The Religious Quest

Both Rudyard Kipling and Poul Anderson respected the religious quest. One Jungle Book story describes a successful Indian professional giving up everything to go into the homeless life. (I think that we can both seek spiritually and enjoy the benefits of civilization but spirituality involves different approaches.)

Kim (London, 1944) begins:

"Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
"By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
"Be gentle when the heathen pray
"To Buddha at Kamakura!" (p.1)

Although Kim's lama's quest for the river that will wash away his sins is obviously mad, the sympathetic Catholic chaplain, "...wise in the confessional..." (p. 131), is "'...sure he's a good man'" (p. 130) whereas the unsympathetic Anglican chaplain is described humorously:

"'But this is gross blasphemy,' cried the Church of England." (p. 126)

Anderson fans will not need to be reminded of:

Peter Berg, the Christian who continues to question when he has encountered the Ythrian New Faith of God the Hunter;
Fr Axor whose quest for the Universal Incarnation is combined with scholarly study of Ancient relics;
the Protestant spaceship captain in Tau Zero who kneels and thanks God when he is shown the monobloc of a new universe.

Even van Rijn's piety is more sincere than I originally gave him credit for and the agnostic Flandry addresses his dead fiancee, thus becoming the first to pray to St Kossara.