In the last month, I’ve been getting emails warning of a new major motion picture for children called The Golden Compass. It stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and releases 12/7. Those emails offered dire warnings and encouragement to boycott.
I’ve never been a big believer in boycotts, as they usually accomplish the opposite – as well as perpetuating stereotypes about Christians.
So I was encouraged to read a commentary about the movie this week from Mark Moring, Christianity Today’s movie editor. I’ll be interested to see how his readers react.
Read his thoughts and let us know what you think…
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November 11, 2007 at 20:58
I wrote the following to CTMovies:
I’ll stack the Christian story up against Pullman’s tale any day, and relish the opportunity!
But there is a serious double standard at work in one sphere: public schools. Scholastic is putting Pullman’s work in schools, not just as a casual offering, but with a very expensive, heavy promotion, and as a curriculum resource. In other words, they’re spending a lot of money and energy to make it required reading.
If we could stack up our story against Pullman’s on the same terms, that would be great. But we have a double standard working that prevents us from doing that in public schools. That’s wrong.
Tom Gilson
November 11, 2007 at 21:39
In the article, the author compares how the Church saw discussing the Da Vinci Code as an evangelistic opportunity. He then says, “The Christian subculture seems to have gone from wanting to ‘engage’ one movie with a message they absolutely deny, to wanting to decry another movie with a message they absolutely deny. I’m not sure what’s going on with that; I might be a while trying to figure that one out. Do you have any theories?”
It’s been my observation that Christians can often be rather loving and engaging toward non-Christians, despite their sin, even when they spread falsehood. That’s a good response. But, when we get concerned about our children’s welfare, we soon see the non-Christian as the evil enemy who will corrupt my children. We then replace compassion with judgment, and I feel we often forget that it’s our role to extend a hand to a dying world in addition to raising our children in righteousness.
November 12, 2007 at 08:17
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, of which Northern Lights is the first(released as The Golden Compass in the US), is one of the most outstanding works for children or adults published in recent years. Most children will enjoy these books for the exciting story and vivid characterisations. The philosophical depth of Pullman’s writing encourages thought and debate about the whole issue of religious tradition and the power of the established church – a superb opportunity for Christians to open up discussion and debate around the whole subject of faith, God and his relevance for our lives. Many Christians have been disturbed that in the third part of the trilogy (not featured in the movie, which is an adaptation of the first book) it appears that God dies. However a careful reading of the book clarifies that the character is in fact an usurping angel – and in fact it could be interpreted that it is Satan who dies. I wonder how many of the people calling for a boycott of the movie have even read the books? I doubt the movie treatment will even feature the religious aspects overmuch; I certainly doubt that it will cause a wholescale rise in atheism amongst children, any moe that Harry Potter has turned them on to witchcraft.
November 12, 2007 at 11:57
I remember as a Christian teenager being filled with alarm when “The Exorcist” was released in theaters. It was almost as if the sky was falling and the demise of the faith was closely following behind.
Too many times we as Christians have a knee-jerk reaction to everything the devil brings against us in this world. If we are doing the job of parenting our children that God intends for us to do, there is no need to fear multimedia presentations.
November 12, 2007 at 16:06
Pretty odd. I got one of those e-mails from my friend. It’s pretty unfortunate that some Christians get all defensive about these types of movies, including Harry Potter and yet, love to watch movies that include adultery, multiple partners, lies, etc., packaged into a nice romantic comedy and laugh it out. Last I checked, the Bible gives us more warnings against immorality than “magic, or forces of darkness”. We really have become very narrow Christians, perhaps that should be a new “kind of” Christian.
November 12, 2007 at 19:57
While I certainly don’t agree with calling for an all-out boycott, I think the outrage of this movie is that it is, in fact, a youth movie, where as the Da Vinci Code was aimed at an adult audience. Thus, the pendulum may not be swinging the other way, but be another pendulum altogether (if I may be so bold as to borrow the author’s analogy). Certain pastors I spoke with expressed similar problems with the recent adaption of the now-classic Bridge to Terabithia.
As for me, I think it’s wonderful that competing view points can be expressed in movies. We make discussion guides for youth groups for nearly every movie, and all focus on the same, bland questions: “What would you have done in this situation?” “What does the Bible say about this?” I say it’s about time that movies start to challenge our children to examine their faith.
November 12, 2007 at 20:53
I have also read the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, and found it, as the author of the article put it “a page turning fantasy.” While discussing the book with a friend of mine we decided that if one were able to “kill God,” as the book suggests, then it would not be “God” but “a god.” That is, the one, true God that we serve cannot be killed and therefore the whole idea is ludicris. My biggest problem with the books was their portrayel of the church. The church behaved as it did during the Spanish Inquisition. That is not how we are called to live, nor do I believe it is how most of us do live.
November 13, 2007 at 09:17
This movie fits in with the idea that there is a spirit of antichrist at work in society. It is Christian principles that are attacked and it usually starts subtly. If this movie is a success watch them come out with the next one and be more bold about being Anti Christian. Even Marilyn Mansion said he likes to subtly acknowledge Satan to people rather than be out right about it because you can attract more people. Think of the frog in the boiling pot scenerio.
November 13, 2007 at 11:16
My first thought response is “Oh NO! Book Burnings and Protests”. That always works to bring people to “our side”. Then I said to myself. “Big Deal”. We have such a short attention span that whatever comes our way we quickly forget and move on to the next big thing. The radio waves will buzz with debate (Zackly what the investors want), fearful reverantds will denounce the movie on local news stations (Zackly what the investors want), and so on. We will be the “tools” to create a buzz about a movie that would otherwise be “just another movie”. We haved maxed out the hype of animation and sound. How many more fantasy stories can be cobbled for the short-attention span audience? You need viral marketing to get people’s attention and dollars. Christians will be the “puppets” that jerk and spout on TV, to the producer’s delight. Sure, there will be a ton of Chinese (toxic) action figures and maybe even a suicide or something “linked” to the story but that is all good for business and the NEXT movie release.
Who will line up to play the fool for the TV camera or the radio talk show? Spritually speaking (and all that goes with it) we offer “pure gold” (fill in what that means) and they have excrement on a platter. The philosophy peddlers battle the media, trying to sell their flavor of emptiness. Everybody is buying but no one is happy. The love of Christ, through is, will always taste better. Have no fear.
November 13, 2007 at 21:25
I agree with the folks who are wary of this stuff. I’ve not looked into this particular series or its author, but I find that rationales cited by those who embrace it pretty interesting.
These things can be like arsenic trioxide. You can slip a very small amount of ArO3 into a person’s daily desert. It is tasteless, so if the desert is good then the ArO3 seems good too. The arsenic slowly builds up in the body with many ‘harmless’ doses, and if it doesn’t trigger a cancer, diabetes, blindness, or plain old brain rot, then it might go unnoticed unit they are near death. They might be able to survive if the damage to their internal organs isn’t too severe by the time they seek treatment.
When I was a kid, we used to look forward to seeing The Wizard of Oz (1939 movie) on television (1960s). It seemed like a great story of ‘good verses evil’. I’m sure folks would say that it’s good for Christians to watch, chock full of Christian values. The guy that wrote Oz, Lyman Frank Baum, left the Methodist Church and became a devotee of Theosophy about 3 years before he wrote Oz. Theosophy is a dark, syncretistic, Christ-denying religion. Jesus sits beside Buddha and Shiva in the temples of Theosophy. Forgive me if I question the spiritual wisdom to be found in The Wizard of Oz.
Fast forward to 2002 and I went looking for DVDs to rent, which I did fairly frequently. I became a little disturbed at the abundance of dark, Christ-denying films that were on the shelves before me. And for some strange reason I thought of what the LORD said to the Pharisees when they boasted about being the ‘free’ children of God. He told them, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” (John 8:41-44)
I had not been saved many years, but I knew that those DVD shelves seemed to hold far more about the lusts of the Devil, than they do about the work of Christ. And I just don’t enjoy that pig slop the like I did before. It’s not about legalism, we’re free children of God. But I do not think that God’s children are going to love the lusts of the Devil.
I don’t mean to sound like a kill-joy, but the Holy Bible is supposed to be a page-turner too. Each one of us could spend a lifetime learning the full counsel of the Word of God. A lot of this other stuff seems like husks for swine to me. Forgive me if I question the spiritual wisdom to be found in these mystical fairytales.
If you don’t see any problem with it, and it tastes good to you, then feel free to enjoy!
November 13, 2007 at 23:04
Oops. ‘As’ = arsenic ‘Ar’ = argon
It just goes to show that ‘witnessing’ on chemistry is better done with the help of a periodic table.
November 14, 2007 at 14:10
I am going to go see it, and enjoy it.
This is partly because I boycott Christian boycotts. People were calling for a boycott of Harry Potter when he came out, and recently, I thought I saw an article somewhere called “The Christ figure in Harry Potter.”
But more importantly, I am told that the movie teaches Gnostic heresy, and while Gnosticism didn’t really become a full-fledged heresy until after the New Testament was written, many of its ideas were found in seed form during the first century of the church, and it is against these ideas that some of the NT books were written. I figure that by watching the movie, I can better understand what sorts of teachings and ideas the early church was up against, and this will help me better understand books like 1 John.
December 4, 2007 at 04:07
Jim – Thumbs up Buddy!