Or maybe it is a 'snipit', anyway, it has been laying on my desktop so long I have forgotten where it came from (I know - I should have included a reference), probably from NPR's This I Believe:

"Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds. The power of materialist science to explain everything -- from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms and their sub-microscopic components -- seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind. On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires and -- may we even say -- illusions, composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms, attempts to address, organize and placate these. I believe, then, that religious faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has been for me."

John Updike won two Pulitzer Prizes for his series of novels chronicling the life and death of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He is also a noted poet and essayist as well as a literary and fine art critic. Updike grew up in rural Pennsylvania and now lives in Massachusetts.

Rabbit novels
(1960) Rabbit, Run
(1971) Rabbit Redux
(1981) Rabbit Is Rich
(1990) Rabbit At Rest
(2001) Rabbit Remembered

These books are as dreary, depressing, guilt-ridden, and sex- and drug addicted, as much of American society was towards the end of the 20th century. Yet they are very well written as only Updike can do it.

He tells it like it is. Or was. And he writes well about religion; and he has been a Sunday-school teacher in his church which he attends faithfully, it seems.

"Pigeon Feathers" is a short story about a boy's faith.

Yes, I agree. One of America's best living writers. Better, I think, than Norman Mailer and Phillip Roth but not quite as good as Saul Bellow. All doing their best to present the truth as they see it, and still get a pay check.