Friday, October 31, 2014

Stephen King: ‘Religion is a dangerous tool … but I choose to believe God exists’

Blockbuster author reveals his spiritual side in lengthy Q&A to launch new novel that deals with a minister’s loss of faith

… Stephen King.
… Stephen King. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/Getty Images
Stephen King, whose forthcoming novel Revival features a Methodist minister who condemns his faith after a horrific accident, has described organised religion as “a very dangerous tool that’s been misused by a lot of people”.

In a rare and lengthy question and answer session published in the print edition of Rolling Stone, King laid out how he “grew up in a Methodist church”, but how he “had doubts” about organised religion ever since he was a child, and how “once I got through high school, that was it for me”.

Nevertheless, said the bestselling novelist, he chooses to believe in God “because it makes things better. You have a meditation point, a source of strength”. He told Rolling Stone: “I choose to believe that God exists, and therefore I can say, ‘God, I can’t do this by myself. Help me not to take a drink today. Help me not to take a drug today.’ And that works fine for me.”

Revival opens as its narrator, Jamie Morton, feels a shadow fall over him. It is his small town’s new minister, Charles Jacobs; the meeting sparks a connection that will reverberate through Jamie’s life, taking him to an ending the publisher is calling “the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written”.

King told Rolling Stone that he believed “in evil”, but that all his life he has “gone back and forth about whether or not there’s an outside evil, whether or not there’s a force in the world that really wants to destroy us, from the inside out, individually and collectively. Or whether it all comes from inside and that it’s all part of genetics and environment.”
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