What Does the Church Say About the Golden Compass? A Surprising Answer.

There’s a lot that has been written and said about the church’s opposition to The Golden Compass, some going so far as to encourage boycotts and banning. So imagine my surprise when I sat down in my church, St. Timothy’s Episcopal, and heard my priest, The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach, say that it will be the featured book in our church’s book club. He went on to tell us why.

I was really struck by his perspective and asked if I might reprint his sermon hear, for my readers. He agreed and it follows (note that the links are my additions). I welcome your comments, questions and more!

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The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach
Epiphany II/Baptism of our Lord
January 13, 2007

Tomorrow our church book club begins reading The Golden Compass. First published in 1995, it became popular enough to be made into a movie that was released last month. But even if you haven’t seen it or read it, you may have still heard of it because of the religious controversy that surrounds it. Of course being at the center of a controversy is hardly a new distinction. In fact, The Golden Compass is just the latest in a series of movies (like Dogma and The Last Temptation of Christ) to be denounced in editorials, pamphlets and from pulpits.

So what’s all the hubbub about? I suppose it depends upon who you ask, and believe me when I tell you that there are many, many different allegations and versions of quotes from the author that are circulating around. The most notorious is, “I want to kill God in the minds of children.” which, by the way, is a fabrication, but more on that later. But the details of how Pullman portrays the Church or God are actually not that important. If you want to discuss them in detail, please join us tomorrow night for Book Club. All that really matters is that this book is a focused attack on organized religion in general and the Christian Church in particular.
Yet, as I said before, this is hardly a unique distinction. While it is true that Pullman goes about it in a very dramatic, and even inflammatory manner, the Golden Compass is not the first such book to attack the Church or the idea of God and I am sure that it will not be the last. So the real issue for us, as people of faith, is not how to we deal with Pullman’s in particular, but rather how do we respond to any ideas that are hostile or critical of our faith?

Now our faith and our religion are very dear to us. And when someone attacks that which we hold sacred, it is only natural to become defensive and even quite angry. And in our anger, we usually fight back. In another century someone like Pullman would have been persecuted or even killed for writing such a “blasphemous” story. Today he may not be in physical danger (though I would not be surprised if he had not received a few death threats) but he still gets denounced as an agent of evil who is a threat to children and to the moral fabric of our country by thousands of churches and clergy. Even the Vatican issued a statement. As a result Pullman, his film and his books have been denounced and boycotted across the country. Now while this may constitute progress from the days in which we would have been tortured and killed for his ideas, I still have to wonder if this is the best way to respond to our critics or if we would be better off breaking away from this ignoble tradition.

Now I don’t often feel certain enough to speak for Jesus but I think it is safe to say that repressing, persecuting or killing the people who disagree with us is probably not what Jesus had in mind. I have no doubt that many of the people who are doing this are well meaning and firmly believe that they are doing what is right. But what they fail to understand is that, from the standpoint of an atheist like Pullman, their behavior only serves to prove his original point- that the Church is an intolerant and repressive institution that will not allow freedom of thought or tolerate dissent. And so in their efforts to defend the faith, Pullman’s attackers only deepen the skepticism and anger that some people feel towards the Church and, by proxy towards God. In other words, in their zeal to defend the Faith, they are driving people away rather than drawing them in. Therefore, we need to find a new more effective, ad above all, more godly, way of responding to the books, people and ideas that are critical of our faith.

The particulars of what to say and do will vary from case to case but there are three rules that apply to all of them:

First, check your facts. Before you condemn something, you had better know what you object to and why. In our era of blogs and mass email forwarding, millions of people form opinions based on half-truths, misinformation and outright lies. There is no more poignant example of this reality than what happened a few years ago at the height of the Harry Potter controversy. The Onion is a satirical newspaper that on the surface actually looks like a real paper. Anyway, they did a spoof story entitled, “Harry Potter Books Spark Rise in Satanism Among Children.” Sadly, the same article, which caused me to laugh out loud, also got read by folks who didn’t understand that it was facetious. Mistaking it for a “factual” news story, they in turn used it to bolster their claim that Harry Potter was demonic and distributed it to thousands of others. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all the time and well meaning people repeat and cite such inaccuracies as though they were gospel.

Anyway, my point is that we cannot trust all the information we get, especially when it comes uninvited via forwarded email. If you’re not sure, you need to check it out yourself- either by consulting a reputable news source or fact-checker or, better yet, by doing your own first hand research and reading the book or seeing the movie for your self. Although that can be time consuming, it is worth the investment. For example, the supposed quote by Pullman that I shared earlier, “I want to kill God in the minds of children” was in fact, never said by him. When I first read I was skeptical so I decided to do a little digging and here is what I uncovered. It first appeared on Snopes.com as part of an article on the themes of Pullman’s books. Now Snopes is usually a good place to check your facts. However, that phrase was never listed as quote. Rather, it was posted as part of an email from someone who was critical of Pullman as was simply their own interpretation of his agenda. It was nothing more than an opinion. But, because it appeared on Snopes someone mistook it for an actual quote and passed it around as such.

So you can see the value of checking your facts. In that vein I would like to add one practical note. Part of the reason why people have gotten so upset about the Golden Compass is because it is directed at children. It is only natural to want to defend our kids from bad influences. But as every parent knows, nothing will drive a child or teen to seek something out more surely than if their parents ban it. A blanket ban virtually guarantees that it will end up hidden under their bed or beneath their pillow. If you are concerned about a movie or book or music that your child is interested in, you should not just automatically ban it. Instead, check it out for yourself or even better, see it, read it or listen to it with your child. If you find it objectionable, then take the time to explain to your child what it is wrong with it and why.

Second, remember that God does not need us to defend him with picket signs. Minds cannot be changed through brute force. Although Pullman’s ideas may be offensive, God does not need us to act as bodyguards. Rather, we are ambassadors. Our job is not to attack but rather to persuade people of the truth of our beliefs with our words and more importantly with our actions. If you don’t like how Phillip Pullman portrays the Church, then you need to show him that he is wrong. As people of faith we must all do our part to show that the Church does not always respond to its critics with anger or violence but rather can use its power to promote freedom, tolerance and understanding.

Finally, when our faith is attacked we must remember that no idea is so threatening that we must act to suppress it. Unfortunately, this is a hard one to correct. Time after time the Church has acted to suppress ideas that challenged its understanding of the universe. From Galileo to Darwin and on into our own time, we have allowed our fear to undermine our faith. To be sure, ideas can indeed be very powerful things but human ideas have no power to harm God and contrary to the claims of his critics, cannot destroy people’s faith. Yes, some ideas may lead you to ask questions. They may cause you to do some soul searching and even challenge some of your assumptions but that is not a valid reason to suppress them.

As I have said before, faith and doubt are not enemies… they are partners. Doubting and questioning, if we are strong enough to really see the process through, can actually lead to a renewal of our faith, not to its demise. It may be that reading and wrestling with Pullman and his ideas might actually add something to your faith and understanding of God. For although the books are intensely anti-church, they are also deeply spiritual- full of meaning, values and purpose.

Our faith and our Church are very important to us. Yet we live in a time when those same precious things are under frequent attack, both from other Christians and by skeptics, agnostics and atheists. Yet none of them have the power to destroy what God has given us. Yet in the midst of the debate and hostility, we have a unique opportunity. How we respond to their attacks is a powerful chance for us to demonstrate what our faith is all about. Will we prove Pullman’s point for him by condemning anyone who dares to disagree with us? Or will be move past our own anger and fear and continue to focus our efforts on what is really important, showing God’s love and compassion to everyone in our world?

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What do you think?

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