This is my second post on Reddit…
When I began to read books consistently on a daily basis (in sixth grade), I was always fascinated by Stephen King. Everybody talked about how he is amazing at horror. In 8th grade I finally picked up my first Stephen King novel: Misery. It was an excellent read and Annie was so scary and had so much power for someone who doesn’t have any supernatural abilities.
Where the comments started: I read Dreamcatchers next (underrated), and a got very confused when I read through a few parts of Stephen King adding rude commentary on God and Christianity. Although it was very little so I didn’t think about it after. But it kind of went on in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, I still didn’t really pay much attention.
Then I got to The Tommyknockers…
The beginning sentences of the book felt like King was trying to through shade at Catholics. And a lot in the book King goes rambling along about how God isn’t a very good being. Heck, theirs even a chapter where “Jesus” helps a woman make a device to kill her husband. But a lot of this over the top stuff probably is due to him snorting “powder” a lot in that time of his life.
But I just could not finish. The book itself I feel was kind of a mess. I put it away for a few weeks and then threw it away.
For some reason he doesn’t do this for a lot of his books.
But these are his beliefs and it is his book, so he can technically write whatever he wants in it.
(Yalls thoughts?) 🫡
by Gurrrrmondays
25 Comments
Horror and Christianity don’t get along very well. Take my word for it.
God forbid someone have opinions on Christianity lol
If you don’t like it just don’t read 🤷🏻♀️ I’m sure there’s tons of god/Christian books you could read.
He’s written 60 books averaging more than one a year since he started writing. I’d be more surprised if every one of them did speak to you, metaphorically.
You don’t really have any idea what he thinks about religion. These are works of fiction, with the opinions of the characters all you see, or the plot elements the author has chosen to spin the story. The idea that a work of art is the same as its creator is wild to me – surely we grow out of this when we’re teens?
I think Carrie pretty much spells out a major thematic connection between Christianity and evil. He has a way of making superstitions particularly scary.
I mean it’s not like God is real so who cares lol.
You don’t have to read Stephen King if you don’t like it, i avoid writers and books that are written from a religious viewpoint. I roll my eyes too much every time god or jesus is mentioned, it just rubs me the wrong way when writers bring their religion into the story and it breaks the immersion for me. Just read what you DO like and stay away from what you don’t.
The Stand makes it very clear (for me at least) that Stephen King is a Christian—or at least, Christian-friendly. He just doesn’t like hypocrites— and the 80s in particular were a time where religious hypocrites seemed to rule the world.
I mean, some books have more of that than others. And youve unfortunately had a back to back run of two of King’s worst books. I think King’s commentary a lot of the time is less about personal belief (there very much is a God in King’s wider novel universe) and more about how faith and religious institutions can be corrupted and hypocritical and can be used as a tool to hide horrendous actions like crusades or child abuse, which all says more about the people expressing their faith than the religion itself. It’s a difficult nuance for people of faith to understand and accept sometimes, though, and I don’t believe it’s expressed very well in either of those novels. Hope that helped, and I’m happy to talk about it more if you’d like!
With your sensitivities towards religion, maybe you should just stick to reading the Bible. There is plenty of horror in there too.
You can entertain someone else’s ideas without personally accepting them. If we only read material that reinforces what we already believe, we won’t grow much.
For the record I am not religious. I’ve read all of King’s books so far and enjoyed lots of them. Read whatever floats your boat.
>this over the top stuff probably is due to him snorting “powder” a lot in that time of his life
Hey, this brilliant man, and highly respected deep thinker doesn’t believe in the same religion that I do! How dare he? The only possible explanation is that he is a drug addict.
Just stop reading anything other than the Bible – OK? I mean one day you might actually start thinking for yourself and that would be terrible.
King was raised Methodist and has stated before that he’s not an atheist. His wife is Catholic and his daughter is some brand of Protestant minister. I agree with one poster who asserted that The Stand displays a strong Christian influence. A lot of his characters are unpleasant and hypocritical people though. It’s more bad people King is critiquing than religion itself.
I think he’s def critical of institutional religion, but to give a counter-argument, the entire point of the book It is that there are extraordinary forces in the universe which can’t be explained solely by rationality and logic and can only be defeated through faith. To king, it was a virtue of children that they could easily square logic and faith with one another, while adults tried to force the world to make complete sense. A lot of his writing, to me at least, deals with the cosmic struggle between good and evil and is certainly compatible with religion.
Currently reading *Fairy Tale*. I’ve never been good with King’s full-length novels, but this is by far the most enjoyable of the ones I’ve read. In the story, the protagonist feels as though he owes God. It’s not a major part of the text, but worth mentioning for you because it looks like you’re looking for this kind of approach.
You’ll find King brutal in the way that he treats any group if you read his entire oeuvre. For example: *The Dead Zone* relentlessly attacks an over-the-top religious character, making her utterly misguided, believing anything she’s told to the point where it’s destroying her family. There’s no subtlety there, but that’s just how King often is. If you’re a Christian and are worried you might find something negative, you’ll either need to be extra selective, or see it as the price of admission.
You must remember that this is fiction, and even if the fiction may contain nuggets of his own faith (or lack thereof), it is in service of the work. It’s totally fine to critique the validity of the statements, or whether it serves or distracts, or goes towards full blown propaganda, but I feel it is not valid to criticize it because it doesn’t fit your belief structure
Ive experienced tons of art that has more than overt Christian symbolism, but I don’t judge it on how I interpret the scripture, but how it serves the narrative or piece. Besides, much in metaphysics can be understood outside of the literal
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He is writing fiction and what the needs of the story are. He writes horror that doesn’t make him a horrific man. If he writes about religion it’s in service to the story not necessarily a reflection on his beliefs or a commentary on religion outside of this particular story.
If reading that bothers you or makes it less enjoyable for you by all means stop reading it. It should not be a reason to judge King.
King is very much Christian IIRC. The Stand and The Green Mile are essentially extended Christian parables, and the Flagg/Farson/RF primary antagonist throughout his books line up pretty closely with the accepted Christian understanding of Lucifer. I think you’re worrying too much about some of the individual characters he’s created over his 50 years of publishing a new book with new characters every year.
That isn’t his personal opinion. It’s a character in the book’s, as for the demonic Jesus the woman sees on the television, it isn’t Jesus in King’s fictional world. From what I recall, The Tommyknockers just fuck with people’s heads, making them lose their minds (an entire town losing their minds is a theme King is best at). He uses trademarks of a small town we all know, the religious, the overly political, domestic abuse, and turns these themes into horror.
A great writer challenges themselves to put characters on page the absolute opposite of themselves on page, and with horror, there are going to be some taboo breaking characters to make you, as a reader, uncomfortable, because horror.
Try not to overthink it. I believe in a God but still enjoy nihilistic works from Blood Meridian to Nietzsche, because a valuable part of both my faith and intellect is that I must accept that I, or nobody else on Earth, has anything figured out.
Then don’t
If it truly bothers you as much as it sounds, you absolutely have the right to choose not to read his content.
However, I think it’s important for religious people to be able to read someone else’s thoughts/ideas on religion. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with their opinions/beliefs, but other beliefs exist and that’s okay. Not everyone is Christian or Catholic or some other branch.
This is coming from an Italian Catholic who adores Stephen King. His comments about religion more or less go in one ear and out the other for me.
“The mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain an idea without believing it” -Aristotle.
People will have different an opinions than you, especially concerning something like Christianity, which depending on your personal viewpoint could be the best or worst thing that ever happened to the world.
This is really only showing your own biases.
You take umbrage at *The Tommyknockers* for having a woman think Jesus is telling her how to kill her husband, but you clearly understood that the woman who thought her doll collection was talking to her was just nuts. (Plenty of people **in real life** have committed evil acts because they literally thought God or Jesus was telling them to do it; we can clearly agree that they were wrong about that, but they still believed it.)
Perhaps you’ve not tried *Salem’s Lot*. It has vampires, and a Catholic priest who… doesn’t fare too well, largely because he **lacks** faith. The religion itself is not the issue, but the belief in it that a flawed character has – or in this case, lacks.
*The Mist* is another one you might struggle with, because it features a rather devout woman who soon goes really Old Testament, to the point she demands the sacrifice of unbelievers in the name of expiation. Again, it’s not about the religion. It’s about the person and how they relate to it.
King isn’t denigrating Christianity. He’s pointing out the flaws in ***people*** and the way they operate within (or without) religion. He actually treats Christianity itself rather well – it’s just the crazier Christians that he pokes fun at.
If you think he’s poking fun at **you**, perhaps you’re the problem.
What the author writes doesn’t equal what they believe. What you read is from a character’s point of view, not necessarily the author’s.