Two weeks ago, a friend from church lent me his copy of The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. Enthralled, I read that book plus the two others in the trilogy: The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Together, the three comprise an epic that Pullman calls His Dark Materials—a phrase borrowed from Milton to describe the raw stuff of matter, energy, and spirit out of which God allegedly created the world and all life.
Readers may recall a recent uproar from Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian organization whose vehement denunciation of Pullman, his books, and the resultant movie probably sold more books for Pullman than the movie itself did. I, for one, knew nothing of His Dark Materials until I heard of Focus’ new, well, focus. And I am sure I am not the first Christian to read Pullman with great interest after James Dobson’s literature patrol alerted us to the danger that lay within.
With just a brief nod, though, to my brothers and sisters there at Focus on the Family, I intend to argue (over the next few days) that His Dark Materials, in its unhampered critique of Christianity and the Church, actually provides a surprisingly helpful framework for the debate over fundamental philosophical questions—questions that Christians are notoriously clumsy about answering, and that the attackers of Christianity (as a result of our clumsiness) tend to assume they’ve already won.
Put simply: Christians should thank Phillip Pullman for the second chance to get right what we have often gotten wrong.
His critique of our asceticism, our cruelty, our obstinacy, and our obtuseness deserves our full attention because—this is essential—if he is right about us, then he is right about God. It’s no good using the standard Christian replies, like “Christians may have done bad things, but God is a good God anyway,” or (the most smug, disingenuous rhetorical trick ever devised) that Christians’ viciousness only serves to prove our own doctrine of original sin—and thus the truth of the Gospel.
These clumsy Christian clichés do not avail against Pullman’s critique–because Pullman has done us the favor of taking our doctrines seriously. He has endeavored to show (albeit in a world of fantasy, much like Milton, Dante, or St. John the Apocalyptic did) precisely how Christian actions are rooted in Christian doctrine: to him, there is no disparity between what Christians teach and what Christians do. Our vice, he argues, is all that humanity could ever have expected from our doctrine. It is the thorny fruit that grew when Jesus planted the seed of the gospel.
Quite a charge, that one. One that we as Christians would do well to meet directly. Which is why I advocate that Christians, at least those who are interested in talking rationally about what it means to be Christian, should read the books. They are popular, easy, fast-paced, action-packed, thrilling novels that set themselves up as thoroughgoing refutations of all that Christians hold dear. They summarize three centuries’ worth of misgivings about Christianity; they represent the reasons why so many thoughtful people in what used to be Christendom can no longer bear to speak the name of Christ.
Phillip Pullman, as I intend to argue, may have written the book that wakes Christians from intellectual slumber. Why churches haven’t seized this opportunity for their members and made these novels required reading—well, that question will perhaps remain a mystery.
5 responses so far ↓
Galen // 28 April 2008 at 9:31 am |
Chris, I love you.
I really didnt’ want to see the movie because it looked stupid, but you, sir, have sold me on the books. I’ve got a few ahead on my list, but I now intend to read them as soon as possible.
Galen
Emma // 2 May 2008 at 7:24 am |
I just wrote you this long, articulate comment, but upon submitting it a little box popped up and informed me that I had “timed out.”
I feel this is unfair, but who am I to waste the time of your cyber-page.
I’ll take the cue, then, and try to think in soundbites by summing up my former comment as succinctly as possible:
I’m down for this reading of the book. Also, I saw your and the lady’s doppleganger couple in Dallas yesterday and almost embarrassed myself. I hugged a total stranger. Next time I’ll be more careful. I hope you are both well.
Kevin Mayfield // 13 August 2008 at 9:29 pm |
When materials like these are directed at the young is when the major problem arises. Most parents do not proofread what their children are taking in. Personally, I would read this to see what it is truly about but I would never let my children read these books until they were adults and could filter the premises through a proper world view.
I think that is “James Dobson’s literature patrol’s” original point although made, as usual, in a hyperbolic manner.
tiffanytexassupreme // 30 August 2008 at 6:17 am |
Chris,
My husband & I agree on all of your views. After we watched the movie, my husband was so amused at the storyline that he had to research it more.
Either way, we know to go with our first instincts next time.
Curtis Schmidt // 6 May 2009 at 2:18 am |
Interestingly, I read the first of these books in elementary school, (I couldn’t find the other two, despite my desire to), but I didn’t notice anything specifically anti-Christian in the first one. I read it as pure fantasy. My upbringing being as strictly Christian as it was, even had I noticed the anti-Christian themes, I doubt I would have fallen for them, but I think Christian parents need to trust their children more – if you train them up properly, they wont depart from the track. As an elementary student, I read the book as pure fantasy, so the controversy struck me as odd – its the same as arguing that Lord of the Rings by Tolkien IS allegorically Christian, when he wrote it as an epic fantasy, not to be specifically Christian. Books only contain what you are able to take out of it. If you give the book to a child as pure fantasy (or place it in the sci-fi/fantasy section), they wont be reading it looking for theological truths.