In my last post, I wrote a love letter to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld book series, and specifically to the Tiffany Aching sub-series, all about a young, practical witch and how I see Jesus in her. I know, it sounds unlikely, but I promise it’s legit.
Terry Pratchett was not a Christian. He said so often, and with his usual sharp wit. He called himself an atheist—sometimes an agnostic—and he poked at organized religion with the same satirical edge he used on politicians, guilds, and wizards in his Discworld novels. And yet, if you read him carefully, you’ll notice something: his books are soaked in questions of morality, justice, and meaning.
Pratchett never dismissed faith outright. What he distrusted was the way power twists faith into control. In Small Gods, one of his most biting works, the gods grow fat not on love or devotion but on fear and coercion. The priests care more about obedience than compassion. Sound familiar? It’s not far from what we see in the Bible and still today in the rise of Christian Nationalism. With Christian Nationalism, the gospel of Jesus is repackaged as a tool for cultural dominance, political gain, and exclusion.
But in Discworld, Pratchett shows us a different path. His characters remind us that faith—whether in God, in each other, or in the simple decency of showing up—must be lived in small, ordinary acts of care. Granny Weatherwax doesn’t preach sermons; she sits with the sick and the dying. Tiffany Aching doesn’t thunder about morality; she goes where she is needed and shoulders the hard work no one else will take on.
Pratchett may not have believed in God, but he deeply believed in responsibility. He believed in kindness. He believed in facing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be, and still choosing to act with decency. And that’s where I see a bridge. As a Christian, I believe all those values flow directly from Jesus, who healed, fed, forgave, and challenged the systems of his day. Pratchett believed they flowed from humanity itself. But here’s the point: we found common ground in the living out of compassion.
That’s what makes the contrast with Christian Nationalism so stark. Instead of common ground, Nationalism demands division. Instead of compassion, it weaponizes fear. Instead of humility, it seeks power. And in doing so, it distorts the very gospel it claims to defend.
Reading Pratchett reminds me that faith and doubt, belief and unbelief, can still sit at the same table if the work of love is at the center. He may not have named Jesus as Lord, but he held up a mirror to the world that revealed our hunger for mercy, justice, and hope. And in a world so fractured by ideology, that kind of mirror is a gift.
Pratchett once said, “Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.” I see it this way: my faith calls me to live that goodness out. But whether it comes from belief or doubt, the work of loving our neighbor is the same. And maybe that’s the common ground we can start from.
Rowdy and Redeemed 