Golden Compass
November 30, 2007
We’ve been warned away from the Golden Compass film because of it’s anti-Christian overtones by someone apparently unaware that there are atheists, pagans, and other non-Christians in her audience. I loved Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials set and thought it surpassed the Chronicals of Narnia for thought-provoking young-adult writing.
But apparently a lot of people are wringing their hands over the idea that an atheist/agnostic might write a children’s book that advocates an atheist/agnostic worldview. They are intensely afraid that these three books will turn their children into brainless Richard Dawkins zombies. As usual, the people who are most interested in indoctrinating children are the people most scared of indoctrination. They were scared about Harry Potter, and now they’re scared about Pullman. They all seem to have very little faith in their own faith and their own god.
Of course, the best defense against mindless zombiedom is well-developed critical thinking abilities, but this crowd is rather down on critical thinking as well. They try to respond to books and ideas they don’t like with censorship and boycott, not commentary and discussion, and actively resist a broad education. I can’t help but think it’s because mindless zombiedom is only offensive when it interferes with their own efforts to zombiefy.
Update: In the comments, TomG points us to this article about the Golden Compass which demonstrates the kind of thoughtful and appropriate discussion we ought to have, rather than the hysterical “evil is targeting our children!” culture-war claptrap we usually get in our email forwards:
No, don’t be afraid. The gospel will survive the publishing phenomenon of Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, without so much as a scratch. It’s not worth getting all worked up about it. If Pullman’s work shakes up people’s faith, then their faith was poorly developed to begin with. He points to bad people as a way of saying that the faith is wrong, which is like pointing to a mean-spirited mathematics teacher as a way of dismissing mathematics. [ The Looking Closer Journal ]
Thanks, TomG.
Posted in Entertainment, Religion
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November 30th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Want to see some thoughtful Christian response? See if you agree that you can find it at http://www.thinkingchristian.net/goldencompass. Make sure you also follow the link there to Jeffrey Overstreet’s article.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
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November 30th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
You know, I wasn’t interested in the movie or the books until I saw the news report about the controversy last night. Now I’m all intrigued.
People are always ready to jump to a conclusion about something they know nothing about. I once got into an argument with a Southern Baptist preacher who said in his sermon that C. S. Lewis was a satanist because he wrote The Screwtape Letters…nevermind, that he also wrote The Chronicles of Narnia.
I’ve given up trying to argue with people who have made up their minds without bothering to read/see for theirselves.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Well, Pullman has been pretty explicit about his reasons for writing this series and his disappointment that Rowling has had all the attention when he is the one trying to be provocative. So I don’t think there’s much in the way of jumping to conclusions here.
Although I do agree that is a serious problem in other cases.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:34 am
I dunno. Seems to me that if their beliefs were flawless and pure it should be able to stand up to scrutiny.
My mom didn’t want me to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was a kid, I’m guessing because back then that kind of anthropomorphism was kind of unusual, and naturally that would be very very wrong.
Generally, it seems to me that the logic that supports religion comes from believing that anything you enjoy is wrong, that humanity should be punished in a general sense for existing.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 am
Pstonie, I think you’re right on the first point there. When I was in Sunday School as a child, actually, I remember being taught that untested faith wasn’t actually faith. But nowdays a lot of Christians seek to remove any exposure to conflicting ideas. The article at the Looking Forward journal shows the kind of constructive engagement with “outsider” thought that I would hope to see from any religion.
You speak far to broadly here; if that’s your impression of religion, I wouldn’t build any theories on it. I don’t think I’ve ever met such an extreme ascetic. And although some have certainly existed, they’re not obvious in the current Fundamentalist Christian movement which greatly enjoys its limos, gold-plated faucets, and other creature comforts.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
What I meant to say is that I think most Christians (as an example I know most about) would like to have no impure thoughts, while that is actually not possible due to human nature. So they settle for doing the things they think are wrong and feeling guilty about it/asking for forgiveness, and then doing the same thing later.
Like they try to give up women, and their horniness manifests in the butt of some altar boy.
Besides that, it may be too scary to accept that the only differences between humans and other animals are academic.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
It’s so strange. All the private Christian schools I went to and the only stuff I was forbidden from seeing when I was a kid was Soap and Three’s Company and that was because of the S.E.X. and alternative lifestyle stuff I might find out about. My parents figured I was getting enough religion to balance out anything I encountered elsewhere. Half the time, they didn’t know what I was reading.
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Hmm, that reminds me of when Hewlett Packard were too blind to realize that the invention of their current employee, Steve Wozniak, was actually the machine that would fuel business for the remaining decades and let him and his hippie buddies have the rights to selling it.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I liked it very much and assuming that there were many Christians in the audience, I didn’t see one single person in the audience burst into flames or sign up for lessons in Daoism.