You are half right. Although I consider myself a devout Christian I read the book and enjoyed it for what it was - an entertaining piece of fiction with a novel plot. The movie however, sucked. They had way to many drawn out scenes of dialogue attempting to establislh the back story. That works in a book but makes for a really boring movie. The only character that displayed any real acting chops was the guy who played Gandolf in the LOTR movies.