A faith of the faithless that is an openness to love

As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, as part of my sabbatical I intended to re-read a couple of Simon Critchley's books. Well, I've just finished his "Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance" and found it as powerfully persuasive as I did first time around, although I hope that this time through I have understood it and internalized it better than before.

I've now turned to his related book "Faith of the Faithless: Experiments in Political Theology" which impressed me last time I read it. I've just read the following paragraph in the introduction which seems to be well-worth of reproducing here:

"Although we can be free of the limiting externalism of conventional morality, established law, and the metaphysics of traditional religion, it seems that we will never be free of [what Oscar Wilde calls] that 'sordid necessity of living for others.' The latter requires an experience of faith, a faith of the faithless that is an openness to love, love as giving what one does not have and receiving that over which one has no power. It is the possible meaning of such faith that constitutes the horizon for this book" (p. 11).

It seems to me that I could say it is this possible faith of the faithless that constitutes the horizon for my own ministry as someone sympathetically inclined towards a Christian atheism and religious naturalism.