John Updike focused on the spiritual as well as the carnal.
The Boston Globe said:
. . . Religion figures throughout Mr. Updike's writing (fiction as well as essays). References abound to such religious philosophers as Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, and Karl Barth. The protagonists of his novels "A Month of Sundays" (1975), "Roger's Version" (1986), and "The Witches of Eastwick" (1984) are, respectively, a minister, a religious historian, and the Devil (memorably played in the movie adaptation by Jack Nicholson.
Raised a Lutheran, Mr. Updike became a Congregationalist after moving to Massachusetts and later an Episcopalian.
The Revealer properly slapped the New York Times for using the occasion of the obituary to curiously describe Updike's most famous character, Rabbit Angstrom: "a believer in God even as he bedded women other than his wife."
Updike was a man who struggled so well through his art, and certainly Rabbit, with the issues which besiege us all, and our world is better for that.
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