A New Bearing on "The Golden Compass"

Yesterday morning, before the parades and the food, I finally finished the trilogy His Dark Materials. I guess that means it's time for me to Pronounce my Judgment on the series, which includes the book at the basis of the controversial Golden Compass movie. But I'm not going to do that. I've stated my opinions along the way, and I've already linked to two excellent overall analyses by Jeffrey Overstreet and Mars Hill Audio. What I'd like to do instead is to show some major points of agreement Biblical Christianity has with Phillip Pullman's vision. There will be some surprises here.

Pullman's Values
Pullman has spoken in interviews of the values he was expressing through the books; here:

"consciousness, human thought, imagination, love, affection, kindness, good things, intellectual curiosity"

and here:

"Happiness, wonder, delight.... kindness, love, courage, and courtesy too; and intellectual curiosity; all these good things. And the qualities the book attacks are cold-heartedness, tyranny, closed-mindedness, cruelty."

And whenever he speaks, he says his agenda is to provide the simple enjoyment of the story.

Biblical Values
What shall we make of these values? In fact they are all Biblical, Christian values, except insofar as one wishes to express them independently of God. God invented joy, and the search for knowledge, and love, and compassion. He stands unalterably opposed to tyranny, cold-heartedness, cruelty, closed-mindedness. As far as what he has stated here, Pullman is on the right track; and these values do show up clearly in the books. The problem is that he pushes God out of the picture; and also that the Church is depicted in the most negative light possible, mostly on account of (in Pullman's eyes) hating these good things and for being tyrannical. That's where he departs from Biblical values in a major way.

Unrestricted Human Pleasure?
He left at least one of his own central values off the list he gave in that interview: freedom to experience pleasure at will. It was for sake of pleasure—a sexual fling, in fact—that one major character forsook her calling as a nun, and that led her, she said, to experience freedom and love as she had never before known it. She gave up her faith not because she decided it was wrong, but because it didn't give her the freedom she desired. The two barely pubescent major protagonists, Lyra and Will, save an entire world just by connecting (implicitly but unmistakably) in sexual love.

Human Joy
Even here, though, Pullman's value is but a distortion of a Biblical good. God invented sex, and any myth you've heard that it has anything to do with "Original Sin" has no basis in truth. I know some have said taht sex is inherently sinful, but guess what? God calls it good! There's an entire book of the Old Testament (Song of Solomon) devoted to a couple's romance, and it isn't all just batting eyelashes and sighing at each other across the dinner table.

It's good, but only within boundaries; but even the boundaries exist for good purposes, for increased fulfillment. When my wife and I were married, we united with each other not only physically, but with a lifelong trust commitment that included our hearts, souls, and minds, along with all our dreams, all our commitments, all our mutual trust. I can't speak from experience (thankfully) but I am quite certain that no experience of "just sex," or even sex with love for the moment, could compare with the unity my wife and I experience in every aspect of our persons. God's boundaries around sex are for the purpose of preserving that closeness; and also to protect us from the terrible ripping emotional pain that almost always accompanies short-term intimate relationships; the social and economic struggles of child-raising without a committed spouse, and the diseases that so often are passed around.

The God of Joy
God is not opposed to fulfillment! He is a God of joy, and he leads us to greater joys, and he himself is glorified when we pursue joy his way. I've already linked to John Piper's work on this, not long ago. C. S. Lewis said,

"Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

What then shall we make of Pullman's values? God invented joy, and the search for knowledge, and love, and compassion. It's a mystery why one would want to cut oneself off from the Source of all love, beauty, and truth, in order to pursue these things.

Who Is Responsible for The Golden Compass?
I suppose there are two possible reasons Pullman would do that. One is spiritual: pride leads some persons to prefer personal independence at whatever cost, so they try to find these good things apart from God just because they want to do it on their own. The second reason points back at Christians: we not have been telling or demonstrating the life of Christ in all its truth and beauty.

The true God, the God of infinite joy, is obviously not the one that Pullman speaks of, nor would you recognize in His Dark Materials a Church that follows such a God. Has Pullman heard of such a God, and rejected him? Or has he never heard of him? If he has rejected him, that is his choice; if he has not heard of him truly, that responsibility rests on the Church.

Our Own Creation?
I'm giving Pullman as much benefit of the doubt as possible. Perhaps it's more realistic to think, as David Downing suggested, that "For a creative writer, Pullman shows a remarkably stunted imagination in his inability (unwillingness?) to envision the worldview of faith." Still we must ask, what of his readers? His books would be nothing if nobody bought them. So in regard to his readers, the same question applies: how many have heard of the genuine, great, good God, or seen God alive in his people? Many readers find his picture of the Church at least somewhat believable, and we have to honestly admit there must be some reason for this. But if we Christ-followers were consistently presenting him in truth, we would hardly have to give Pullman a second thought. Readers would look at his fictional God and his fantasy Church, and they would laugh.

Christians, is it possible that The Golden Compass is partly our own creation? Not that we wrote it or produced the movie, but that it is partly our own failure to live out God's love and joy that has given it fertile soil to take root in?

I've been saying all along that the trilogy is inappropriate as teaching material in public schools. I still think so; and I still think Pullman's vision of reality is seriously, even dangerously, in error. But the best protest we could raise against The Golden Compass would be to cut the ground right out from under it, by demonstrating just how good, how joyful, how loving, how giving, and how free life can be in Jesus Christ. We need to be a Church that puts the lie to the false fantasy church Pullman created. We need to express the truth of Christ through our lives and through our words. If we would only do that, we would never have to worry about another Pullman.

Related:
Series Overview

The Golden Compass and "Killing God"--Not An Urban Legend
Coming Soon To Your Child's School: Hostility Toward God and Church, Heavily Promoted
Once Again, How Can This Be Legal?
On Christianity, the Arts, and How To Have a Disagreement
Original Sin Is the Source of Truth? (The Golden Compass)
Death of Divine Authority—Pullman's Agenda
BreakPoint.org on The Golden Compass
"I'm Trying to Undermine the Basis of Christian Belief"
"Democracy of Reading" or a Hidden Agenda? (Phillip Pullman)
Strongly Recommended: Jeffrey Overstreet on The Golden Compass
A New Bearing on The Golden Compass
Rehabilitating The Golden Compass's Religion?
Over-reacting?
Preacher-Man Phillip Pullman

Posted: Fri - November 23, 2007 at 12:55 PM |

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A New Bearing on "The Golden Compass"

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson