s popular today) that those who do go to church and try to follow the church’s rules are the naive and immature, while those who don’t go to church and make their own rules are the enlightened and the mature. No. There’s nothing enlightened about people drifting away from the church, thinking they are beyond church, living outside its rules, or believing that a passionate focus on this life justifies a neglect of the other world. That’s a fault in religiosity, and often a fault too in wisdom and maturity.

Simply put, the wonderful energy we see in the many good people we know who no longer go to church is precisely just that, wonderful energy, though not something to be confused with depth.

For example, I look at many of our talented pop musicians and see how they can make people dance, no small thing, a godly thing even. We dance too little and our spirits are often too heavy. But that doesn’t give us license to confuse playful energy (“Ob-la-dee, Ob-la-da, life goes on!”) with wisdom or depth. It’s a wonderful thing to make people dance, to bring sunshine into a room, to lift human hearts so they can drink in life a bit more, but that’s not the full menu, nor indeed the deeper part of the menu. It is what it is, a good thing in itself, but only that.

But it’s on the right side of things. It’s on the side of life. It helps bring divine energy into a room, and that needs to be blessed. That’s why, as Christians, we need to bless our good ecclesial agnostic friends and let ourselves be blessed by them.

That’s also why we should be more discriminating in our use of phrases like “a culture of life” and “a culture of death.” God is the ultimate author of all that is good, whether that goodness, sunlight, energy, color, and warmth is seen inside a church building or outside of it. And wherever that energy is good, there’s “a culture of life,” even if it might also be carrying some elements of “a culture of death.”  

Richard Rohr says not everything can be fixed or cured, but it should be named properly. What’s wrong is wrong, and should be named as wrong, but what’s good is good, and should be named as good. I look at some of my “pagan” friends, at their energy, their warmth, what they bring into a room, and it helps lift my heart. Everything is wrong about them, except themselves. God also made their sunshine and their warmth. They don’t go to church, and that isn’t good; but they are often on the side of life and their implicit faith helps me to remain on the right side of things. And that is good.