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Furor
Over a New Film Titled "The Golden Compass"-Truth!
Summary of the eRumor: A warning about a new film for December, 2007,
titled "The Golden Compass". There are several emails but all of
them say that the film is based on the writings of an atheist author from
England and that the film is anti-religious and anti-Christian.
The Truth: "The Golden Compass" was scheduled for release
December 7, 2007. The stars include 12-year-old Dakota Blue Richards,
Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Ian McKellen.
The film is based on a novel titled "Northern Lights" ("The Golden
Compass" in the United States), which is the first in a trilogy titled
"His Dark Materials" written by English author Phillip Pullman.
He first
published "Northern Lights" in 1995 followed by "The Subtle Knife" in 1997
and "The Amber Spyglass" in 2000.
They are targeted toward children. The trilogy has resulted in several
awards for Pullman including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's
Book Award and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
The main character in the film is a young girl named Lyra (played by
Dakota Blue Richards) who lives in a parallel universe to ours.
There has been much criticism from Christians about Pullman's novels and
protest against the release of the first film in the series. The
Catholic League has called for a boycott of "The Golden Compass."
Film critic and author Dr. Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television
commission calls "The Golden Compass" "An atheist's 'Narnia' knockoff,"
referring to the best selling books "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S.
Lewis. The first film of the Narnia series was released
internationally as "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."
The second Narnia film, "Prince Caspian," is schedule for release in 2008.
Many view Pullman's books as a response to "The Chronicles of Narnia" but
with an emphasis on "scientific materialism" over religion. Pullman
has criticized "The Chronicles of Narnia" as "religious propaganda."
In 2001 he told Guardian Unlimited "I hate the Narnia books, and I hate
them with deep and bitter passion, with their view of childhood as a
golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling away."
Baehr describes Pullman as "an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life
to undermining Christianity and the church among young readers." He
says Pullman "represents God as a decrepit and perverse angel in his
novels, who captures the dead in a 'prison camp' afterlife." One
fallen angel says:
The Authority, God, the
Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the
Almighty – those were all names he gave himself. He was never the
creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the
most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a
name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself.
According to Baehr, one
heroine in the story turns from the Church when she realizes "there wasn't
any God at all and … the Christian religion is a very powerful and
convincing mistake, that's all." The Church just kept her from finding
love, thinking freely and pursuing bodily pleasures like sex. The
Sunday Times describes the story as "...a quest that takes in the
literal death of 'God', who is no more than a wizened, foetus-like
invalid...Lyra releases human beings from attachment to the afterlife."
According to "The Golden Compass" website, a key feature of the film is
that "In Lyra's world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their
body, in the form of a daemon -- an animal spirit that accompanies them
through life." Each of the characters in the film has a daemon,
which include birds, monkeys, snow leopards, reptiles, and moths. The web
site has a feature to help visitors discover their own daemons by
answering a series of questions.
There are voices from among Christians who support Pullman. Rowan
Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has proposed that "His Dark
Materials" be taught in schools as religious education. His is among
voices who view Pullman's writings as an attack on religious oppression,
not Christianity.
Updated 10/26/07
A real example of the eRumor as it has
appeared on the Internet:
Family & Friends,
I received the following information via Email today and
wanted to share it with you.
There is a new movie, coming out on December 7 entitled
'The Golden Compass'. This film, which appears quite innocent and
interesting at first glance, is based on a book by an atheist author, by
the name of Philip Pullman. (It is book one of a trilogy entitled 'His
Dark Materials'.) Although the movie has been tamed down in order to not
offend the billions of us who believe in God and Jesus Christ, it is
designed to open the interest of the youth who watch it to the remaining
stories, in hopes that they will read the trilogy. In the second and third
of his trilogy, Pullman writes of the death of God Himself (He is killed
by the two main characters who are children) while undermining and
portraying the Catholic Church as an evil institution. The evil characters
of this series are called the Magisterium and he directly relates to the
Bishops and Cardinals as those who take away the boys and girls.
I have enclosed a hyperlink to a website of the Catholic
League where you can obtain a booklet describing the movie, the second and
third books of the trilogy as well as the blatant plan of Philip Pullman
to not only deny God, but kill Him and spread disdain to those who
believe. Even if you aren't Catholic, please closely consider this, and
encourage all to avoid this movie " The Golden Compass". By our boycott of
this film, we as Christians should strongly discourage Hollywood from
producing more of this anti-religious, atheist propaganda.
My suggestion is to pass this along to everyone in your
address book. While we do NOT want to bring any media attention to the
film (in newspapers, etc.) by denouncing the film (which will only give
them free advertising and raise the curious to go "see what all the fuss
is about") -- we DO want to alert everyone of the dangers this film
brings. Hopefully when so many of us quietly avoid the film, it will die a
quick death at the theaters.
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