The Golden Compass- Part 1

I’m going to follow the example of James and Kevin and break this up into a few posts. Otherwise it’ll be too long. So this is part one of my three-part blog series on The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Part 1 will explain why I decided to read the series in the first place, Part 2 will summarize the basic plot of the books, and Part 3 will be my thoughts.

A few months ago I received an email warning me about the dangers of a new children’s movie: The Golden Compass. I skimmed through the email and rolled my eyes, two thoughts going through my head: “Great, another boycott,” and “Elijah is five years old; we're not taking him to a PG-13 movie anyway.” Deleted.

Over the next month or two I read a lengthy discussion about the movie and the book series on a message board, the forwarded email showed up in my inbox a few more times, I read a blog post by a Lee professor who had actually read the books, and I read an article on Christianity Today by someone else who read the books. In the discussion on the message board there were also a few people who had read and enjoyed the books (this is a Christian message board, by the way, if you were wondering).

I began to notice something—the emails I received were being sent by people who hadn’t read the books, and many (not all, but many) of those who were so adamantly against the movie and books were basing their opinion on a few phrases in an email or in the media; many of them had not really attempted to even see if what they were hearing was actually true. I know that a lot of times what you read and hear is misunderstood or taken out of context, and I think that is a poor reason, in itself, for boycotting something entirely. I was curious to find out for myself.

I also realized something else— many of the people who read the books liked them. They kept trying to explain that people are boycotting the books without understanding what’s actually in them, and that the books are not just simply “about killing God.” Please remember, many of the people who read the books and said that they liked them are also Christians.

I thought more about people’s concerns, specifically the concern that children (and even adults) could be led astray by the message in the books. And I decided that if there really is cause for concern, then it’s a good thing for some Christians to become familiar with what the books actually say so they can talk to people about them— both people who feel that their faith has been shaken and people who do not understand what the books really say in the first place.

Any concerns I had about buying the books and using my money to support the author and his questionable message was quickly done away with—a couple that we are friends with bought the books for us as payback for a favor we’d done for them several months ago.

So there I was with a free set of the book series, a desire to learn what the books actually say (for various reasons), and some free time on my hands.

I began reading.