The Golden Compass: Anti-Christian?
Is the Trilogy, His Dark Materials, a Cut Toward Christianity or an Outward Rebellion Toward Religion in General?
The first book in the trilogy, titled The Golden Compass was recently made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and is set to debut on December 7th. The movies specifically target children. The title alone seems very inconspicuous, but the storyline of the trilogy itself is what has everyone so upset.
In the trilogy, a 12 year old girl, Lyra starts out on a journey to find answers after her friend is kidnapped. She travels to a parallel universe where everyone's soul is manifested in an animation or altar-ego in animal form. These are called "daemon".
In the story, a malicious governing body called, "the church" (which is renamed, the Magisterium for the purpose of the movie) is known to kidnap kids for the purpose of experimentation. Lyra finds help in The Golden Compass which reveals a coded answer to any question which she asks it. At the end of the trilogy, Lyra gets to the bottom of the mystery of the missing children and finally, she and some others rebel and kill a character called, "God", specifically YAHWEH.
The first issue that Christians are struggling with is that the "villan" in the story is the church and God- YAHWEH. For those of you who know your Bible, YAHWEH is the abbreviated version of the name that Moses wrote down when God told him His name. This seems like an obvious attempt to blashpheme the name of a Holy God.
Furthermore, they feel that renaming the church, The Magisterium is an attempt to "dumb down" the intended religious punches so that parents will bring their children to see the movie and the children will be drawn in, thus causing them to want to have the books as Christmas gifts.
While Christians seem to have very good reason to believe that this is a movie that specifically attacks their faith, others believe that it is a protest to religion in general because Jesus is not mentioned in any of the trilogies. I guess that remains to be determined by those who choose to see the movie. Or you could base your opinion on what the Author shared on his own website in 2004:
Pullman claimed that his main issue is actually with those who, "misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book" with the purpose to "dominate and suppress human freedoms.", according to his posting on his own website www.phillip-pullman.com.
Pullman is an honorary associate at Brittan's National Secular Society and avid supporter of the British Humanist Association. He has also admitted that his trilogy, His Dark Materials is specifically an answer to C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia." Pullman makes no effort to conceal his outright hatred for C.S. Lewis and his works.
As for me, being a born again Christian, I have chosen not to take my children to see the movie due to my personal conclusion that it is an attack on God and my faith. Even if I believed it were simply an attack on 'religion' in general rather than on Christianity, I would still choose the same because there are too many similarities between my faith and the villan in his stories.
Published by Jeta Connor
I'm hard to remember, not easy to forget: A sensational mom (&wife) and fierce advocate of my three children, one who bravely fights autism every day of his life. I seek to make the world aware of the voices... View profile
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23 Comments
Post a CommentListen here Phil u antichrist i am a catholic and i understand that every religion has a few zelots who ruin it for everyone but that dosent mean that we all randomly look thourgh books and movies tryng to look for bad stuff. In fact i thik that who ever started this whole protest is a %$#@ing fat#$@ who should leave things alone. But dont you EVER insult me my people or my faith or God will give it to u good and then when u are in hell i will be i heven laghing my head off. But personaly i think that there is nothing wrong with these books or the movie.
Christians are finally getting what they deserve.About time too.Their cult should be exposed for what it actually is.Nothing more than a money making racket based around a selling a fantasy and child abuse.
i'm in 6th grade going on 7th and i think that these books are some of the best books i'v ever read (i read lots of books) in all fantasy books there is the good and the bad. god is not bad in this book or r good for that matter. for a second pretend you are in a fantasy universe where the concept of god doesn't exist and that you are somebody else. and in this fantasy there is an evil religion that controls the society they worship a FAKE god (spoiler, witch is actually an angle gone bad) that rules w/ fear and tyranny the good guys are trying to kill the tyrant of an angle. now imagine if you (the christian people reading this) were the good guys and the pagans took the place of the bad guys then what would your opinion be?
Penis
That is all I have to say
So! God is alive and well. No movie is going to make someone an atheist a bit more than the Chronicles of Narnia will make someone a believer. Yahweh is in control, regardless.
"There are too many similarities between my faith and the villan in his stories." - Sounds like you might want to seriously reconsider your faith, if even you think it resembles blatant evil more than good.
Pullman's main point is that Christian *PEOPLE* have a knack for trying to control society. He doesn't say much about the religion itself. I have to agree, after noticing kind of insane religious tirades against:
cartoons
http://www.christiansagainstcartoons.com/
pop music
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/22/gw.teen.christians/index.html
the DaVinci Code
http://www.christiansagainstblasphemy.org/index.html
homosexuality
http://www.allaboutworldview.org/christians-against-gay-marriages-faq.htm
halloween
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art13725.asp
Harry Potter
http://www.exposingsatanism.org/harrypotter.htm
...Pokemon?!?
http://www.cephasministry.com/save_our_children_pokemon_booklet.html
interracial marriage
http://members.aol.com/ebonylvory/dividingus.html
And finally,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1207/p09s02-coop.html
Obviously, not all christians are like this, but there is a scary faction we have to be aware of. I myself am a Christian,
You people are NUTS. I just watched the movie and it was fine. You need to find a nice mental hospital to check into. I`m sad we have so many close minded crazys out there. Belittled is what some of you deserve. It reminds me of a recent bad movie i saw in the The Mist and you are all that crazy lady who starts preaching about the end of the world and such. It`s not that you don`t have a right to believe what you want, but your kids will see what they want to see anyway if not now but eventually. If you do a book review as well you keep certain personal views out of it and the only reason your editor left it in, was that he knew the response you`d get.
The Taliban also sought to censor media and even music. Let us not fall into that narrow-minded trap.
I went and saw a sneak preview of the Golden Compass the other day and I must say, SAVE YOUR MONEY IT SUCKED.. I thought it would be as good as Lord of the Rings or Narnia but it wasn't. The story line is awful and the special effects are the worst I have seen in a while. LoR and Narnia had about 5 times better special effects. Save your money and watch it when it comes out on DVD. I also hate it when they leave a movie up in the air expecting there to be a sequel. they leave the audience high and dry at the end asking, "What the hell was that?" The movie also has no character development and I felt no emotion during the whole movie. If you liked Men in Back 2 you probably will like this movie, except the special effects in MIB2 was a hell of alot better.