12:24-27) does not automatically qualify one for heaven. Harry Angstrom does even less than this, but is convinced that he's okay because he does what he does. This, unfortunately, is what the people in his city and county have told him all along, and no one had any opportunity to tell him otherwise.
The question of whether he would have listened if someone had told him might be answered by Jesus' instructions and warnings to his disciples about their testimony: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake" (Mark 13:13). When, in fact, his friend and golf partner is confronted on his sanctimoniously tepid witness, he's angry enough to not even pray about whether the accusation is right or not (Updike 155).
The interaction of Rabbit and Mr. Eccles (i.e., Mr. Ecclesiastical, or Mr. Church) brings out Rabbit's real religion, which before he had not been unconscious of because it was covered by his popularity. What he believes about himself is all light and goodness, and he tells the lover in his adulterous affair "I'm a mystic. I give people faith" (130). Later, however, she sets him straight. "Boy, you really have the touch of death, don't you? You're Mr. Death himself. . . . You just wander around with the kiss of death" (276). This is made clear only after his selfish behavior has caused the accidental drowning of his newborn daughter. But her death was only the worst in a series of things that died, beginning with his marriage and ending with Ruth's hope.
Earlier she had asked Rabbit "Don't you think you're going to have to pay a price?" (131). There is the irony. Indeed, Harry Angstrom was running up a very large tab he would have to pay. The title, Rabbit, Run alludes to his running from paying that bill, which his minister friend is picking up in the meantime. And as a result, "before, Rabbit at least had the idea he was acting wrong but now he's got the idea he's Jesus Christ out to save the world just by do...