Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is an ‘odious’ and ‘twisted’ piece of anti-Christian propaganda

Northern Lights (The Golden Compass), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass have been written for a purpose which goes far beyond the author's desire for critical acclaim or financial reward; they have been written with the self-avowed aim of discrediting Christianity, undermining the Church and attacking God.

As a Christian teacher I find it particularly odious that Pullman's bitter and twisted trilogy has been marketed and sold as children's literature and desperately sad that so few Christians have taken the time to see Pullman's work for what it is: anti-Christian propaganda.

His Dark Materials is a honeyed trap. The series appears to start innocently enough but soon the reader is dragged into a storyline which subverts God's order and blurs boundaries; good is portrayed as evil and evil is portrayed as good.

Northern Lights (The Golden Compass), the first book in the series, is in many ways the least offensive and most accessible of the three. In this volume we are introduced to one of Pullman's most ingenious inventions: the ‘daemon' (to be pronounced, we are told, like the English word ‘demon'). A daemon is the soul-like part of an individual and has an animal-like form. Whilst adults have daemons which are fixed (whether a monkey, a moth, an owl or a snow leopard) and reflect their character, children have daemons which are free to change from one animal form to another at will (illustrating that, at such a formative stage, children's characters are still in a state of flux).

In Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) the Church is portrayed as an evil and repressive organisation which, from time to time, allows the abuse of children in furtherance of its earthly goals. In this alternate reality, we discover that there is a Protestant ‘Pope' who resides in Geneva and presides over an ongoing Inquisition. Against this backdrop, a pre-adolescent girl named Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, valiantly struggle to help other children escape from the Church's cruelty.

In The Subtle Knife the Church's escalating violence against children adds to our growing sense of unease as we are introduced to a new pre-adolescent protagonist, Will, and two new worlds. In this book Will (with his subtle knife) and Lyra (with her alethiometer) join forces to avoid capture and carry out their respective missions.

But it is only in the third book in the series, The Amber Spyglass, that the full and shameless extent of Pullman's blasphemy is unfurled for all to see. According to Pullman God is not God - he is a lying impostor. Pullman writes:

‘… [the angel] said quietly, “The Authority, God the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adoni, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were the names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves – the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are … The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told all who came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie.” '(The Amber Spyglass pp. 33-34)

Interestingly, Pullman is not bold enough to list ‘Allah' amongst the names attributed to the Authority.
I wonder whether, far from being a mere oversight, this omission signals the author's attempt to insulate himself from the kind of hostility which first greeted Salman Rushdie's fatwah-earning novel The Satanic Verses . Given the overarching anti-religious themes of Pullman's work, I suspect that any concession to Islam is motivated by a fear of, rather than respect for, Muslims and their faith.

But, whatever his motive, Pullman singles out the Judaeo-Christian tradition for attack. Here are just a few of the images which Pullman has deliberately chosen in a bid to cause maximum discomfort and offence to as many Christians as possible:

       •  the afterlife portrayed as a God-ordained concentration camp for the dead; 
       •  a paedophile priest, Father Gomez, on a Church-sanctioned mission to kill a child;
       •  two gay angels, Balthamos and Baruch, in a long-term relationship.

Although it is undoubtedly true that not every Christian will be offended by everything in the trilogy, Pullman pushes enough buttons to ensure that every Christian (regardless of denomination, hermeneutic, theological standpoint or preferred worship style) will feel challenged and unnerved at some point during the narrative.

Later on in The Amber Spyglass, for example, we find God portrayed as a weak, wizened being who longs for his own death. This is how Pullman describes God during the scene in which Lyra and Will witness his demise:

“... he was so old, and he was terrified, crying like a baby and cowering … Demented and powerless, the aged being could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery … The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whimper that went on and on, and grinding his teeth, and compulsively plucking at himself with his free hand … the ancient of days … having no will of his own … responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun.” (The Amber Spyglass pp. 431-432).

This much seems clear: Pullman, like Lord Asriel (the leader of the trilogy's rebellion against God), has wilfully set out to exploit children in order to advance his own atheistic agenda. Not only has Pullman chosen, like Asriel, to make war on God, he has opted to fight each battle on the pages of children's books and in the minds of the children who read them. For Pullman, any spiritual harm which befalls a child as they encounter his work is merely collateral damage in the much broader philosophical war he sets out to win at all costs. And, if it comes to it, Pullman is, like Asriel, quite prepared to separate a child from their eternal soul in furtherance of his own, selfish ambitions. (Biblical references to a ‘stumbling block' and a ‘millstone' spring to mind!)

I wonder how many Christian teachers have recommended Pullman's books to their pupils in blissful ignorance as to their content and how many more Christian parents have unknowingly bought them as gifts for their own children.

I am unequivocal: I do not believe that His Dark Materials is appropriate reading material for primary school children. Consequently, I would like to see His Dark Materials removed from every primary school in the land. Where the trilogy is available to young people of secondary age, I would suggest that a responsible Christian (who has read the books in their entirety) is on hand to answer the numerous questions raised, and challenge the myths and misconceptions mischievously peddled by Pullman.

This item was printed in full or cited in the following publications:
Times Educational Supplement (24 October 2003)
Baptist Times (30 October 2003)
Times Educational Supplement (31 October 2003)
English Churchman (31 October 2003)
British Church Newspaper (31 October 2003)