The Golden Compass

I am already getting a ton of questions about the new movie, The Golden Compass. People are telling me that it is anti-Christian and should be avoided (and even protested). Since this topic is starting to boil over, I have to take a break in my series on the Heidelberg Disputations to talk about this movie.

First of all, I have not read the book. A few years ago, when I wrote for the University Daily Kansan (as a Senior at the University of Kansas) I learned, in an embarrassing way, not to judge something before I see it myself. I wrote an article for the UDK outlining why I was not going to see a recently released violent movie (I forget the name right now). I self-righteously railed on the increase of violence in our society that was a result of desensitization from movies like this (even though I hadn’t seen it). I was hoping to witness to the university community through the article, but I ended up being a bad witness- reinforcing the (true, in my case) stereotype that Christians were narrow-minded and prejudicial. My plan had backfired.

I won’t do the same thing with The Golden Compass. Instead I have to rely on what other people might say about it. I found a blogger, Jeffrey Overstreet, who has written an excellent FAQ on the movie. One of the reasons I think this article is so great is because I think his lessons can apply to many other examples of Christian paranoia over the media (such as The Da Vinci Code, Dogma, and The Last Temptation of Christ- which once I saw, I really enjoyed even if I didn’t agree with some of the content).

The second thing Christians need to consider is the ethics of the internet when we consider rumors like this. Many people I’ve talked with about The Golden Compass have received word about its allegedly anti-Christian content through e-mails. Unfortunately there are lots of rumors that spread though the Christian community through e-mail- the classic example is the rejection of Proctor and Gamble products because they support the Church of Satan. Christians must begin to be more responsible when it comes to rumors like this- which is really just gossip.

Gossip is one of those sins that happens all the time and most easily justified. We tell ourselves it is OK to spread rumors because we are concerned about the person (or the topic, in this case). We even use prayer to spread rumors. We tell ourselves its not a rumor or gossip because what we are saying is true- even though we only believe it because we heard someone else tell us rather than saw it ourselves. The problem is that the Scriptures equate gossip as a sin as serious as the most shameful of crimes. Just look at the company gossip keeps, according to Paul (Romans 1:29-31):

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

We would never accept many of these sins in “polite” society, but somehow we accept and justify gossip.

Besides spreading gossip, we don’t even take the time to verify if the “facts” we are sharing are even true. For a group like us that claim that “truth” is so important, we don’t even try to verify our facts. If we were to simply check a site like Snopes, who verifys or discounts internet rumors, we might find out the truth behind the rumor. (Consequently Snopes confirms that The Golden Compass is based upon a series of anti-Christian stories)

What kind of witness is this to the world if we just spread rumors about things we don’t really know? What do you think the world thinks of us when we haven’t even investigated the facts, but just assume the worst about something? What do you think the writers and producers of The Golden Compass think of us Christians whe we judge them and spread rumors about them before we’ve even seen their work? If The Golden Compass isn’t anti-Christian already, you can bet their next work will be so simply because of the way we treated them!