The Golden Compass

I received a mass email from Pastor Tom Holladay from Saddleback Church with some insight into the movie The Golden Compass.  There is a lot of buzz going around about the movie because the author has made it know that he is anti-Christian and his books have anti-Christian agenda. 

Pastor Tom's comments are helpful and so I post them here:

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.  

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.