Dr. Crain's Classical Comments
The Golden Compass
Posted by Administrator (admin) on Dec 12 2007 at 3:51 PM
You may have heard about the upcoming release of the movie, The Golden Compass. This movie is based on the first book in Philip Pullman’s series, His Dark Materials.
As Christians living in a society that has both good and bad, it is important that we train our children to discern the good and the bad. At our classes at CCCS we try to train students to be thoughtful Christians, which means that students must know what they believe and why and what others believe and why.
Pullman is a self-avowed atheist and said that in this book series he wants “to undermine the basis of Christian belief.”
While isolation from culture is the answer in some instances (e.g., I won’t take my children to a seedy bar!), in other cases discussing and analyzing the issues is called for (e.g., I discussed with my children the meaning of The Incredibles). The following resources are for parents who want to know more about the movie and/or the books. This may be a good opportunity to engage students, especially older ones, about worldviews.
Here are some links that provide useful analysis of the books:
Alan Jacobs, a professor at Wheaton College, has written a piece here. I find that Jacobs is an astute literary critique.
Ken Meyers, of Mars Hill Audio, has an MP3 interview with Jacobs here.
Daniel P. Moloney has written a piece here at First Things.
Now, it is being reported by movie reviewers that Hollywood, not wanting to loose a large percentage of its potential revenue, has taken out the explicitly anti-God messages from the book. In short, the movie has denuded the books of their a-theological bent. You can read about that here.
Blessings,
Dr. Crain