Just a few thoughts on the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy, which I am currently in the process of working my way through. It’s the holidays, and I did not feel like organizing these into a more coherent post or developing any of these into separate full-length posts right now, so just take what you get:
–Phillip Pullman has written a work of fantasy literature that is definitely worthy of serious and favorable comparison with the works of Lewis and Tolkien. Phillip Pullman is an atheist. Get over it.
–The “Authority” which the heroes of the Pullman books are attacking is definitely the Judeo-Christian God whom we all know and love. Pullman makes no bones about this, especially during Part 3.
–Those of you who believe that the Bible is true have nothing to fear. Just because Pullman says that his “Authority” is the same as our God, doesn’t make it so. If you look at the way God is described in the Bible and the way the Authority/God is described in the Pullman books, you will see that they are two almost completely different beings. The God of the Bible is a creator who wants His creations to worship Him freely, and who loves them to the point that He is even willing to sacrifice His Son’s life (in ways that we cannot fully comprehend, this is the same as Him giving up His own life) for their sake when their bad choices make it impossible for them to be in relationship with Him. The Authority of the Pullman books is a power-hungry usurper who is bent on destroying men’s capacity for free choice and forcing them to follow him. Basically, Pullman has set up a straw man and then proceeded to beat the living s–t out of him.
–If God were really and truly like the Authority of the Pullman books, then of course He would deserve to die. And I would be one of the ones fighting to kill Him. But those of us who accept the Bible as true know better than that. So for our own part, we have nothing to worry about.
–Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook”, and we did not believe him. Ookie Vick said “I will redeem myself. I have to”, and we did not believe him. Roger Clemens says “I did not take steroids”, and we do not believe him. So we should not be surprised if the world does not believe us when we say that our God is not like Pullman’s Authority, or that we aren’t against sex (No, I haven’t read that far, but I do know that the pivotal scene in Book 3 is about a sexual act) or that we aren’t opposed to science and art and progress and human freedom and all of the other charges that Pullman and other atheists have laid at our feet. And the worst thing we can do is get up and say “We do not…”, because a lot of people just flat out don’t trust us and will continue to not trust us, no matter what we say.
–Now Jesus did say something to the effect that the world would hate us just as it hated Him, but a lot of the hate that the world feels for us in this day and age–we’ve brought it on ourselves and it has nothing to do with the Gospel. The Church has a track record of being opposed to scientists and scientific innovations. Many within the Christian faith have taught that sex is a bad thing which can occasionally have good results. The most vocal Christians on the political scene will leave you with the impression that we Christians are all about taking America back for God and ramming a whole bunch of religion and morality down everyone’s throats.
–We must be fully honest with ourselves, and be prepared to be fully honest with others, about these shortcomings. And don’t even try to tell other people that we aren’t all the bad things that they think we are. Just shut up, and be the exception to whatever stereotypes they may have. Do they think Christians are judgmental? Then don’t be judgmental. Do they think Christians are all about taking America back for God and cramming religion and morality down everyone’s throats? Then be the one who is more concerned about the kind of disciple you are than about how moral everyone else is. Do they think that Christians are all about talking and arguing and trying to win everyone over to their point of view? Then be the one who listens, who actually takes the time and trouble to find out what other people think and believe.
