His Dark Materials…

Having never read the trilogy, His Dark Materials, I don’t know firsthand whether it is anti-God. However, I found a really interesting interview with the author, Phillip Pullman. It seems from this interview that he’s more anti-religion than truly anti-God, however, he is a professed atheist.

I also read an article with the director of The Golden Compass (first in the trilogy, in theaters December 7) who said some of the themes of the book had been toned down for the movie adaptation. They didn’t want to alienate the large Christian-American audience. So, for those bothered by the book(s), the movie may be a little easier to swallow. (The complaint on the Christians’ side, of course, is that the movie will drive people to the book where the anti-organized religion themes are displayed loud and clear.)

So, all of this to say…I don’t know if the stories are about “killing God.” But I’d like to encourage everyone (especially the Christians among my friends list) to actually read the books and/or see the movie before discussing it too much further. That was something that really bothered me about the whole Harry Potter controversy. People were wanting to talk about something they had no personal knowledge of. Please let’s not fall into that trap again. In my humble opinion, it just makes Christians in general seem uneducated, closed-minded, closed-off, and out of the loop.

Peace. Out.