Well….Philip Pullman’s novel Northern Lights, the first in the Dark Materials trilogy - is about to hit our screens as the lavish production ‘The Golden Compass.’

Pullman is famously humanist and anti-religion and there are already emails going round to boycott the movies.

I thought I’d post a few interesting links for anyone pondering this.

http://www.kirkcenter.org/bookman/44-1-bernthal.html
Nice overview of the books with great musings on the ideologies in the book.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/03/17/bodark17...

Rowan and Philip have a chat!

IMO I thought the books were a good read in the same way Da Vinci Code was even though I do not agree with the theological ideas in the book… I will go and see the film and check it out. Should everyone? Not if you don’t want to… Will it damage children’s faith? Not if they are fully immersed in the truth. I agree that it may raise questions in them - but surely we more than have the answers.

The last book in the series is the one that gets most irritating with its theological flaws - (original sin was Adam and Eve having sex? huh? Not in my bible!!) But as a friend of mine once said God has dealt with a lot more serious assaults in the past and that hasn’t kept him down!

Rufus asked me to post this which was the response I sent to a friend who sent me an email about boycotting the films - I think most of my points have now been made already but here it is anyway:

I have seen the trailer for the film, and in fact have read the books. There is no doubt that they are very anti religion, and of course I passionately disagree with Phillip Pullman’s world view, but I have to say the God who appears in the books is absolutely nothing like the God I believe in! And I have no worries whatsoever about the basis of my faith being damaged by this. In fact I feel rather sorry for Pullman naively believing he could wipe God from the minds of children - the vibrant, all powerful, creator, saviour God we believe in has had much worse than a series of childrens’ books thrown at Him over the years without being wiped out of people’s minds!!

I would certainly be very cautious about letting young children read the books or watch the film, largely because the subject is treated in a rather dark and bleak way, and the supposed happy ending (not to mention much of the rest of the story) feels very hollow to someone of faith! Although I enjoyed reading them they haven’t gone onto my well loved and to be read again list. But for older children I feel they could be a really interesting discussion starter and an interesting read - I would be VERY surprised if reading these books shook the faith of any teenager/older child who had experienced the real live God! And the supposed castration and female circumcision which is mentioned in the snopes article (Editors note - this was quoted in the forwarded email) is a rather extreme reading of the symbolism of the book I would say! There most certainly isn’t any literal reference to this as far as I can remember! I would question whether any of the people posting this stuff have read the books….

Thanks Lionchaser - you put it so well!
Queen Vic - SO true about injustice etc - I have not thought about that when discussing this whole area of ‘things Christians get worked up about.’

So good to see that people do still check on here to see what’s new!!!

I felt the ending was very sad! I have always felt that some Christians are very hipocrytical about issues such as this. I think the same people who rave enthusiastically about lord of the rings often are the same ones which are ranting raving about how evil Harry Potter is! and guess what … they both contain wizards and spells! I question peoples intelligence sometimes!

Yes, I have had the email sent to me as well. I didn’t reply.
I hadn’t even noticed about the female circumcism but agree that it is a real stretch!

Ooh that’s interesting/useful to know. Explains why reasoning why it’s a good idea to practise in order to get better and make playing more fun NEVER works with some of my students!!

Having read the book I don’t think it’s a suitable story for under 10s even if it didn’t have concepts which are anti Christian. Shame as you say so many children are left to watch whatever they want and make of it what they can with no guidance.