How would you analyze Vera Smith and her religious beliefs from The Dead Zone by Stephen King?

Vera Smith is the mother of Johnny Smith, the protagonist of King's novel. She is a religious fundamentalist who also believes in a number of other unusual theories such as aliens and the lost island of Atlantis (an interesting point: King wrote a novel many years later called Hearts in Atlantis). Her decline into religious obsession began after she had to have a radical hysterectomy following her son's birth and the discovery of tumors. When...

Vera Smith is the mother of Johnny Smith, the protagonist of King's novel. She is a religious fundamentalist who also believes in a number of other unusual theories such as aliens and the lost island of Atlantis (an interesting point: King wrote a novel many years later called Hearts in Atlantis). Her decline into religious obsession began after she had to have a radical hysterectomy following her son's birth and the discovery of tumors. When she first receives the news that Johnny has been in an accident, she thinks it must be God's judgment to punish her and her husband and that they must immediately pray for forgiveness. But eventually she believes that Johnny's accident, a car crash that leaves him in a coma for almost five years, is a blessing from God because she believes Johnny has a mission to fulfill that will serve God's purpose. When Johnny awakes he has advanced powers of perception, in that he can see flashes of future events when he touches people. He gradually becomes a loner subject to depression (we learn much later that he also has a developing brain tumor, paralleling his mother's tumors found after her pregnancy). He plots to kill a senator (who is, ironically, also a religious fundamentalist) who he thinks will instigate a nuclear war in the near future.

Unlike Margaret White, the mother of Carrie White in King's earlier novel Carrie, another religious fundamentalist who believes her daughter's telekinetic powers are evidence that Carrie is cursed by the devil, Vera believes Johnny is special and blessed by God. These themes of religious fundamentalism and unusual psychic powers are frequently seen in King's novels. Margaret White tries to kill her own daughter, so that she will be forgiven and sacrificed to God to pay for her sins; but Vera believes Johnny is destined for greatness. Both mothers seem to be dealing with a certain amount of guilt regarding their children's potential for violence and their socially-deviant behavior. And in both novels we see an extreme religious worldview in these two women related to the birth of their only children (Carrie and Johnny).