Everyone is expecting great things from the New Line Cinema feature “The Golden Compass” but the movie has been plagued with early controversy. Christians and other religious have claimed that the movie based one the book trilogy “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman has many anti-Christian anti-religious ideas and pushes and atheistic agenda. Pullman, an atheist himself, responds by saying his book is in no way trying to push any kind of agenda, but rather is written to allow people to question “authority” and challenge traditional thought.
With both sides defending their stance for or against the book I think it would do anyone a world of good to actually do some research into the world of “The Golden Compass” and decide for themselves. The trilogy starts with the book “The Golden Compass” or “Northern Lights” as it was re-titled. You follow the story of a young girl, Lyra Belacqua as she tried to rescue her best friend Roger who has been kidnapped. As the book progresses you learn that the Catholic Church was behind the kidnapping and has been taking children to a Northern encampment to perform experiments one them with an element known as “Dust
At the end of “The Golden Compass” Lyra’s Uncle, Lord Asriel, turns out to be her father and kills Lyra’s friend Roger in order to form a bridge between dimensions. Asriel’s motives in the book are to raise an army to overthrow the “Authority” who rules over the Kingdome of Heaven. Once the “Authority” is gone Asriel wishes to establish a Republic of Heaven instead of a Kingdom. The second book in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy follows Lyra into a new dimension where she befriends a boy named Will who possesses the Subtle Knife for which the second book is named after.
Will and Lyra travel are faced with many trials and by the end of the second book Lyra has been captured by her mother and imprisoned, and Will is faced with a choice, he has been instructed by angles to deliver the Subtle Knife to Lord Asriel because this knife is the only weapon that has the power to kill the Authority, but Will is unsure of where his loyalties lie. In the end he refuses and goes after Lyra in order to save her.
The third book “Amber Spyglass” follows the children as they are rescued from captivity, and then travel to the land of the dead. Here they are faced with the reality that when a soul dies it is not placed in a peaceful heaven, but rather subjected to horrible torture for all eternity at the hands of Harpies. Lyra and Will travel to the Land of the Dead in order to free her friend Roger and allow those souls to finally be free to fuse together with the universe. After all is said and done Lyra, her mother, Lord Asriel and a host of others come together and take out the Authority to complete the trilogy.
Now the above is an extremely brief synopsis of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, but you may now be able to see why some people may have problems with the movie “The Golden Compass” because there are a lot of things that challenge modern religion. It is true that the movie by New Line Cinema has edited many of the references to God or religion out of the movie, but still once you see the film your child may become interested in the series and thus expose them to these anti-Christian ideas. I’m not saying that the books are horrible, quite the opposite, they are very well written and thought out, but I for one would not want my son or daughter reading them until he or she was older.
Overall it’s a parents decision, but I think that anyone who plans on seeing the movie “The Golden Compass” or is interested in the books should be fairly warned that these books are going to have strong anti-religious elements. In fact a few quotes from the book I found rather disturbing were those of Witches that aid the heroes of the book. These Witches are quoted as saying “hats what the church does, and every church is the same, control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. Another main character is quoted as saying “Christian religion is a very powerful convincing mistake… that’s all”. So with dialog like that you may want to think twice before you allow young minds to be exposed to Philip Pullman’s work, or become interested in “The Golden Compass” no matter how well edited it is.
