A Millstone Around His Neck (Mt 18:6)

While most church-folks were convinced that Harry Potter was going to wisk our kids to hell, a more sinister series of popular children's books by another British author has slipped in under the radar.

I've only recently been acquainted with Philip Pullman's trilogy of books, His Dark Materials (the first volume is The Golden Compass, which will be released as a movie this December). I had a vague awareness that Pullman had been critical of C.S. Lewis and had written his own award-winning books. I didn't know, however, that Pullman "regularly admits, even boasts, that his series is a blatant, calculated attack on Christianity." (from Christianity Today's website)

Gregg Easterbrook writes,

"Regarding the "Golden Compass" volumes, in them God is a central character -- but is actively evil, obsessed with causing people to suffer. The plotline of the books is that Christianity is a complete fraud and the source of all that is wrong with society; the final "Golden Compass" volume concerns a desperate attempt by the heroic children to kill God and obliterate every trace of Christianity from several universes. I found Pullman's arguments against Christianity puerile -- like recent anti-Christian books by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, the "Golden Compass" volumes resort to the cheap subterfuge of cataloging everything bad about religion while pretending belief has no positive qualities. Pullman, Dawkins and Harris are anti-faith jihadis: they don't just want to argue against the many faults of Christianity, they want faith forbidden."

Gene Edward Veith describes how Pullman objects to C.S. Lewis teaching Christianity to children by way of the Chronicles of Narnia. He adds, "The irony is that Mr. Pullman's children's stories really are propaganda for his religion, namely, a militant and slightly mystical atheism."

John Thomas writes, "Pullman has a deep-seated hatred for the Christian Church in all its forms (Catholic and Reformed), for priests, and clergy." Thomas' short piece is the pithiest of Pullman's many detractors.

Easterbrook, no choirboy himself, thoughtfully asks "Now that the Golden Compass volumes are becoming big-budget flicks, will Hollywood accurately depict their loathing of Christianity or turn the books into a mere adventure story?" As one commentator said, "Soon, a weak and wimpy God will be overthrown at a theater near you." The question is whether you'll pay to have your wide-eyed children see it?