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What are you doing this weekend? Are you going to take the plunge and see The Golden Compass (in wide release today), which is spawning a lot of controversy among some religious groups? Or perhaps you're going to skip it for less controversial reasons, such as the fact that it's already coming up rotten on Rotten Tomatoes? In case you've been living under the rock that I sometimes find myself under, The Golden Compass is based on the first novel, also called The Golden Compass (published under the title The Northern Lights outside of the U.S.) of a trilogy by Phillip Pullman, titled His Dark Materials. Some people charge that the books and the movie promote an offensive atheist agenda. More (spoilery) detail about the plot of the books can be found here.
I have heard a lot of good things about the books, which admittedly I have not read. My oldest child is a little too young for them yet, although I know adults rave about the trilogy the movie is based upon, so I would probably enjoy them. Interestingly, the books I have heard Pullman's trilogy compared to the most by those who recommend them is the Chronicles of Narnia series, which is known to be a retelling of Christian stories. This would seem to be in direct conflict with the "agenda" of Pullman's books. I suspect when my friends were making recommendations, they were seeing the common thread of good versus evil, plucky kids, and a fantasy setting.
I have been thinking about this movie a lot for the past couple of weeks, since it has been a news item after being denounced by the Catholic League's president Bill Donahue. Since this hubbub started, bloggers, Christian and otherwise, have felt the need to weigh in on this movie. Call me ignorant (seriously, I've been called worse), but I didn't understand the threat brought about by a single movie. I'm not being flippant; I really didn't understand. I decided to look around to see what other people thought, and if they were going to see the movie or not, and why or why not.
As I was searching for some perspective, I encountered Rebecca Grace, writing for One News Now:
Your child watches the movie, wants the books, reads the books and gets a whole new perspective of God, which could doom him eternally. Don't be deceived. The movie is bait for the books.
There were a few other bloggers who wrote on this theme, the notion that ideas contrary to Christian theology, such as the themes in The Golden Compass, could lead children down the wrong path, imperiling their souls.
So is Pullman trying to pull the rug out from under faithful youths? Anecdotally, it's easy to find claims that Pullman writes to give children a vision of a world without a Christian god, or as a way to really stick it to that smug C.S. Lewis guy. What Pullman says on the subject of organized religion, however, seems more complex than that:
The religious impulse – which includes the sense of awe and mystery we feel when we look at the universe, the urge to find a meaning and a purpose in our lives, our sense of moral kinship with other human beings – is part of being human, and I value it. I'd be a damn fool not to.
But organised religion is quite another thing. The trouble is that all too often in human history, churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people's lives in the name of some invisible god (and they're all invisible, because they don't exist) – and done terrible damage. In the name of their god, they have burned, hanged, tortured, maimed, robbed, violated, and enslaved millions of their fellow-creatures, and done so with the happy conviction that they were doing the will of God, and they would go to Heaven for it.
I should say at this point that it seems to be somewhat open to debate what Pullman's intent in writing these books were. Perhaps my Googlefu fails me (and I'm sure someone will tell me it has), but I could not find a direct quote attributed to Pullman that starts off, "Hold on to your butts, here's what I meant by The Golden Compass...." This thrills me, because I love it when artists leave you hanging a little. Even if reason for being elusive about the meaning is out of malice or
