His Dark Messages

[lupinesque]

Tabouli:

>What interests me, though, is the role of popularity in fervent 
>religious objection: is the level of popularity, in fact, *more* 
>important than the actual content?  Is anything as phenomenally 
>popular as HP by definition suspect?  Is it some native suspicion 
>that only Satan himself could fuel such popularity?  

Yes, but next to your and David's subtler point is the more glaring 
one that people take on what they see as dangerous.  HDM may merit 
being banned from library shelves and so on, but it isn't a worldwide 
phenomenon.  HP is scarier because so many of us are lapping it up.  
(I admit, I have to admire people who are willing to face down a 
juggernaut like HP.)

The Goat:

> > However, as a guy who who puts up with long hours
> and a low salary to work for a Christian church, I have trouble not
> resenting Pullman's wholesale condemnation of his religion.<

Tabouli:
 
> Interesting on a few counts.  First, "his" religion?  Is, or was, 
>Pullman a practising Christian?  I vaguely assumed he was raised 
>nominally Christian and rejected Christianity at adolescence or 
>later.  

I think that's about right, from a couple of interviews I've read.

>Second, does the fact that he has *written* a trilogy which 
>denounces Christianity as repressive and deluded necessarily mean 
>that he, as a person, denounces it for the same reasons?  (it's the 
>ol' fictional/factual divide again!).  

Hm.  Not necessarily, but probably.

>Third, would Pullman's portrayal of Christianity bother you less if 
>you *weren't* working for a pittance for a Christian church?  If, 
>perhaps, you were a senior figure of a different religion?  Hmmm...

Sounds like my cue.  I am working for a pittance for a non-Christian 
church <g>, I am not and never have been a Christian (sounds like I'm 
up before a Congressional committee, though I guess it would be an 
Australian rather than an American one), and in fact one of the 
reasons I love HDM so much is that it so beautifully encapsulates 
much of my theology.  Judging from what is presented in HDM, I would 
guess Pullman and I have very similar religious views.  However, his 
portrayal of Christianity does bother me a bit.  It is not that he 
criticizes much of its theology, nor that there are evil and 
hypocritical leaders in the Church in Lyra's world, nor even that one 
respected character calls Christianity a very beautiful mistake, but 
that everyone associated with the Church is so horrible.  They seem a 
bit like a caricature, to the point that I winced at the clumsiness.

There is of course one character whose redemption is quite Christian, 
and in her description of that redemption, Pullman uses his most 
explicitly Christian language.  Interesting.

Amy