The Golden Compass

awnold

awnold

New Member
this email was sent out to our church body, I was probably going to see the film, because it is being advertised is an fantasy epic. Figured I would post it because I hate movies with agendas of this type.

"We've been getting a lot of questions about a new movie coming out this week. People are wondering about things they've heard about "The Golden Compass." The concerns you may have heard about this movie are true. It's an anti-God movie posing as a children's movie. The ads compare it to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the fact is that its view of the world is exactly the opposite.
The movie is based on the first of a series of three books by Philip Pullman that are anti-church in their core message. When Pullman was asked by the Washington Post what C.S. Lewis (author of the Narnia books) would think of his books, he answered, "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. Mr. Lewis would think I was doing the Devil's work." And he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003, "My books are about killing God." I love the wisdom in this article from Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/fearnotthecompass.html. It's a great encouragement to not be afraid of the message of the movie, because the message of Christ is so much greater. And an encouragement to voice our disagreement with the author's message with a Christ-like spirit. And a warning not to be tricked by the hype around the movie - the most hateful parts of the books have been removed in this first movie in order to attract commercial success, but in a recent MTV interview the director stated that if this movie is successful, the future episodes will not be "watered down". Personally, I won't see the move, not because I'm afraid of its message, but because I don't want to support its message."
 
It's too bad that atheists feel so marginalized in society that they continue this passive aggressive crusade to lure people away from religion, specifically Judeo-Christian faith. We can debate the benefits and downfalls of religion in societies until the cows come home, but the downfall of secular societies (Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, North Korea, and China) are a glaring reminder that there is little to gain and much to lose by promoting such things.
 
Personally I have not seen the interviews with the director or read the books. But my belief is that second hand info can be twisted in any direction, I have seen it before. I do not know if I will watch the movie or not if I do it will be the same way I watch all movies, with a grain of salt. I do not fear that what I read or watch will affect my belief in God. If any questions come up that I can not answer I am sure He will when I get to heaven.
 
Angus_Og said:
If any questions come up that I can not answer I am sure He will when I get to heaven.
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I concur absolutely.

In the last little while I've heard a lot of anti-GC rhetoric, but, as one of my classmates cynically pointed out, "You can sure tell that J.K. Rawlings has stopped writing Harry Potter." There are those among us who can't be happy unless some secret evil form of media -- Rock 'n' Roll with its backwards masked messages, RPGs, Disney, Harry Potter, Dan Brown, or now, The Golden Compass -- can be blamed for corrupting society and leading people astray.

Yes, the books seem to be written from a completely deluded perspective -- the author claims to be an atheist writing against Christianity, but he buys into a lot of spiritualism, unsurprisingly all negative. I guess C.S. Lewis would refer him to the first chapter of The Screwtape Letters where Wormwood defines the ultimate deluded pawn of devilish forces: The Materialist Magician -- a person who disbelieves in the existence of devils but attempts to communicate and use them anyways.

At the same time, I don't believe that the books have any more ability to send me to hell for reading them than any other force in the world, spiritual or otherwise (excepting only God, of course.)

"We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[the spiritual beings or the book by Dan Brown] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation [which includes the Golden Compass], will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39

The above verse shows that TGC or any other publication is powerless in the light of the love of God, like Matt said in his statements.

Personally, I abhor Christians toting boycotts, burning books, or marching on theaters. True, I don't plan on going to see the movie, as I'm really not interested -- although the controversy is making me more interested. Which brings me to my point about why I abhor Christians boycotting things.

First, publicly boycotting things increases the public perception that Christians are weird folks who are essentially other from the rest of sane society. Apparently we have nothing good to say about things like The Golden Compass and instead huddle down in our bunkers, an essentially fear-oriented response.
Secondly, boycotts can have the complete opposite effect that the Christians want them to have. In the case of Harry Potter, Christians boycotted the books because they "influence children towards Wicca," a statement that is just not true (Wicca is a religion that worships nature and femininity, and practices witchcraft; it is similar to druidism. Harry Potter contains the clinical, areligious use of magic.) The actual effect of these claims is that children have made the connection between Harry Potter and Wicca, even though it did not originally exist. Wiccans themselves have reported that most of the children who have come into contact with the religion in the last few years did so because "someone told them that Harry Potter was Wiccan." The Wiccan community itself vehemently opposes such a categorization.
So what happened here? Well, basically, Christians accused Harry Potter of being Wiccan, thus creating the idea in the minds of children that Wicca is cool and harmless -- the opposite effect than that which the Christians wanted.

Oops.

So, yes, I would encourage you to be on guard against The Golden Compass. Don't allow your children to watch it without you there to guide them through its pitfalls. But don't worry that it will suck out their souls, possess them with demons, or contain evil messages written backwards in the credits music. Instead, keep your brains intact when and if you see it, and don't blindly accept its deluded messages. Your children may not be able to single out these messages, so you should probably help them to see where it is wrong.

But PLEASE don't go around holding a sign that says "The Golden Compass Supports Satanism" -- in essence, you may find yourself unwittingly supporting Satanism. You don't want that.

Thanks for reading this rant. I know it's a rant :)
 
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awnold said:
this email was sent out to our church body, I was probably going to see the film, because it is being advertised is an fantasy epic. Figured I would post it because I hate movies with agendas of this type.

"We've been getting a lot of questions about a new movie coming out this week. People are wondering about things they've heard about "The Golden Compass." The concerns you may have heard about this movie are true. It's an anti-God movie posing as a children's movie. The ads compare it to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the fact is that its view of the world is exactly the opposite.
The movie is based on the first of a series of three books by Philip Pullman that are anti-church in their core message. When Pullman was asked by the Washington Post what C.S. Lewis (author of the Narnia books) would think of his books, he answered, "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief. Mr. Lewis would think I was doing the Devil's work." And he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003, "My books are about killing God." I love the wisdom in this article from Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/fearnotthecompass.html. It's a great encouragement to not be afraid of the message of the movie, because the message of Christ is so much greater. And an encouragement to voice our disagreement with the author's message with a Christ-like spirit. And a warning not to be tricked by the hype around the movie - the most hateful parts of the books have been removed in this first movie in order to attract commercial success, but in a recent MTV interview the director stated that if this movie is successful, the future episodes will not be "watered down". Personally, I won't see the move, not because I'm afraid of its message, but because I don't want to support its message."
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Awnold, your comments about this are very thoughtful and very fair. This is a big issue in my world (library media) because the books have been in school libraries and they are now getting challenged. Some media specialists are simply removing them in advance of the movie's release to save themselves the trouble of going through a formal challenge process with a parent.

Paul
 
3-dEMON said:
We can debate the benefits and downfalls of religion in societies until the cows come home, but the downfall of secular societies (Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, North Korea, and China) are a glaring reminder that there is little to gain and much to lose by promoting such things.
Click to expand...

That's definitely a strong argument. When people throw away this 'organized religion' stuff that so many people are so concerned about these days, they simply create their own, free from whatever particular morals or rules they feel like removing. God is replaced by money, power, knowledge (also a form of power), whatever it may be...but he is ALWAYS replaced by something. With that in mind, whenever someone complains to me about judgmental, closed-minded Christians mindlessly droning religious phrases and telling everyone they're going to hell, I ask them what they think those same people would be doing if they were NOT Christians.

Paul
 
Completely agree with Neirai's comments. I've always felt that protesting things like movies and what not actually encouraged some people to see them that otherwise didn't. I also think in general Christians talk way too much about the things we're against and not enough about what we're for, what we're actually about.

To be honest, I think that if all the Christians in the country just stayed away from trash like this and withheld their money without comment, it would die of its own accord. Movies like this only get made because the studios that bankroll them think they can make money with them. If over time they are shown that films/books like these aren't a money-making proposition or that they can make more with family or Christian-oriented movies that's where their efforts will go.

Granted we do have to get the word out to each other (especially to parents) that there is something like this out there that under no circumstances a Christian should lend their support to (which is what I believe you're doing if you pay money to something like this--at the end of the day you're supporting someone who is against everything that you stand for as a Christian), but protesting in front of theaters and shouting at the top of our lungs against this will only make more people curious about it.

Just my $.02 for what its worth... :p
 
"So, yes, I would encourage you to be on guard against The Golden Compass. Don't allow your children to watch it without you there to guide them through its pitfalls."

thats the whole point of my post...
 
To be honest, I hadn't heard of this guy or his books before now. I had seen the previews of the movie and thought, "hey, that looks pretty good", but had no idea what message it was promoting.

I really loved that article about the author from Christianity Today. There is a lot of wisdom in it. Too often when a self-proclaimed Christian authority (Yes, I'm looking at you, AFA) announces a boycott campaign or starts flying off the handle about something, it causes more damage to the public's view of Christianity than anything else. We were commissioned to go into the world and spread the gospel, but steps like these hurt our message rather than help.

I often think about my childhood and things I used to watch... remember the Smurfs? He-Man/She-Ra? The multitudes of other 80's movies and cartoons that centered around magic, witches, and warlocks? Thanks to my awesome parents (who let me watch, but watched with me, discussed the concepts, stressed that "it's all make-believe", and made sure that I stayed in church as well), I enjoyed the shows my friends watched but knew the difference between reality and tv. Harry Potter and Rowling's story really is nothing new and I don't think it would influence children towards Wicca unless the children heard it was Wicca (from Christians) AND the parents didn't stress that it's all totally make believe and nothing more than a story.

One more point... I stayed away from the Harry Potter movies for several years and made it a point to tell all the parents I knew why. Much to my dismay when I finally watched it on tv, it really wasn't all bad like I thought it was, and I realized that I had looked like a complete weirdo. Now I know that if I had actually seen it when it first came out, I would've been able to have more intelligent discussion with others about the concepts of the movie.

All that said, will I go see The Golden Compass? Maybe, it's simply not that high on my priority list right now. I might rent the DVD later or catch it on tv.
 
Hey Stacey you are dating yourself, papa smurf ftw! Though my favorite was Hercules and Newton. Yikes, I'm dating myself now. My eldest (Kate) made an interesting comment to me about the Golden Compass series, in the 3rd (and final book), they attempted to kill God and failed. What does that say? Enough said.
 
It has been a while since I sat down and read all the books, but I thought in the last one they killed God.... not failed at it. it's like most of this thread has said, the Author is an Atheist, or however it's spelled. I don't see him allowing something which he doesn't believe exist to live. Anyway, I veiw these books like I veiw all my classes here at school, with a grain of salt. I don't think I can say I won't watch the movies, but I can't say I'll go see them. I'll go if my friends want to, and if they don't I won't. nough said. =P oh yeah, and I really like the preveiw for the new Narnia on May 16th!
 
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