Posted on 12/04/2007 8:52:33 AM PST by Between the Lines
A controversial children's movie described as anti-Christian is set for release in South African cinemas on Friday, prompting an outcry from Christians, and email circulars warning people against taking their children to see the film.
The Golden Compass is based on the book Northern Lights, the first of a trilogy entitled His Dark Materials by British author Philip Pullman.
Pullman has described himself in the European and American press as both an agnostic and an atheist.
He was quoted saying that to his knowledge, there was not the "slightest evidence" that God existed.
He added that he loathed The Chronicles of Narnia books by C S Lewis.
Pullman has also been quoted as saying: "It is my goal to go after Christianity. I want God to be dead in my works. I want to undermine Christianity."
Critics of the books have drawn parallels between Pullman's stories and the Narnia books, but say their underlying ideologies are very different.
The film is about a 12-year-old girl, Lyra, who hides in a wardrobe. She is then transported into a fictional universe similar to that of Narnia and given a truth-telling device called an alethiometer.
Lyra learns that children are disappearing and that the church is trying to learn about a substance called Dust, which is believed to be connected to original sin.
The church's investigation involves experiments on children to separate them from their demons, which are animal spirits.
The film has apparently been sanitised so as not to offend Christian viewers, but it is also alleged to be the milder of the three books, the last of which, The Amber Spyglass, sees God dying.
Pullman said in an interview: "Of course I don't say: 'There is no God.' I say: 'There is a God and here he is dying,' and he goes with a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief."
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The sequels to the first book feature graphic sex scenes between tween kids too. My kids and I will not be watching this film,
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