Fantasy, Reality, Theology

The Golden Compass, Book One from the trilogy called His Dark Materials, is a children’s fantasy by Philip Pullman. A movie version is to be released on December 7th. Christians are in an uproar, calling for its boycott because of its apparent anti-church message. I’ve been given an assignment: read the books, give a pastoral response.

First, I’d say, FEAR NOT! Understand your faith. KNOW CHRIST and act accordingly. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 2 Tim. 1:7

We play right into the enemy’s hands by angrily crying foul play, weakly threatening a boycott, and haughtily denouncing the movie as a THREAT to Faith, the Church, Christianity, and/or religion.

Angry offendedness only confirms the preconceived notion already held by many non-believers that we Christians are nothing more than defensive, closed minded, authoritarian, and controlling fearful little people that are threatened by the least bit of criticism, unflattering portrayal, disagreeable depiction, and/or negative evaluation, of our faith.

Yes, it’s true! This fantastical tale IS hard on the church. Reading it makes one feel as if no good, honest, intelligent, person in his/her right mind would ever subscribe to the Christian faith let alone belong to the institutional church.

The church does have a stained past—we have all heard of The Inquisition! It has promulgated the crusades; the church has wielded great socio-political control and, without compunction, has freely abused its power around the world. The historical record is there. Any writer who references or alludes to such facts about the church in fiction or nonfiction stands on solid empirical, historical grounds for so doing. We AVOID NOT the truth about Christendom, Church history, and Western Civilization.

This tale confronts us with the dark side—the misdeeds—of the historical church, ever so subtly and indirectly. However, in no way do the sins of the church diminish the Person of Christ and His message. On the contrary, this fantasy may very well provide us an opportunity: to discuss with our children topics otherwise ignored: why are we here, why is there evil, who is God, is He trustworthy and Good, is there life after death, if so, what is it like, how do we know, why must we have faith, how can we tell between True Faith and Falsehood, why do we need a Savior, is there a resurrection of the dead? Etc.

I would not lightly recommend this fantasy/trilogy. But I most certainly would NOT ban, burn, or banish it either. Remember: seek and you shall find; knock and the door shall be opened…? Depends on what one is looking for, one’s spiritual hunger, search for God, depth, wisdom.

The twelve year old heroin displays typical childish human character flaws; she’s obstinate, stubborn, disobedient, and haughty. She lies; smokes with her friends, experiments with alcohol—and gets drunk. But she’s also empathetic, brave, loving, courageous, honorable, and compassionate. Wise beyond her years, she has a heart of gold with feet of clay.

There are witches, daemons, angels, and ghosts—good and bad. Evil characters, beautiful on the outside, foul and fetid inside; and virtuous characters murderously mean and vicious on the outside with clean and true hearts inside. Everything is not as it seems. The story has the currency of all good myths, addressing universal questions of LIFE: good versus evil, love and hatred, war and peace, truth and falsehood, death and dying; subjects for which we all should be seeking answers.

Pullman has no faith in Christ. He’s antagonistic toward the Church and Christianity. Still, his fable is a doorway to questions about God. No fantasy writer escapes the great universals: Pain and Suffering, Death, Evil, Faith, Hope, Love, Truth, Fidelity, Bravery, Honor, and Courage. But his epic tale begs the question about God. He displaces the Biblical God, with an undefined animistic god—a spiritual force separate from matter—inanimate DUST having consciousness and personality. His tale embraces a form of old fashioned animism. There is nothing new under the sun!

I might ask: in whom or what do we really place our faith—is it in ourselves? We all “know” that there is a power above and beyond us, external to us. The answer is NOT IN us! That is, we are not Life’s Cause. We do not create, make, sustain, or define life. Call it Providence, the Fates, Destiny, or what not; the question’s the same: what, who is the author and sustainer of life? What is, WHO is God? Jesus Christ offers concrete answers to these questions. Christians understand this. Therefore we need not be threatened when alternative answers are given. For example, there is the age old Theodicy question: if God is good why is there evil? We are not to be threatened by such inquiries. On the contrary, we must be ready to answer them [1 Pet. 3:15]. If you are confident and understand who Christ is (note C.S. Lewis), then let your children read it; but be ready to discuss it with them. Draw out the author’s assumptions about good and evil, First Causes, sin, judgment, life, death, and God.

If we don’t want our kids to read these books—because we ourselves feel self-conscious about the fact that we have no answers to the questions they raise, or do not really believe in the answers Christ gives—they will know we are dodging, not wanting to deal with, afraid of, or uninterested in, the really big questions of LIFE. But when they ask—and they will—they’ll wonder why we’re afraid of the question(s) and why they’re not supposed to be thinking of, or asking about, such things—and we will have lost a great opportunity for us and them.

As to your child’s faith in Christ, well, if he or she is not really free to say no, when faced with the choice between yes or no to Christ, then his/her YES means very little. Think about it.