Dispelling Fear and Ignorance in The Golden Compass
by John Adair
The tug of war in the media over Chris Weitz’s film adaptation of The Golden Compass has gone on for some months now. Religious groups have attacked the film for its supposed atheistic moorings. To counter, secular critics have complained of narrow-minded reactionaries. The fact is, most of these voices had not yet seen the film, which is always a recipe for misinformation based on fear and ignorance. And oddly enough, the film finds itself motivated by these same two qualities in its attack against authoritative institutions like the church and the Scriptures.
Briefly, the movie portrays a world dominated by a church-like authoritarian group called the Magisterium, men who will go to any length to silence people they believe are free-thinkers or heretics. One such “heretic,” an Oxford professor named Lord Asriel, has discovered in the upper reaches of the Arctic Circle what he believes to be the source of a mysterious substance called Dust. While the Magisterium seeks to silence him, his niece, the film’s 12-year-old heroine Lyra, sets off on a quest to the Arctic Circle to help her uncle and rescue children who have been captured by the Magisterium for the purposes of mysterious experimentation.
In its attack on the Magisterium (a real-world reference to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church), the film presents a group of people entirely without sympathy. They seek to silence dissenting voices and extend their power over all people. Yet in an ironic surprise, the film can only conceive of this authoritative institution as driven by fear and ignorance. This kind of imbalanced view seems fraught with the same qualities attributed to the evil Magisterium of the movie.
Protestants do not conceive of institutional authority in the way that people who are Catholic do, so this issue may seem beside the point for some viewers. However, the attack on church authority in this context implies an assault on the Scriptures all Christians hold so dear. This leads to a conception in the series that the authorities use the Scriptures (particularly Genesis 3) to propagate fear and ignorance. Therefore, because the biblical account of Adam and Eve’s fall into sin is part of the Authority’s teaching, the account must be incorrect.
The film only makes brief reference to this reinterpretation of the Genesis story, but this is where the importance of the movie’s context comes in. As the first in a planned trilogy of movies, the remainder of the series continues on this path, noting that those early chapters of Genesis do not reveal our inherent sinfulness but disclose humanity’s attempt to escape the evil god (the Authority in the movie) under whose rule we were captured. The first novel concludes with the suggestion that Dust may actually be a good thing, something to be protected and cherished. Could Dust, what the church associates with original sin, actually be the essence of life itself?
Such a position is nothing new. In fact, it recalls one of the first heresies to crop up after the apostles died—Gnosticism. The gnostics believed that Genesis 3 should be seen as the means by which Adam and Eve escaped the earthly constraints of their bodies and got out from under the thumb of the evil creator god of the Old Testament. Therefore, what Christians considered the fall, they saw as liberating. The serpent, a “wise” creature, helped humanity to freedom. Rather than being chained to our sin, such a reading implies that through disobeying God, we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of ignorance.
Director Chris Weitz has openly discussed the way in which certain elements that might offend religious viewers were toned down for the first film in the hopes he would get the funding to make the following two. Therefore, the filmmakers removed most of the explicitly religious elements of the book. Such a move seems to play to the very fear and ignorance this film seems so concerned with dispelling. It sounds subversive and sneaky rather than open and honest.
As Christians, we have no reason to be troubled by a movie questioning our faith. We know Jesus Christ, who calls Himself “the truth” (John 14:6). We have the truth of God, revealed to us in the Scriptures. This gospel message has been handed down from the apostles for generation upon generation, and we have seen the Spirit’s work in our own lives as well as in the lives of those we know and love.
In light of this, let us not fear, nor panic, nor overreact. Rather, as the cultural tug of war over The Golden Compass continues, I would first encourage a thoughtful consideration of its theological implications. And second, let’s see cultural events like this as opportunities to share the truth of the gospel with grace. In this way, we can best illustrate that we are a people characterized not by fear or ignorance but by love and compassion and truth . . . all through the knowledge of the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ.
|
