And finally to Philip and his Dark Materials

[davewitley]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:

> A second musing I had while nearing the end of the second [Pullman] 
book was where are the book burning protesters?  

Grey Wolf and Aberforth's Goat both mentioned the popularity of HP as 
a factor in the hostility to it.

This can be given a Christian spin in two ways:

1) The devil is referred to in the Bible as 'the God of this world', 
and 'the whole world is in the power of the evil one'.  Anything 
which is very popular is therefore for that very reason suspect for 
some Christians.  Even churches that grow very fast come in for this 
sort of suspicion.

2) Many churches are (despite the above) looking for the strategy or 
method that will attract people in large numbers.  When a secular 
author succeeds where they can't, particularly with children, it 
creates tension.

Oddly enough for some churches the quotes above are interpreted in a 
way that is very similar to Pullman's view of The Authority or 
Metatron: the devil is an angel with a past legitimate (ie delegated 
by God for benevolent purposes) authority over the world which he now 
perverts.

David