And there’s more

When I was a child, I read and read the Arabian Nights, and loved the storiesabout Scheherezade, Ali Baba, Al-Ahdin, the Djinn in the bottle and others equally fantastic more than anything else which I read; yet, strange to tell, I never once embraced Islam orwas even tempted so to do.  That’s what makes some of the reactions to Pullman’s Golden Compass rather interesting.  You’ll find a good crop of them at Christianity Today:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/leaveourkidsalone.html

I am puzzled by all this hoo-hah: if The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a Christian story/movie, it teaches a woefully inadequate, if not unbiblical, doctrine of atonement — if Aslan is Christ, one might say, then he cannot save on the account given by Lewis; yet Christians were ecstatic about the movie.  Pullman writes a piece that, if his critics are to believed, is very clear and direct in its anti-Christian message.  So, if you’re worried about leading your kids astray, which, I wonder, is more likely to confuse them??? The subtle theological deviancy or the explicit anti-Christian message? Or maybe, just maybe, Narnia  and Compass are both fun movies which are subject to a range of interpretations, and our children have the sense to see them as make-believe adventures about make-believe worlds.

My kids have already voted for which movie the family will see at the cinema this Christmas Eve.  Send complaints about me to the usual address……