What is the deal with Christianity and its inane ability to jump on the bandwagon against certain things, all the while ignoring other things that are truly important? The bandwagon I’m currently referring to is the sudden rise against the movie “The Golden Compass”. I received one e-mail about it the other day and then suddenly I was bombarded with e-mail after e-mail, forwards, websites, and messages from organizations such as Focus on the Family. All sporting the same message, “don’t let your children watch The Golden Compass”. I have yet to see the film so I am currently unable to determine whether or not it is appropriate for children. The books contained several disturbing themes including explicit sexual scenes that are certainly not appropriate for children. The e-mails, however, claim its bad because it is an anti-Christian movie. The truth is the majority of movies we watch are anti-Christian in that they speak either nothing of God or blasphemy about God and they promote ungodly relationships and actions. We don’t get e-mails about these movies. No, this one is special because it is a movie that blatantly rejects religion or places Christianity in a bad light. I guess if it is obvious then we should be against it, but if it is just a quiet message that violates godliness then its ok to watch. We can expose our kids to a lot of junk on T.V. and in movies, as long as the anti-Christian ideas are blended and quiet.

Don’t get me wrong. This movie will most likely present many challenges to Christianity. It is going to take something thinking and we will need to engage the themes and challenges directly. But why is that a bad thing?

I am all for protecting our kids, but sometimes I think we become so over protective that we don’t give them an opportunity to even think for themselves. We protect them in such a way that doesn’t promote clear critical thought. (Keep in mind I’m talking about kids who are at an age in which they do have some discernment and ability to understand the themes presented. Younger kids probably shouldn’t see the movies for a lot of different reasons.  Remember this movie is PG-13.  Parents with children under 13 should use extreme caution in allowing their children to see it.) A lot of parents do get very protective when it comes to movies like “The Golden Compass” and “Harry Potter”. “If our kids watch Harry Potter then it will desensitize them to witchcraft.” “If our kids watch The Golden Compass it might warp their minds and push them into being anti-Christian”. Unfortunately these same parents will let their kids watch TV, movies, and cartoons that may not be blatantly anti-Christian but express anti-Christian actions and attitudes. Not only that, these same parents will let their teenager go to the basement or to their room with a boyfriend or girlfriend to “be alone”. Parents will promote unhealthy relationships and they will pour money into their kids, giving them everything they want and teaching them that they don’t have to earn anything. They give their kids an unprecedented amount of freedom to do what they want. This means kids can skip church for other important things like sports, band, school, and even family time. They teach their kids that religion isn’t that big of a priority. Parents give their teens the freedom to live greedy, immoral, and worldly lives and then they get bent out of shape about a movie like The Golden Compass because being against it is the Christian thing to do. Well I’m not entirely convinced.

When our kids and teenagers get to the point where they can actually start thinking about things we end up teaching them how to NOT think for themselves. Its as if we actually think that force feeding them Christianity and protecting them from anything that may “call into question” that belief will cause them to be solid, untainted Christians. The truth is it will just cause them to be unprepared when they face such challenges…and they will. Here is a news flash parents, we are teaching the younger generation how to be weak minded, poorly committed, and lazy in their thinking. Yeah, thats right! We are teaching them how to be just like us.

Sometimes we just need everything spoon-fed to us. A majority of Christians couldn’t defend their faith if their lives depended on it. They heard what the preacher says, they just never learned it, thought about it, or applied it. Christians don’t know how to think for themselves. Maybe that is why they fear books and movies such as these. The fear is it might lead us astray. The truth is our religion is so unbelievably shallow that they just might be right. If we can’t think for ourselves then we might easily be duped into believing almost anything. Do we really think that the whole of Christian religion is going to be destroyed because of a movie?

The first step in truly learning what we really believe about Christianity is by putting it to the test. We are forced to think about what we really believe when our faith is challenged. That is when you have to dig deep and figure out what you truly believe. Challenges to Christianity may even make us stronger, smarter, and even more united in Christ. It is fine time we start using our brains.

Here is a thought. Maybe we should encourage Christians to watch The Golden Compass. I know there are going to be a lot of people who will completely disagree with me on this, but frankly it is the only way your opinion about the movie will count anyway. It should challenge us to think about what we really believe. It will also show us the reality of what others think of Christianity. A reality I think we must be familiar with if we wish to speak to those who are non-Christian. Yes this movie is anti-Narnia. It is a critique of Christian dogma. Thats all the more reason to watch it! We already know what C.S. Lewis has to say about Christianity, but what does Pullman have to say about it? People around us will have seen the movies. Adults and teenagers are going to see the movie and there will be questions. How will we respond? Will we cower in fear because we are afraid of ideas that challenge Christianity or will we stand firm in our faith?

What really bothers me about all of this is that we don’t actually get worked up about little things, but we are all ablaze when it comes to the big stuff. Certainly Pullman has an agenda and millions of people will see a movie that is going to reveal Christianity and the church in a bad way. He is right in our face and out in the open and because of this we can easily reject it. If it is “BIG NEWS” then we are right there ready to fight. But what about the small stuff that slowly subvert our attention away from God? We may not want our kids to see a certain movie, but if we just happen to have tickets to the Cardinals game on Sunday we are more than happy to skip church to watch a ballgame. Our lack of commitment to God teaches our kids that the only thing that is important is a half-hearted, weak commitment to spiritual things. We want to avoid a movie that portrays Christianity in a bad light and yet we portray Christianity in a bad light with our own lives. Our commitment to money, power, and pleasure far outweighs our commitment to God and then we have the nerve to blame a movie for making religion look bad. The irony is that movies against Christianity are really movies against Christians who say one thing and do another. I suspect that you might even find some ugly truth about Christianity in this movie as well. Christians, we need to face these ugly truths instead of denying them. We need to help people recognize that Pullman’s view of the church isn’t reality.

We spend time doing a lot of things but we won’t spend the time necessary to grow in our love and knowledge of God. We will spend hours practicing sports, hours training for a job to make more money, and teens will spend hours refining their mad video game skills and yet we simply refuse to refine our spirituality. Of course we think avoiding a movie is a way of refinement, but is it? There are many people out there who are truly concerned about this movie. I’m simply not convinced that avoiding it is the right answer. Sure we can say to our kids, “you can’t watch this movie” but what do we do when their friends talk about it and they go to school and hear about it? What do we do when they are completely unable to meet or answer the challenges of the movie because we didn’t talk to them about it? Mohler says:

We must take the responsibility to use interest in this film to teach our own children to think biblically and to be discerning in their engagement with the media in all forms. We should arm our children to be able to talk about this project with their classmates without fear or rancor.

Maybe we need to see the movie just to understand what Pullman is really thinking or saying about Christianity. It will bring about questions that we should ask ourselves, do I have the answers? The only downside to that is you are supporting the movie with your money. Maybe a good way to avoid that is wait until it comes out on Redbox and rent it for $1 or only rent it as a free rental or just go check out the book at your local library and read it. Why? Because I’m of the opinion that we should constantly be questioning our faith. The world does it everyday. This movie is a prime example of that.

If nothing else, The Golden Compass should serve as a reminder that the world is quite skeptical of God and Christianity. That means they are skeptical of us. They won’t simply believe everything they hear like we do. They want answers and I think we should be well prepared to give them some. Get off the bandwagon and start thinking for yourself.

Other Articles:

The Chronicles of Atheism

A briefing for concerned Christians

***Update*** I read the book. I also tried watching the movie. About a quarter of the way through the movie I was snoozing. I just couldn’t make it through, it was too boring. *sigh* Kinda reminded me of the Divinci Code, everybody made a big deal about it but I could barely stomach it. Not because of it’s theology, but because it was just a poorly made movie. Trust me, these movies are the least of our worries.