I've often wonder if Stephen King, who has written much about broad themes involving destiny and pre-determination, thinks much about people of the people of faith. Many of the characters who are religous are fanatics, not just Margaret White, but JohnnY sMITH'S mother in the Dead Zone or Mrs. Darmody in The Mist who blames the fog on the wrath of God. In his most religious novel Desperation , one of the ongoing themse is the idea of 'God Is Cruel' and when you consider the fate of David Carver, it's hard not to consider it.

An alternative to the priest in the Exorcist ois Father Callahan in Salem's Lot. Callahan is suffering from being a drunk as well as struggles with the church in the modern world - he has a conversation with one where he thinks that in the modern world "God isn't dead, he's just senile." He looks at the struggle against the vampires as a chance to test his faith. But in one of the darkest moments of the novel, he confronts Barlow the head vampire who is destroying Salem's Lot with a blessed cross and when he has a moment of doubt, the cross which is glowing dims and then goes out. Callahan survives his confrontation with Barlow, but the fate he suffers is far worse. (I won't reveal it because the novel has only been adapted to TV twice and both are inferior to the book, which I recommend as reading.) Perhaps that is the major reason Salems Lot is one of the few books that never saw a film adaptation in the 20th century: it's message is that God is powerless over true evil.