Like the other friends of Job, Eliphaz was convinced that Job was suffering because he had sinned. Eliphaz was wrong about that. But he paid Job a high compliment when he said,

You have encouraged many;
You have strengthened failing hands.
Your words have kept him who stumbled from falling;
You have braced knees that gave way (Job 4:3-4).

Evidently, Job had earned the reputation of an encourager. I get the impression that when other people saw him coming, they smiled because they knew he would listen with sympathy and speak with kindness. I thank God for people like that, don't you?

Some of my recent experiences have reminded me of the value of encouragement. I've enjoyed getting to meet and speak to congregations of the Church of Christ at Adrian and Fritch, Texas. Both of those churches provide financial support to the Bible Chair ministry at Amarillo College. During my visits to them, they added some moral support for the director as well. Great people.

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Just a follow up on the Stephen King thing: there was a comment on that post from Greg Stevenson, who teaches a course on popular culture and religion at Rochester College. He's recently started blogging and has a good entry on "Stephen King's Religious Stories." The rest of his blog, called "Caritas," is cool too. You can check it out and welcome Greg at http://caritas2.blogspot.com

The Spirituality of Stephen King

The other night, Michele and I watched "The Green Mile" on DVD. It's not among my favorite films. But she had never seen it before, was intrigued, and had picked it up along with some other movies at the library.

Just as it got rolling, I warned Michele about the three execution scenes, the second one being especially graphic and ugly and painfully-long. We hid our eyes and fast-forwarded through some of it. I've seen some rougher movies and documentaries. But for some reason, the depictions of hyper sadism in this one just really get to me.

Anyway, this time around I was remembering that, like "The Shawshank Redemption," this movie originates with Stephen King. And, again like Shawshank, "The Green Mile" is loaded with spiritual themes like redemption, retribution, the innocent suffering for the guilty, and on and on it goes. These story lines seem to take "principalities and powers" a lot more seriously than do most other contemporary films. And, in the Green Mile you even have a messiah figure whose initials are J.C.

So my off-handed question is, Why do we always hear about Stephen King as a writer of horror? Or is that merely his pop-culture and surface persona, the most obvious facet of his fiction obscuring the other facets? I also wonder, Are there any writers or discussions out there that deal with the "spirituality" of Stephen King? Also, what about his own religion, formative and current? It seems to be fairly rich and nuanced.

Any help? Thoughts?