The God trip

Stephen King retraces his “dark” Christianity | Gene Edward Veith

This is the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Stand by bestselling horror writer Stephen King. The gruesome tale of a plague that wipes out most of the population seems prophetic to some people, who see it anticipating AIDS, biological terrorism, ecological Armageddon, the breakdown of America, and the rise of fundamentalist religion.

Strangely, though, in King's novel, the fundamentalists are the good guys. In secularist eyes, conservative Christians are far scarier than Cujo or Christine or any of King's other monsters. But in his introduction to the novel, King called The Stand a "long tale of dark Christianity."

In the story, a fatal mutation of influenza escapes a secret military laboratory and spreads from person to person, killing as it goes. A handful of disparate individuals, though, is unaccountably immune from the virus. One group gathers in Las Vegas, under the leadership of the demonic Randall Flagg. Another group gathers in Boulder, Colo., where they follow Mother Abagail [sic], a 108-year-old black woman. She is a Moses-like prophet who preaches the Bible, works miracles, and ministers to the survivors so they can build a new social order. Eventually, Mother Abagail's ragtag followers must make a "stand" against Flagg and his monstrous followers.