Are They at Odds?

I know what I'm about to admit is going to cause some to want to throw stones at me, but I wasn't a big fan of The Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe it's because I've only seen the movie and not read the books, but neither the story nor the way the movie was made did much for me. I didn't think it was horrible, I just didn't enjoy it like most.

Now that I've thrown that out there, I've heard many interesting things in the past few weeks about an up and coming movie called The Golden Compass. In short (at least from what I'm hearing) while Narnia was meant draw a parallel to Christianity, Compass was written to draw a parallel to a non-Christian tale of life. I'm sure much will be said about this movie and comparing the differences between it and Narnia in the next few weeks. There was one review that I recently read that I found to have a very good quote in regards to how Christians should react to this movie (especially those that are up in arms or freaking out right about now):

"A good first step would be to take a deep breath. The Christian faith is not about to be toppled by a film, nor by a series of fantasy books. Pullman has an agenda that is clear, and Christians need to inform themselves of what this agenda is and what it means. At the same time, nothing would serve his agenda better than to have Christians speaking recklessly or unintelligently about the film or the books.... While Christians will not celebrate the release of this film, we should recognize the mixture of challenge and opportunity that comes with millions of persons watching this film and talking about the issues it raises. When the movie is mentioned in the workplace, in school, on the playground, or in the college campus, this is a great opportunity to show that Christians are not afraid of the battle of ideas."

If you are a Christian reading this, please take that quote to heart. Don't be "that guy" that starts ripping on people that like this movie. As the idea in the quote above says, speak intelligently about the film/books. Don't be afraid to engage in a conversation about opposing ideas, but please don't get into some argument whose only platform is emotion with no substance.

If you don't feel like you should spend money to go see the movie because you don't want to support it, great! Have kids and don't want them to see it, totally understandable!! However, I would encourage you to stay away from conversations and "debates" about the movie until you've seen it yourself.

Also, if you are a Christian reading this and are surprised that movie like this has been made.... well..... nevermind. That's a whole other subject that deserves its own post at some other point.

P.S. If you are reading this and are thinking I'm being hypocritical for posting this since I haven't seen the movie yet (The movie opens today and I have yet to see it) please note that the title of this entry is a question. I also didn't give my take on the movie itself. This post is more about how we as Christians should react and not fear to have intellectual conversation about such movies/books, more than it is a review. In addition, the review that I did link to is written by somebody that has seen the movie.