Compass Foolishness

Over the last two weeks evangelical leaders and pastors across the country across the country have blasted out emails to their congregants and friends warning their membership not to see the about to be released The Golden Compass. It is decried that in the last book of the series “God is killed.”

It is unlikely that most of the major evangelical personalities who helped launched the campaign have viewed the movie or read the books. Most of those who sent the messages that they received from major evangelical leaders have ever read the series let alone seen the movies themselves. They have blindly accepted without critical thought the messages from others and are encouraging their members to blindly trust them as they are blindly trusted those from whom they have received the emails.

From those who have read the books I understand that it is correct that the god figure is overthrown and killed. They carefully point out that the false personages who have falsely set themselves up as the god figure are overthrown. Put the distinction aside for a moment, let us remind ourselves that this is a children’s fable. Are these same leaders about to blast out email “encouragements” for Christians to boycott nursery rhymes like “Rock-a-my Baby”, Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz and hundreds of children’s tales that do not match up with reality? Are they about to issue a pronouncement against Santa Claus? If not, why not? What is the difference?

What these evangelical leaders are suggesting is that Christians are easily fooled and mislead, that they lack the capacity to think for themselves, so much so that they need to be sheltered and protected. In essence they are saying that the Christian faith is week and if not protected the Church will fall.

On a practical level are the producers of The Golden Compass upset at the emails. Oh they have issued their carefully worded announcements that somewhat deny the claim while at the same time carefully constructed to keep the controversy going. They are doing this because they know that the longer the evangelical leaders decry the movie, the more successful the movie will become. Last weekend, what movie was the most seen movie? The Golden Compass. Most people are emerging from the movie theaters are leaving saying that this is a horrible movie as a movie itself (plot, progression, dialogue, etc.) but still people will continue to see it because of the email blast.

At the end of the day I suspect that many who are aware of the controversy will emerge wondering what all the brouhaha was all about. At the end of the day, far too many people will conclude that once again evangelical leaders have over-reacted, made themselves look foolish and marginalized themselves.

Regretfully those leaders who sat up on high who will appear to be fools of will not be the ones who loose the most. Those who loose the most are the pastors who received the message and passed it on to their congregants. Those pastors will have lost some regard with the congregants who see the movie.

For another recent example of misguided uncritical thinking in the church we only have to look at Gerry Falwell’s announcement about one of the non-gender Telatubbies. Soon pastors and other evangelical leaders picked up the announcement and they too were crying out against the Telatubbies. The gay community did not see the character as being gay, but once Falwell made his pronouncement and the controversy started, they happily embraced the character. Falwell accomplished the utter opposite of what he sought. When will the evangelical leaders learn that they will ultimately loose in such matters. This movie would have a fraction of its audience if they remained silent. Instead they end up guaranteeing success and making the Church look foolish in the eyes of the society at large.