Vicar’s View: February 2008 “His Dark Materials”

When 12-year-old orphan Lyra Belacqua clambers into a wardrobe to steal a cloak, she doesn't find the land of Narnia on the other side. But she does begin a fantastical journey that puts her face-to-face with flying witches and talking polar bears. She learns that her uncle, a scientist named Lord Asriel, has discovered Dust, a substance he believes originates in parallel worlds. And she falls headfirst into a skirmish between him and an iron-fisted, church-like organization known as the Magisterium. Along the way, she is given a truth-telling device known as an alethio-meter and told to keep it secret. She begins to hear unsettling rumours of children disappearing. And she's whisked into the custody of a glamorous but ruthless agent of the Magisterium named Mrs. Coulter. The Magisterium, it turns out, believes Dust incites people to rebel against its control. So they spearhead experiments on children, ostensibly to "preserve" their "innocence". They separate children from their dæmons, animal spirits that physically embody each person's soul, accompany them throughout life—and serve as conduits for Dust. Lyra's flight from Mrs. Coulter's clutches lands her in the protective care of a gypsy-like people known as the gyptians. Together they trek to the frozen north country to liberate the kidnapped children from the Gobblers and the Magisterium. They're joined by massive armored polar bear Iorek Byrnison, an aeronaut named Lee Scoresby and the powerful witch queen Serafina. Without giving more away, that is the story line of the Golden Compass.

The $150 million film adaptation of the first volume of Philip Pullman’s best-selling fantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials”. The most popular film this Christmas, comparisons with C.S. Lewis, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and with J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings are natural. The visual imagery is similarly impressive and landscapes are quite stunning.  But the contrast with Lewis and Tolkein could not be greater. And Pullman takes us much, much further even than J.K. Rowling’s supernatural world of Harry Potter, where at least the line between good and evil are still clear. In Pullman’s transcendent spiritual world, demons and witches are good, God is evil and the church is bad. This is perhaps not surprising. Pullman has described the Narnia books as “one of the most ugly and poisonous things I have ever read.”

In a Daily Telegraph article entitled “The Devil in Philip Pullman” he says “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.”  “My books are about killing God… if there is a God and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against.” Will and Lyra, his two child protagonists from Oxford, are the new Adam and Eve who are drawn into an adventure to depose the creator of Earth and the wicked Church. The Chief Executive of the Association of Christian Teachers, Rupert Kaye, points out that the fictional deity in Pullman's novels, is given biblical titles including 'Almighty', 'Ancient of Days', 'Father' and 'Yahweh', but is "malevolent, deceitful and powerless".  Kaye says: "My key concern is that many young people (and adults) who read Pullman's trilogy will be left with an extremely distorted understanding of what Christians actually believe or what the Bible really says about God."

Chris Weitz, the film's director, claims that the novel's religious themes have been toned down in the first film in order to safeguard box office takings and ensure that money is available to make the second and third instalment. But, he says:

"One tries to be clever about it. I realized that the overt stating of some of the themes in ... The Golden Compass would never—this is important to make clear—never ever get across the goal line. There isn't a wide enough audience for that—yet. If I wanted to popularize this series of extraordinary books and open them to a wider reading public than ever before, I was going to have to make some compromises. Whereas The Golden Compass had to be introduced to the public carefully, the religious themes in the second and third books can't be minimized without destroying the spirit of these books... "I will not be involved with any 'watering down' of books two and three, since what I have been working towards the whole time in the first film is to be able to deliver on the second and third films."

But even watered down, The Golden Compass is still awash in a twisted worldview and dark spirituality. Pullman’s ultimate aim apparently is “the creation of a "Republic of Heaven" that has no need for a King.” In this Pullman is not being very original. His aim goes way back to the Fall of Lucifer. Pullman's dismissal of Christianity skips over one little detail – he ignores one person: Jesus. Pullman's books never make any attempt to explore or refute the person of Jesus Christ. The Gospels reveal him as the true king who came to defeat the demons and free us from the darkness of sin that separates us from a loving God. And they also reveal him as the judge who will return to punish those who have corrupted his Church and abused his power.

If Pullman has presented a distorted picture of God and the Church, where did those misunderstandings begin? His grandfather was apparently an Anglican clergyman in Norfolk where he often went to Sunday School. His own father sadly died in a plane crash when he was seven years old. It is possible these events impacted his view of God. Many men who were abandoned by their father, or who were orphaned when young, do struggle with the idea of a loving, caring benevolent God. It could just be that Pullman has never been presented with the good news of Jesus Christ, revealed in the Bible, in a way that made sense or touched his soul. The Bible – the real Golden Compass – which always tells the truth and does indeed foretell the future, reveals Jesus Christ, as our deliverer, our mediator, our saviour and our friend. To find out more, come along next Thursday evening 7:30pm and join our Christianity Explored Course and leave the darkness behind.

May God bless you and those you love,

Stephen