His Dark Messages

[caliburncy]

Hi!

--- Tabouli wrote:
> Is, or was, Pullman a practising Christian?  I vaguely assumed he
> was raised nominally Christian and rejected Christianity at
> adolescence or later.

Well, here's Philip Pullman's explanation of his religious background 
in his own words.  This is from a School Library Journal interview 
located at:
http://slj.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?
layout=articleArchive&articleId=CA153054

--- Philip Pullman wrote:
> My grandfather was a clergyman in the Church of England.... He
> headed an old village church, and he was the rector. It was a
> country parish, and I was brought up in his household for a lot of
> my childhood. So all through my childhood, I went to church every
> Sunday. I went to Sunday school. I know the Bible very well. I know
> the hymns and the prayer book very well--and this is the old,
> authorized King James Version of the Bible, and the 1662 Book of
> Common Prayer that used to be used in English churches, and the old
> hymns that used to be sung.
>
> When I go into a church now, I don't recognize the language. It's
> sort of modern and it's flat and it's bureaucratic and it's
> derivative.... It's sort of, in attempting to be inclusive and
> friendly, it becomes awfully... jolly and--I can't bear that. But I
> love the language and the atmosphere of the Bible and the prayer
> book. I don't say I agree with it.... Since growing up and since
> thinking about it, I've come to realize that the basis on which
> these belief systems were founded isn't there. I no longer believe
> in the God I used to believe in when I was a boy. But I do know the
> background very well, and I will never escape it. So although I
> call myself an atheist, I'm certainly a Christian atheist and even
> more particularly, a Church of England--what would you say,
> Episcopalian?--atheist. And very specifically, a 1662 Book of
> Common Prayer atheist. I can't escape these influences on my
> background, and I would not wish to.

So there you have it.  In brief, I would say he was raised Christian 
in more than just a nominal sense, but it is a little unclear at 
precisely what point he ceased to agree with that Christian 
viewpoint.  And, as he states in the end, he now considers himself 
atheist, but an atheist who is strongly influenced by that Christian 
background.


--- Tabouli wrote:
> 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!).

Well, this will take a long response, so I'll send it in a different 
message.

-Luke