The brouhaha over the movie, The Golden Compass, is more about the trilogy written by Philip Pullman titled His Dark Materials. Several elements to the story in the third volume, The Amber Spyglass, will be starkly out of step with a biblically defined theism. The two main characters, Lyra and Will, fulfill their destiny "to help all the ghosts out of the land of the dead forever" (p. 309). As this is accomplished and the dead escape, Lyra explains, "All the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart ...you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again" (p. 319). So Lyra "saves" the dead by assisting them to dissolve into the cosmic consciousness.
The "bad guy" who's power is broken when Lyra and Will work their magic in the land of the dead is called "the Authority" and the "ancient of days." At one point in the story, angels reveal a great secret to an African king who recounts, "It shocked some of us, too, to learn that the Authority is not the creator. There may have been a creator, or there may not: we don't know. All we know is that at some point the Authority took charge" (p. 210). Near the book's end, Lyra and Will extricate the ancient of days from a crystal litter only to watch him loosen and dissolve. Here is what follows: "Only a few moments later he had vanished completely, and their last impression was of those eyes, blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief" (pp. 410-411). Perhaps the author is suggesting that the Authority was actually relieved to resign his position of supremacy and grateful to Will and Lyra for assisting him to join the cosmic consciousness.
Mr. Pullman's trilogy does not depict the God, hell, and salvation I know about. So, how then should we respond? There's plenty of internet invective out there calling us to avoid the movie like the plaque. That advice should be heeded by anyone who is going to simply take the family to the movie, buy the books, and devour them unchecked. But are the only two alternatives "avoid it" and "swallow it?" How about "examine it" or "refute it?"
We are sheltering kids when we should be equipping them! The best response to this trilogy is to train your children to discern and evaluate different viewpoints and competing truth claims. I have every confidence that the truth about God, hell, and salvation are not in jeopardy. But, men's right belief in these things is always at risk when they are ill-prepared to defend them.
Don't let your heresy meters go berserk when I say this, but we need to contemplate what life would be like without God. This is precisely what "the Preacher" does in the book of Ecclesiastes. "Life under the sun," which is life-with-God-factored-out-of-the-equation, is therein manipulated like a Rubik's Cube and examined from every angle. The beauty of life with God in the center is made more evident by measuring its opposite. Solomon would tell us, "The best way to appreciate what you have in God is to take some time to think like an atheist!"
This might not work for small children. But if your children are older, what if you were to draw them into an examination of the world-view represented in the trilogy? Could their interest be piqued toward preparing a reasonable defense? Could they come up with good reasons for a Christian theism? We need not cower because some men profess to prefer a world without God. But it ought to sober us that men who know better can't convincingly explain why. Why not use The Golden Compass as a provocation to make your family members (and yourself) an exception?
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