Terry Pratchett: A Dissenter's View of Faith

I just finished reading another Terry Pratchett book from the Discworld series to my boys, this one entitled "Men at Arms". I think it's probably the 15th book I have read to them, and I have read the entire series through personally.

I you haven't read any Pratchett, do yourself a favour and pick some up.

One of the most interesting things about Pratchett, for me, is his view on faith. He certainly could not be described as a believer, and many of his characters in Discworld are functional atheists, even though they have rock-solid evidence that the gods exist (in that universe, if you are too noisy of an atheist you get zapped by lightning. I'm not saying that's a great thing for our universe, but it would definitely make the internet a slightly more civil place).

But Pratchett's take on religion is not quite so simple as mockery. Mockery there is of certain forms of religious belief, but there is also underneath it all a desire for the gods (or for God) to be more than what their or his or her followers reveal about them/him/her. The gods and their followers are mocked because they aren't as good or as loving or as kind or as compassionate or as holy as they could be. As they should be.

At one point Granny Weatherwax, the foremost witch in the Discworld and a very stubborn non-conformist, particularly when it comes to religion, tells an Omnian missionary (a very evangelistic religion) that if she thought there was a god out there who really cared about people, who really loved them like a mother and protected them like a father, and if she had really seen that god manifest as the Omnians claimed, then that faith would be burning in her like a white hot flame and nothing could put it out. She wouldn't be saying things like "well there's two sides to every story" or anything like that. She wouldn't just be nice. She would turn the world on its head.

When I first read that passage, and a few others like it in other of Pratchett's books, I was stunned. I had hardly ever read a better call to holiness and love in any Christian devotional book. Pratchett, it seems to me, was longing for a better God, as demonstrated by better followers. Now I know, we are all imperfect and broken, that is a big part of the story, I get it. But that imperfection and brokenness should not just lead us to compromise and weak witness. It should lead us to the deep humility, the deep poverty of spirit that begins to heal our brokenness and perfect our imperfection.

Faith is meant to be a flame that burns away the impurities in us, that burns up the compromises we make with a world that has lost its sense of beauty and holiness.