A repost....kinda long...
The Golden Compass -- A Briefing for Concerned Christians
The release of The Golden Compass as a major motion picture represents
a new challenge for Christians -- especially parents. The release of a
popular film with major actors that presents a message directly
subversive of Christianity is something new. It is not likely to be the
last.
Having seen the movie at an advance viewing and having read all three
books of His Dark Materials, I can assure Christians that we face a
real challenge -- one that will require careful thinking and
intellectual engagement.
Why is this movie such a challenge?
First of all, The Golden Compass is an extremely attractive movie. Like
the book on which it is based, the movie is a very sophisticated story
that is very well told. The casting was excellent. Nicole Kidman and
Daniel Craig (the latest James Bond actor) are joined by others
including Sam Elliott and newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, who plays the
central role of 11-year-old Lyra Belacqua. Kidman is chilling as the
beautiful but evil Marisa Coulter and Craig is perfect as Lord Asriel.
Actor Ian McKellen (Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) is the
voice of Iorek Byrnison, the armoured bear.
The movie is very well done and will be very attractive to audiences of
all ages. The special effects are superior to any previous movie of the
type, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy (also released by New
Line Cinema). Everything is in place for this to be a blockbuster at
the box office.
Second, the movie is based in a story that is captivating,
sophisticated, and truly interesting. Philip Pullman is a skilled
writer and teller of tales. His invented worlds of The Golden Compass
and the entire His Dark Materials trilogy are about as good as the
fantasy genre can offer. His characters are believable and the dialogue
is constant -- largely due to Pullman's brilliant invention of a
companion for each character -- a "daemon."
The bottom line is that these books and this movie will attract a lot of attention and will captivate many readers and viewers.
So, what's the problem?
This is not just any fantasy trilogy or film project. Philip Pullman
has an agenda -- an agenda about as subtle as an army tank. His agenda
is nothing less than to expose what he believes is the tyranny of the
Christian faith and the Christian church. His hatred of the biblical
storyline is clear. He is an atheist whose most important literary
project is intended to offer a moral narrative that will reverse the
biblical account of the fall and provide a liberating mythology for a
new secular age.
The great enemy of humanity in the three books, The Golden Compass, The
Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass (together known as His Dark
Materials) is the Christian church, identified as the evil Magisterium.
The Magisterium, representing church authority, is afraid of human
freedom and seeks to repress human sexuality.
The Magisterium uses the biblical narrative of the Fall and the
doctrine of original sin to repress humanity. It is both violent and
vile and it will stop at nothing to protect its own interests and to
preserve its power.
Pullman's attack on biblical Christianity is direct and undeniable. He
once questioned why his books attracted little controversy even as the
Harry Potter books attracted so much. He told an Australian newspaper
that what he is "saying things that are far more subversive than
anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God."
Will viewers of the movie see all this?
The direct attack on Christianity and God is toned down in the movie.
But any informed person will recognize the Magisterium as representing
the Church and Christianity. Of course, in our world the Magisterium is
the authoritative leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. In Pullman's
world it represents Christianity as a whole.
Indeed, Pullman's tale tells of John Calvin assuming the papacy and
moving the headquarters to Geneva, thus combining the Catholic and
Reformation traditions into one. In the movie, the Magisterium appears
to be located in London. In any event, the point is not subtle.
The most direct attacks upon Christianity and God do not appear until
the last book, The Amber Spyglass, in which Lyra and Will (a boy her
age who first appears in the second book) eventually kill God, who
turns out to be a decrepit and feeble old imposter who was hardly worth
the killing.
Is Pullman's attack on Christianity exaggerated by his critics?
No -- his attack is neither hidden nor subtle. The entire premise of
the trilogy is that Lyra is the child foretold by prophecy who will
reverse the curse of the Fall and free humanity from the lie of
original sin. Whereas in Christian theology it is Jesus Christ who
reverses the curse through His work of atonement on the Cross, Pullman
presents his own theology of sorts in which the Fall is reversed
through the defiance of these children. As Pullman insists, Eve and
Adam were right to eat the forbidden fruit and God was a tyrant to
forbid them the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The supernatural element of Pullman's story is "Dust," which is seen by
the Magisterium as original sin but is presented by Pullman as the
essence of life itself. In The Golden Compass, Lyra is given an
"alethiometer" or "golden compass" which is filled with Dust and tells
the truth to one qualified to operate it. Readers are told that a great
battle is coming in which forces fighting for human freedom and
happiness will confront (and destroy) the Magisterium and God.
In the last volume of the trilogy, a character known as Dr. Mary Malone
explains her discovery to Lyra and Will: "I used to be a nun, you see.
I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there
wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The
Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's
all."
Is there more to the larger story?
Yes, and it has to do with sex. Surprisingly graphic and explicit sex.
Pullman believes that the Christian church is horribly repressive about
sex and that this is rooted in the idea of the Fall. As he told Hanna
Rosin of the Atlantic Monthly, "Why the Christian Church has spent
2,000 years condemning this glorious moment, well, that's a mystery. I
want to confront that, I suppose, by telling a story that the so-called
original sin is anything but. It's the thing that makes us fully human."
Puberty is a big part of Pullman's concern. Coming-of-age stories are
one of the most common forms of fiction, but Pullman's packs a punch
that readers cannot miss. He wants to celebrate the adolescent's
arrival at sexual awareness. Remember that the child's daemon can
change forms until puberty. At that point it is fixed as a single
creature that reflects the personality and character of the young adult.
Puberty means the coming of sexual feelings. The Magisterium would
prefer that children grow up without experiencing sexual temptation, so
it is conducting an experiment in order to separate children from their
daemons before puberty, when their daemon can no longer change. This
procedure, known as "intercision" makes the child a "severed child" who
has no daemon -- and thus no soul. The Magisterium has assigned Mrs.
Coulter the job of abducting the children and taking them to the North
for this experiment.
As Mrs. Coulter explains to Lyra (who is revealed to be her own
daughter) in the first book: "All that happens is a little cut, and
then everything's peaceful. Forever! You see, your daemon's a wonderful
friend and companion when you are young, but at the age we call
puberty, the age you're coming to very soon, darling, daemons bring all
sorts of troublesome thoughts and feelings, and that's what lets Dust
in. A quick little operation before that, and you're never troubled
again."
In The Golden Compass, Lyra and her companions free the children held
at this experimental station in the North and destroy it. In The Amber
Spyglass, Lyra and Will reverse the story of the Edenic Fall by
consummating a sexual act in the garden.
Again, Pullman is not subtle. Keep in mind that this is a series of
books marketed to children and adolescents. Lyra puts a red fruit to
Will's lips and Will "knew at once what she meant, and that he was too
joyful to speak." Within moments, the 13-year olds are involved in some
kind of unspecified sexual act.
"The word love set his nerves ablaze," Pullman writes of Will. "All his
body thrilled with it, and he answered her in the same words, kissing
her hot face over and over again, drinking in with adoration the scent
of her body and her warm, honey-fragrant hair and her sweet, moist
mouth that tasted of the little red fruit."
Just a few pages later, Will and Lyra will dare to touch each other's
daemon. That passage is even more sexually charged and explicit than
the first. The adolescents now know "that neither daemon would change
now, having felt a lover's hands on them. These were their shapes for
life: they would want no other."
What is it about Pullman and C. S. Lewis?
Put simply, Pullman hates C. S. Lewis's work The Chronicles of Narnia.
He told Hannah Rosin that Lewis's famous work is "morally loathsome"
and "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I ever read." Narnia, he
said, "is the Christian one . . . . And mine is the non-Christian."
When the first Narnia film was released in 2005, Pullman described the
books as "a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary
prejudice."
Indeed, Pullman's His Dark Materials is intended as an answer to
Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. What Lewis (and J. R. R. Tolkein) did for
Christianity, Pullman wants to do for atheism.
So, what should Christians do?
A good first step would be to take a deep breath. The Christian faith
is not about to be toppled by a film, nor by a series of fantasy books.
Pullman has an agenda that is clear, and Christians need to inform
themselves of what this agenda is and what it means. At the same time,
nothing would serve his agenda better than to have Christians speaking
recklessly or unintelligently about the film or the books.
This is about the battle of ideas and worldviews. While Christians will
not celebrate the release of this film, we should recognize the mixture
of challenge and opportunity that comes with millions of persons
watching this film and talking about the issues it raises. When the
movie is mentioned in the workplace, in school, on the playground, or
in the college campus, this is a great opportunity to show that
Christians are not afraid of the battle of ideas.
We should recognize that the Christian Church has some very
embarrassing moments in its history - moments when it has failed to
represent the truth of the Gospel and the love of Christ. Authors like
Philip Pullman take advantage of these failures in order to paint the
entire Christian Church as a conspiracy against human happiness and
freedom. Of course, that charge will not stand close scrutiny, and we
can face it head-on with a thoughtful response.
Some Christians have also held very unhelpful views of human sexuality.
These, we must admit, would include figures as great and influential as
Augustine and, alas, C. S. Lewis. But these figures, rightly
influential in other areas of the faith, are not representative in this
case of biblical sexuality. We can set the record straight.
Should we be concerned that people, young and old, will be confused by
this movie? Of course. But I do not believe that a boycott will
dissuade the general public from seeing the film. I am very concerned
when I think of so many people being entertained by such a subversive
message delivered by such a seductive medium. We are responsible to
show them, in so far as we are able, that the Magisterium of The Golden
Compass is not a fair or accurate representation of the Christian
Church.
I can only wonder how many parents and grandparents will allow children
and young people to see the movie and then buy them the books --
blissfully unaware of what is coming in books two and three.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ has enemies; this we know. Christian parents
must be informed about His Dark Materials and inform others. We must
take the responsibility to use interest in this film to teach our own
children to think biblically and to be discerning in their engagement
with the media in all forms. We should arm our children to be able to
talk about this project with their classmates without fear or rancor.
Philip Pullman has an agenda, but so do we. Our agenda is the Gospel of
Christ -- a message infinitely more powerful than that of The Golden
Compass. Pullman's worldview of unrestricted human autonomy would be
nightmarish if ever achieved. His story promises liberation but would
enslave human beings to themselves and destroy all transcendent value.
The biblical story of the Fall is true, after all, and our only rescue
is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The curse of sin was not
reversed by adolescents playing at sex in a garden, but by the Son of
God shedding His blood on a cross.
So let's get our bearings straight as we think and talk about The
Golden Compass. This movie does represent a great challenge, but a
challenge that Christians should always be ready to meet.
__________________
We discussed The Golden Compass on Monday's edition of The Albert
Mohler Program [listen here]. We will continue the discussion on today.
Listen and call with your questions or comments.
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