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Changing the subject from film to literature for just a moment, there's a new fantasy series gaining popularity with young readers. While it didn't arrive with the promotional hype of Harry Potter, Phillip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials has won a lot of awards in the past few years (including the coveted Whitbread Prize). And its readership is growing. Booksellers have caught on a little late, and are promoting it vigorously now. It tells the story of a little girl who lives in an alternate-reality Oxford. Lyra is a compulsive liar, and her lies entangle her in the wicked doings of the grownups at the college. The grownups are persecuting children, stripping them of their imaginations, which they then use to power engines of war in an attack against God. But as the trilogy continues, our sympathies are changed, and we end up rooting for the God-killers.

While some Christians have gone ballistic with protests because they suspect a hidden occultic message in Harry Potter, there has been almost zero conversation about these books, which have an agenda that is anything but hidden. Pullman regularly admits, even boasts, that his series is a blatant, calculated attack on Christianity. He also declares that he wrote it to counteract the influence of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. (He claims Lewis's fantasy series promotes racism and is degrading to women.) And, yes, Pullman's alternative fantasy is written for children.

This week, Gene Edward Veith (World) cautions us about this new fantasy series. He writes, "Mr. Pullman's real objection to Lewis's children's books is that they are 'propaganda in the cause of the religion he believed in.' That is, that they are Christian. It is true that Lewis intended his stories to teach children Christianity, although they surely are more than mere 'propaganda.' The irony is that Mr. Pullman's children's stories really are propaganda for his religion, namely, a militant and slightly mystical atheism."

Why bring up this brewing controversy here at Film Forum? You've probably already guessed: the movie adaptations are already headed into production (the first is The Golden Compass). Soon, a weak and wimpy God will be overthrown at a theater near you. The hero and heroine will go to the Garden of Eden, and eating the apple will be their triumph. And all the while, kids will watch wide-eyed.

Having been drawn in and enthralled by the first volume, I was wounded by the way the story turned mean-spirited and malicious, confusing the church's historical missteps with the love of Jesus Christ and condemning both. By the conclusion of the trilogy, characterization, subtlety, humor, and whimsy have all been left by the wayside so that Pullman can preach his own anti-gospel. That's not art. In the end, Pullman is clearly guilty of the very accusations he hurls at Lewis—propagandizing and prejudice. Christians likely will not be the only ones to see this rather obvious point.

Christians are undoubtedly going to be upset about the films. But how should we respond to such a problem? Should we start picketing? Should churches host book-burnings in their parking lots? Should we start making videos criticizing Phillip Pullman? Should we read the book to our children, explaining the problems with the author's worldview?

I'm interested in your responses. How will you prepare your family for the imminent wave of Golden Compass-mania?

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June (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46