On The Golden Compass

Okay -- The Golden Compass. BIG controversy with some Christians right now. I'd heard enough about the author that, while I had initially been interested in seeing the movie, we haven't gone as a family (Mary saw it on her dime) because I didn't want to put money in Mr. Pullman's pocket. But I decided I couldn't be truly against it until I'd actually read it. I'm a Harry Potter fan and have been since I read the first book (BEFORE it became popular).

So, I borrowed it from the library and just spent the last several days becoming enlightened. . . no, saddened. It's a wonderfully imaginative, beautifully worded book. I'd love it. . . .even the part about the church because the church universal has committed some hefty atrocities. But this guy just doesn't get it. He doesn't believe in God, so he's made God small. This book is based on a fallacy: that the church is truly representative of God. The church has done, and continues to do, sinful, atrocious things. Based on his initial premise, God is sinful and atrocious. Fuzzy math. One of the main characters, Lord Asriel, even goes so far as to say that his goal is that "death" should die. Already happened. Jesus did it.

I am not my denomination. I am a Christian. I am an intelligent, thinking person. I believe that Jesus Christ died for me. I believe that the church is a human attempt to worship an unimaginably big God. It falls woefully short at times but sometimes it gets things right, too.

I feel so sorry for Philip Pullman and his family. It makes me unutterably sad to think that the church has done such a poor job of actually conveying the message of Christ. Missionaries do it with their very lives and so do a lot of the church MEMBERS I know. As a big, powerful body though, we continually fall short.

I am praying for Mr. Pullman. That some day he meets my Jesus. Who loved the poor, disenfranchised and lowly. Who was God as flesh. Who lived as a man and felt all that we feel. In our humanness, we fall short of conveying the majesty and wonder of the story -- especially after 2000+ years, but I pray he hears the truth and is able to embrace it. And writes something new. .. . because this could have been a wonderful and powerful story if he knew the real Power behind the church he scorns.