The Golden Compass: Atheism for kids?
There's an email doing the rounds at the moment (and thank you to all those who have sent it to us). It's about the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman, Eva Green and Daniel Craig (due for release December 2007; not yet rated). Here's an extract from the email:
The movie has been described as ‘atheism for kids’ and is based on the first book of a trilogy entitled ‘His Dark Materials’ that was written by Philip Pullman. Pullman is a militant atheist and secular humanist who despises C. S. Lewis and the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’. His motivation for writing this trilogy was specifically to counteract Lewis' symbolisms of Christ that are portrayed in the Narnia series. Clearly, Pullman's main objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism.
The email encourages Christians to boycott the movie and the book (which is titled Northern Lights in the UK and Australia), and to forward the email on to everyone they know so that parents are educated about “the agenda of the movie”.
I don't have kids, so I'm not going to comment on whether parents should keep their children from seeing the movie. But I rather suspect that the sole “agenda of the movie” (or, at least, the sole agenda of the movie-makers) is to make lots and lots of money. The agenda of the book/s may be quite different, but I'm still not convinced that means we should boycott the movie or the book.
I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing the movie. I've read the first two books in the trilogy, and I'm trying to find time to read the third. I'm not usually a fantasy-novel reader, but I read a review of these books in Zadok (a magazine published by the Zadok Institute for Christianity and Society). The magazine reviewed the Top 5 best-selling fantasy novels/series, and the Pullman trilogy was the only one that hadn't yet been milked by the film industry (though not any more!). The review was part of a larger article about whether Christians should read fantasy at all, and it was the discussion of the atheistic themes in Pullman's books that made me want to read them in the first place. I find that stuff interesting. That's why I like The Matrix (no, not the sequels; just the first one); every time I watch it, I notice a new biblical theme.
As far as good storytelling goes, The Golden Compass/Northern Lights is a good read—except for the last few pages. It feels a bit like Pullman had almost finished writing the book when his publisher said, “Time's up. You just have to finish it. We are sending it to the printer next week in whatever form it's in.” That would certainly explain the last few pages of the first two books in the trilogy. (I live in hope the same thing doesn't happen in the third volume.) But I'm getting sidetracked.
My point is that Pullman's writing isn't bad, the story is interesting, and the themes behind the story are interesting. It's a bit like The Lord of the Rings, really. Or Harry Potter. Or The Matrix. As I'm reading, I keep trying to guess who represents what (biblically-speaking), and what Pullman is really saying about the church or the world or the idea of sin or humanity. If you like that sort of thing, it's fascinating. If you can't be bothered with all that stuff and you just like a good fantasy novel, you'll probably enjoy the books too.
There are many books (and movies) written by atheists, agnostics, Christians, Buddhists, Scientologists, Muslims, Jews, and so on. Some of these are good; some, not so good. I'm just not sure why we should boycott this particular one. I think it's another opportunity to share the message of the real Christ as we discuss the ideas and themes with non-Christian friends and family members who read the books (or—more likely these days—just see the movie). It is an opportunity to engage with our society—to listen to its ideas and respond to them—rather than burying our heads in the sand.
(Here's some recommended reading: Greg Clarke discusses Philip Pullman's trilogy in his article ‘Fantasy literature and Christian readers’ in The Longing.)