I got a forwarded email that dealt with the upcoming movie The Golden Compass. Heard of it? Heard of the Christian reaction to it?

Here's part of the plea from the person that forwarded the email: "If you have children, and most of you do, please do not let them be fooled into thinking this movie is not a dangerous attempt to lead them away from God. Also, encourage them to share this information with their friends. Please pass this along. "

Here's part of the forwarded email : "Clearly, Pullman 's main objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview that "my books are about killing God." He has even stated that he wants to "kill God in the minds of children". It has been said of Pullman that he is "the writer the atheists would be praying for, if atheists prayed."

You can read more about the controversy here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp



Here's my response to the email:
I watched the trailer, and it's not really aimed at kids. It's kind of violent. It hasn't been rated yet, but I'd guess it'll get a rating of PG13.

I also did some reading about his views. He is being decried by some religious people for being anti-Christian, but others are saying he is simply anti-tyrrany. Some say his point is that in as much as religions cause us to look beyond this world to another, they take our attention away from the evils of this world that we should be focused upon; I mostly agree with this point.

Part of the claim in one of the books seems to be that all religion is out to rob us of anything fun. Our children are obviously going to be faced with this claim at some point pretty early on in life. We won't be able to protect them from this claim. We do better to live that it is not true. I was certainly confronted with this claim early and often, but it never held sway over me because of the immense fulfillment that I had already found in church and in God and in a family immersed in church and God.

Another part of Pullman's claim is that he is not against religion, per se, but against tyrrany. This can be a helpful distinction for kids to make. If we are not able to critique bad aspects of the church, then children will leave the church because of the assumtion that those bad aspects of the church are the church. From this viewpoint - perhapse we can invite such critiques. It may well be a much more helpful thing to see the movie with the kids, read the books with them, and talk about them, rather than just shielding them from the movie and books.