Defending Pullman? Let the man speak for himself.
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Dr. Everett Piper Everett Piper's Blog
- Updated Dec 07, 2007
I was involved in an email exchange over the past couple days regarding the Golden Compass whereby one defender of Phillip Pullman (a person who claims to have read all three books of the trilogy His Dark Materials) said the following: “Pullman is anti-organized religion but I do not see him as anti-God or anti-Christian and his comments seem to have no agenda . . . I really liked the books . . . I never read them as being anything more that a ‘quest’”
Well, rather than challenging this with my own words let me cite a better source:
Here is
"Underlying the trilogy there is a myth of creation and rebellion …. [This myth] depicts a struggle: the old forces of control and ritual and authority, the forces which have been embodied throughout human history in such phenomena as the Inquisition, the witch-trials, the burning of heretics, and which are still strong today in the regions of the world where religious zealots of any faith have power, are on one side; and the forces that fight against them [are on the other]. . . So, for instance, the book depicts the Temptation and Fall not as the source of all woe and misery, as in traditional Christian teaching, but as the beginning of true human freedom – something to be celebrated, not lamented. And the Tempter is not an evil being like Satan, prompted by malice and envy, but a figure who might stand for Wisdom."
Not anti-church, anti-God, and anti-Christian? No agenda? In one succinct paragraph
So I say again - let
No agenda? I don’t know about you but