The Golden Compass: School of Nietzsche (book series review)

I recently finished the His Dark Materials series, by Philip Pullman, better known as the Golden Compass series, which is comprised of three books:
1. The Golden Compass
2. The Subtle Knife
3. The Amber Spyglass

I had heard all kinds of talk about this series, and being a Christian, most of the hubbub was bad. So of course, in ordinary me fashion I decided to investigate. My favorite kind of fiction is young adult fantasy and it is both my privilege and responsibility to read as much as I can, especially since I am the mother of three children who will most likely be voracious readers like their parents, and also because in my deepest hopes I would one day love to be a writer who contributes to this particular genre.

It is my goal with this post to simply deliver my opinion of this series. Keep in mind I come from the viewpoint of Biblical standard, so if you don't share the same perspective, I pray you will not be offended but simply take into consideration anything I might think in the same way I would do with you.

I will give the positive first :)
I thought this series quite well-written, with much application of modern philosopy, explanation of physics and some nice irony, imaginative and inspiring as far as creativity and plot, and hosting several quite loveable and understandable characters. It was not hard to picture myself as one of the hero or heroine, and the adventurous spirit was contagious. I was also able to gain, by reading these books, a better sense of where atheists are coming from in their belief set.

Now for the negative.
I hated this series. As far as the ideas and content, I was deeply disturbed at what I found. I have not read every award-winning young adult fantasty series out there, but I have read quite a few, and I will say of all those I have read, I felt this series was by far the most dangerous set of books for kids that I have read.

The books start slowly in their ultimate design, which the reader starts to suspect and suddenly becomes wise to: The destruction of God. By men. John Milton's Paradise Lost is frequently alluded to, and these books take up the stance of commending the Fall of man as a stepping stone of progress, instead of a "paradise lost." These works are deeply cynical about any kind of spiritual authority, other than self, and set the church up to be an evil institution intent on controlling everything with rules and punishments. There is none of the beauty of faith in these books. Most of the bad guys are employed by or in cahoots with the church.

While I could go on and on about the specifics, I will stick to the largest theme. God is portrayed as an old feeble angel that became power hungry and had a little more cunning to him than his fellow heavenly hosts, and so he set himself up as The Authority and began dishing out severe rules for all of mankind to follow or not follow - at their own peril. The books are all about the main characters Lyra and Will, being chosen to dispel the myth that is God, destroy Him and His armies, and set up a new worlds system (the book is in the setting of multiple parallel universes) as a new Adam and Eve, without God or any kind of allegiance to anything higher than the physical world and self. The culmination of plot in these books is the war that man wages against God and all His angelic armies. God dies of His own frailties in the end of book three, and is written as a geriatric mute who no longer speaks or understands and seems liable to wet his pants at any moment.

These books are powerful in their ability to render God silly and laughable, unworthy of regard, and in the light of mockery and scorn. They are quite persuasive without seeming to be so, at undermining reverence toward God and anything mysterious that surrounds our knowledge of Him.
I was astonished by the blatantly atheistic and humanistic content in these books. By the end of the second book and in the third, there are multiple bold references in complete mockery calling God by His Biblical names, such as Yahweh and the Ancient of Days,  in jest. The first book is deceptive. It's a good story and you only just start to see the glimmer of Pullman's motive, and so are drawn into the wild, imaginative adventure Will and Lyra and all their comrades are on. It is only when you are hooked and move on to the second book that the confession from several characters of their scorn and hatred for The Authority is revealed. It is sudden and stunning and by then you want to keep reading because you have fallen for the characters.

I believe that by being subtle and well-written this book becomes dangerous. It attacks the existence of God, and it also attacks adolescent belief in God, which I feel is the far more dangerous of the two in this context. How well I know to what extent the fiction I read as an adolescent helped to shape my ideas, morals, beliefs, tolerances, and supposed facts about the world. I feel that if the belief in God that resides in almost any child in whom it is nurtured, and I believe that young faith to be a natural, instinctual response to eternity, is undermined, it sets one up for a life without hope. Without prayer, or the peace that comes in trusting in Divinity, in the Higher Power that is at work, wherever you are in that belief.

I believe Philip Pullman, the author of this series, knows this and pursues the "liberation" of the minds of youth worldwide from that of reliance on God or the belief that He is at least there. Mr. Pullman is a professed atheist, passionately so. While I disagree with his beliefs, there are many writers out there whose beliefs I share in no way, but whose fiction I love for the simple reasons of relevance, application, truth, beauty, creativity, and skill. For me, these books were offensive. I remember reading The Davinci Code (Dan Brown) and never once being offended, because I felt the whole time that while that book could definitely confuse and divide, it was always fiction and more of an expirement in theological history than a soapbox for the author. Pullman's books are a potentially lethal assault on faith in God, period.

I warn against letting your child read these books at a young age. I also caution against letting them read the books by themselves. I would not be surprised if they end up on many public junior high and high school required reading lists, or at least if the first one does. They have won all kinds of awards and accolades.

Good fiction is meant to illustrate that which is true. Sometimes, the story is sad, or gruesome, or difficult to read. But if it is good, it resonates with us somewhere. We find ourselves and our plight, and hopefully, a semblence of the real cure to that plight, in some way, in good fiction. However, when fiction starts to lie and call something fundamentally what it is not, we have reason to be alarmed and counter it. Though I read a lot of controversial fiction, in order to talk about it with others and to know what is being published and revered, I take many of my cues for art and literature from Philippians 4:8, " Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

I am in no way a professional reviewer of books, although that would definitely be near the top of the list of my dream jobs :)

Harry Potter and the Search for the Perfect Church

I recently finished reading the Harry Potter series. Consequently, our family has also begun an exhausting search for a home church here in Tulsa.

What in the world do these two things have to do with each other?

Glad you asked.

In being an incessant reader, a voracious consumer of classical and modern fiction, I have learned something. It's something you've probably heard your whole life in reference to everything except books, but there it is: You must never judge a book by it's cover. And it's true. Some of my favorite novels are nondescript volumes that I found on dusty shelves in the back of some funky old thrift store with dead cockroaches littering the aisles. Most of these were missing a dust jacket, if they were even fortunate enough to be a hardcover book, and spotted with mold, or food, or yellowed with age. In such a way did I stumble across one of my favorite stories, "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle. I think I've probably read that book half a dozen times but it's not much to look at. On the other hand, some of the most beautifully bound, glossy surfaced thirty-dollar books are the biggest wastes of time and energy I have ever endured. I am thinking of a book I read last year about Dracula (don't ask). I don't even think you could call this a book - it was more of a tome. At least 600 pages and it came with a gorgeous cover and glowing reviews and it was a big fat endless waste of my time. I can't believe I bought it, but what's more, I can't believe I finished it. Insane.

For me, Harry Potter was the same way. I found the first book in the series at a garage sale for 25 cents. The cover was tattered, there was a yellow stain on the side, and it was laying in the grass, but I knew all the fame the series had generated and I thought, what the heck. I'll read the first one and see what I think. As an avid reader and aspiring writer I consider it my responsibility to read a lot of what's out there, not only to see what is being created in the fiction world, but also, as a christian, to gauge the temperature of the culture. You can tell a lot about this country by what's on the bestseller list. Of course, I do have my limits. There are certain authors I'll never read. With Harry Potter though, there was more curiosity than usual to add to my normal literary appetite.

I had heard for years polar opposite opinions on the series. Lots of christians believe it's a horribly witchcrafty series that glamourizes the dark side. Lots of other people, many christians included, believe it to be a fun and wonderfully imaginative fantasy collection with wild plots and all the fun of magic. I have noticed that many people who strongly disagree with the content in the books have never read any of them. I am of the school of thought that you aren't allowed to discuss a book unless you've read it or at least a significant enough portion of it to get the overall gist. If you disagree, I will think no less of you (unless of course, you haven't read the books).

As for me and the controversial Harry Potter, I didn't stop with book 1. I personally loved the series. I found the books unpredictable, well-written, excitingly imaginative and full of loveable and tangible characters. When I finished the series I had a day of mourning. I was sad to let go of Harry and Ron, Hermione and Ginny, Neville and Professor Dumbledore. If you read the series and enjoyed it, then you know just what I mean. It reminded me of the sadness I felt when I said goodbye to Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House on the Prairie series, or when I bid farewell to Anne Blythe in the final installment of the Anne of Green Gables collection. Finally, I remember the nostalgia I had in reading the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia. I wished wished wished that I could somehow whisk myself into that magical world of talking creatures and ancient magic and endless possibilities. This was the same sense I got in reading the Harry Potter series. Yes, it was full of magic and sorcery, there was evil and some scary stuff, also I found a couple of bad words toward the end books (I guess when Harry had more of a teenage audience), but there was a lot of good too and on the whole it was a wonderful escape into a new and intricate world where magic was not only an occupation but a whole culture and country to discover. The people who lived there were quite like those I talk to every day, their personalities unmistakeable, their human nature as intact as ever it could be, and the plots were wonderful. They swept me up into realms of good and evil, death and life, tough love, the power of friendship, the deceptions of power, and on and on and on. Like any good fiction, they were able to bring me up out of my life while teaching me the moral of the story in the meantime. And, like any good fiction, though the setting was fantastical, they had truth in them. So I think you get the gist. I absolutely loved them. While I think some of the content will need to be discussed with my children when they are old enough to read these books, I see no reason why I will not let them read them.

And this brings me to our search for a church. I've been judging them by their covers, you see. We've tried out so many churches by now, and usually they were the glossy ones. But none of them have really been "the one" yet. I went to a church that had a really good website but I accidentally sat in some old guy's usual seat and he glared at me almost the entire service. I went to another church that seemed like the right one until they kicked us out of the service for bringing our 4 year old into the sanctuary and weren't very nice about it. We've been to a few others, and a couple of them were actually great churches but they weren't for us. I thought I was being too critical. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with having high standards - I mean it's what helped me marry a good man and not go off the deep end during my teenage years (well, not totally) and decide to stay home with my kids, etc...

Anyhow, I've decided to be more systematic. I've decided to think like a guy engineer. I have a list of churches and we will thoroughly explore each one until we find one that feels like it wants to be our home church. Sometimes you have to go back a few times before you realize it's not the one. That's the exhausting part. Church searching is much like what dating must be like. I never did too much dating so I guess I don't know. I am trying to keep in mind my best loved, dog-eared, tattered books. We are determined not to lose heart. Somewhere in the thrift store of this garage sale world, there is a mediumish sized church with hymns and contemporary songs, young and old people, red, yellow, black and white, cool and uncool, fat and skinny, and life. Being alive is something a church must do. A church that offers spiritual alignment, prayer, friendship, encouragement, ministry opportunity, global perspective, people in jeans and slacks and....life. Blazing, radiant I'mhappytoloveGod LIFE. That's what we're looking for. Do you think my standards are too high? Well I did come from an amazing church that had all those things but I don't think my standards too high.

I think I'm just searching for that dusty book sprawled on the back shelf that's hiding a world of wonder inside. That's all. And I'd like to get it for a quarter.