Monthly arts and media column

The film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel Northern Lights has brought the Dark Materials trilogy to a wider audience and so has enlivened debate over its writer’s agenda.

Ever since Pullman declared his intention to do for atheism what Lewis did for Christianity, Christians have reacted strongly to the messages in his books and so are naturally wondering what the film will do to promote his materialist views among the young, views that have made some Christians so concerned that they are boycotting the film and refusing to let their children read the books.

If you have seen The Golden Compass then you will know that the film is beautifully made and captures the attractive features of the book wonderfully. The personal ‘daemons’ which are people’s souls in animal form flit and leap around with the winsome energy that the book suggests. The workings of the compass itself, the altheiometer, are far clearer in the film than the novel’s attempt at description and Lyra’s ride through the snows on Iorek Byrnison, the armoured bear is a magical and memorable sequence.

Rebellious but good

The sense that you get in the film is that the world we are seeing is like ours in some ways but with the events of history reordered. The Reformation hasn’t happened and the world is ruled by the Magisterium, an evil authoritarian version of the Catholic church. Energy sources are confused and technology is at once advanced and primitive. These factors create a tantalising backdrop to the meat of the story, which centres around the tough, rebellious central figure, Lyra, brilliantly casted in Dakota Blue Richards. She is a girl trying to rescue her friend, Roger. She is caught up, like so many famous literary figures, as an orphan stumbling into a course of events that has been pre-planned by prophecy. She is the one who must play the pivotal role in a future battle between good and evil. Everyone except her seems to recognise the importance of her actions and she is constantly urged to be courageous as she faces one obstacle after another.

For the casual cinema-goer watching the story being played out on the big screen, it seems so similar to the Narnias, the Harry Potters and the Frodos. The use of CGI brings the fantastic out of cartoon-land into the realistic. The books will certainly increase in sales as a result of this film because Pullman’s stories are full of beautiful, whimsical and marvellous themes and ideas that children and adults love to hold onto.

Christian fears

Yet that is what many Christian commentators fear. The spiritual framework and values of the Narnia books stuck with many generations of children as they grew up, making it easier for them to grasp the truth of the biblical story of Jesus’s death and resurrection. In the same way, the story of the goodness of the rebel, Lyra, the importance of dust, the ‘evil’ nature of the church and of any sort of hierarchical authority figure such as God, are themes and ideas that will ring bells and give emphasis to secular messages that meet Pullman’s young readers in the future.

How to respond?

How should we respond to Pullman and his increasing influence, particularly in his pincer-movement partnership with Dawkins on the Christian faith? Many wiser and better thought-through people have blogged hard on this one and talked at length with the man himself (for example, see Tony Watkins’s Damaris articles or Peter Chattaway’s FilmChat email exchange with Pullman). Like any other forms of art or media it helps to come into contact with the offending article ourselves, particularly if we are going to criticise others for reading or watching.

God’s Word greater

When we come across a philosophy or ideology that is unbiblical, such as the innate purity of pre-pubescent children, the dissolution of the soul at death or the ineffectual character of God, then we need to find out what the Bible has to say to counter it. If the Word of God is a two-edged sword then it has greater power than a couple of novels, particularly as it claims to tell us about the Truth incarnate in history. We need to research it fully and make use of it boldly rather than resorting to purely human argument and hiding God’s revealed Word with embarrassment.

(Editor: some people who have seen the film have said to me that though the ‘Magisterium’ is meant to represent the Catholic church, it seemed to them its workings were actually highly reminiscent of the way the secular humanist establishment brainwash the population of the UK through their domination of the media.)

Eleanor Margesson

© Evangelicals Now - February 2008
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