It’s not anti-Catholic, because it’s Gnostic.

Last updated on: November 21, 2007 at 10:58 am by Peter T. Chattaway

It’s not anti-Catholic, because it’s Gnostic. 2007-11-21T10:58:00-08:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

MTV Movies Blog has posted the second part of their interview with Chris Weitz, writer-director of The Golden Compass. It includes these interesting bits:

QUESTION #5 (from HisDarkMaterials.org):
The potential of the upcoming film has become somewhat controversial, mainly due to the misguided notion that the books are deliberately and vehemently anti-religious and that the aim of the series was to “kill” God. Most notable, The Catholic League recently published a rather overzealous article that has been widely spread across a variety of media. How would you react to the statements made; that Philip Pullman is simply a messenger for a virulently atheist cause and is endeavoring to ensnare as many children as possible with his anti-religious message?

ANSWER:
Hey guys, great website. Well, I agree with you. I think that the charge that Pullman wants to “kill God,” in children’s minds or anybody else’s, is wrongheaded, and has been supported with some really selective cutting and pasting. I think Pullman probably has an issue with a certain view of God – which is to say, as a subject worth killing people over. In that regard, the institution that I think most closely resembles the Magisterium is the government of Iran. I think it’s a shame that people are reacting to a movie they haven’t seen by attacking a book they haven’t understood. I also think that “His Dark Materials” is some of the finest literature written in the last fifty years, whether it be for children or adults, and that anyone who reads it with an open mind is likely to come to the conclusion that the “agenda” of the books, if there is one, is to promote and applaud loyalty, kindness, and the courage to follow one’s inner sense of justice.

The Magisterium — a term fraught with Catholic significance — is now some sort of subtle stand-in for an Islamic theocracy? That’s the subtext? Does this mean we should be looking for Muslim symbols, along with all the Orthodox icons and Catholic mottos that Weitz has already indicated will be scattered throughout the film? Somehow, I don’t think so, but we will see.

It is interesting, though, to see how everyone involved in the making of this film seems to be eager to say that the villainous Christians in this trilogy are actually metaphors for other villains in the real world; author Philip Pullman, for example, has said that one of the worst “theocracies” in recent times was the atheist Soviet Union. If the real point of this story is to oppose the abusive misuse of authority in all of its forms, then why is this series so particular in its use of Christian mythology, for lack of a better word? Where are the overt references to Islam or Marxism? Why can’t the storytellers just say what they mean — whether in the story itself, or in their promotion of it?

QUESTION #6: (from Darren):
You have said that “I will not be involved with any ‘watering down’ of books two and three” whilst Nicole Kidman has been quoted as saying “I wouldn’t be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic.” Without ‘watering down’ the main subject matter of the remaining books, how do you propose to deal with the sensitivities of Ms. Kidman?

ANSWER:
I think the key to your question is whether books two and three are anti-Catholic or not. Some people, for instance Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, think that they are. I do not. My feeling about how some people have approached the intellectual and theological content of “His Dark Materials” is that they’re refusing to deal with its variety and subtlety. If you look at the proto-myths behind books 2 and 3, you come up with the Gnostic idea of a demiurge – a fallen angel who sets himself up as God and rules by oppression. To use this rather obscure early Christian philosophy as a root-myth is to me not specifically anti-Catholic, any more than a film involving a Greek myth would. It sets up an alternate series of events in an alternate world.

Also important is the idea of the “felix culpa” – the notion that the fall of man was not a bad thing but a good one. This is a medieval theological concept, invoking the fall as the opportunity without which the messiah would not have come. In “His Dark Materials,” the “felix culpa” is Lyra’s falling in love with Will. Again, I don’t see how one is more anti-Catholic an idea than the other. It’s true that Pullman takes issue with dogma and with the abuse of religion for political power, but the critique about dogma applies far more widely than Catholicism or even religion; and the last time that the Catholic church directly exerted political power on a state level was during the middle ages.

In other words, I think that an accurate adaptation of “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass” would not be anti-Catholic. What would be anti-Catholic would be to go out of one’s way to attack people’s beliefs, which I sometimes think is what people have in mind when they want to apply their own ideas and glosses of “His Dark Materials,” which have been formed outside of the context of the books, to the films.

At the risk of losing the “subtlety” that Weitz rightly mentions here, I think the early Gnostics would have been surprised if anyone had told them that they were not somehow opposed to, and thus “anti-“, the orthodox catholic Church of their time. The Gnostic creation myths explicitly identify the evil demiurge with the Old Testament God, and there is nothing in traditional Christian teaching that allows us to say that the God of Abraham, etc., was actually evil. Indeed, New Testament texts such as the Gospel of John and Paul’s first letter to Timothy seem at times to have been written with the express purpose of warning people away from Gnostic heresies.

But this is a discussion that could take quite a while, and I haven’t got the time to get into it all that deeply at the moment. Suffice it to say that this is bringing back memories of all the debates I have had over The Truman Show (1998; my review), and whether the manipulative, deceiving Ed Harris character there is a stand-in for God, or the Devil, or both.

Put simply, whenever you cast a god as a demon, or vice versa, you always get some interpreters who say the resulting figure is both divine and evil, and so the story is anti-religious; and you always get some interpreters who say the resulting figure is evil but not truly divine, and so the story is against false religion but in favour of true religion, or at least not opposed to true religion, whatever that might be; and you always get some interpreters who say the confusion of gods with devils is, itself, inherently anti-religious, and so it doesn’t really matter how opposed to devils the story might be, especially if the story is silent or vague at best on what a true religion or a true god might look like.

Matters are confused even further when the god-demon is explicitly identified with existing gods in existing mythologies, and when the heroes of the new story behave in exactly the same way that the villains of those mythologies do — tempting young couples to eat the forbidden fruit, and so on. Are those just superficial elements on a story that, deep down, actually affirms the original mythology? Maybe, maybe not, and so the debate rages.

Finally, re: the “felix culpa”. If, as Weitz says, the fall of man was a “good thing” because it led to the coming of the messiah, and if the Lyra-Will relationship is a re-enactment of this fall, then where is the messiah that follows them in this story? Or would it perhaps be more accurate to say that Pullman’s story posits the Fall as a good thing in and of itself, rather than as an evil thing which paved the way for a greater good? (Perhaps the real “felix culpa” in this trilogy would be something like, say, the murder committed by Lord Asriel — because it opens up a portal into other worlds, through which Lyra is ultimately able to fulfill her destiny.)

Side note: Some commentators, including myself, have made much of the fact that Pullman’s story makes elaborate use of the Old Testament and church history but never says what role Jesus played in getting from one to the other. However, Tony Watkins, the British author of Dark Matter: Shedding Light on Philip Pullman’s Trilogy His Dark Materials, has interviewed Pullman and looked at some of his notes, and he says Jesus plays a similar role in the back-story to ‘His Dark Materials’ that he played in Gnostic mythology, as a dispenser of divine wisdom who opposed the Old Testament God and was misrepresented by some of his followers. In other words, Pullman’s Jesus is “anti-Catholic”, too.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 21, 2007

August Rush -- the review's up!

Next Post

November 21, 2007 Christian Bale in Terminator 4 ... but as who?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said: "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

John (the elder) Peter Paul James