The following is from guest blogger Kim:

I wonder when the time will come when people will go to movies for the pure entertainment of it and not be told what to think ahead of time. I screen movies for my kids that have overt images, violence, etc. for the age appropriateness of them… and have even had to apologize for taking them to one where the billing of it didn’t make it seem as bad as I thought it was for their age. But even then, I took it as an opportunity to have a discussion with them about the movie’s message and what I believe to be right vs. wrong about the situations they’ve just seen. Can’t people do the same here. This just might be getting worse billing than the Harry Potter movies. I was even smart enough to know that my kids, based on being brought up Christian, or even just with good sense, weren’t going to believe in Witchcraft just because of seeing it in a movie. Maybe it’s about time we give our kids more credit than most adults seem to want to give them. These things really bother me. I don’t want to be told what to think. If I’m Christian enough (and I think I am) I shouldn’t have to be told. Below is an email received from Christian Response.

PARENTAL ALERT:
This weekend your local theater will
be showing a movie aimed at children
that will undermine the values
you are instilling in them.

THE GOLDEN COMPASS points children toward dishonesty, selfishness, rebellion, atheism, and the desire to kill their mothers!

THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie is based on a trilogy of children’s books by British author, Philip Pullman, who is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church, especially among young readers. One of Pullman’s goals in writing these books is to be the “anti-Narnia” series.

HELP US GET THE WORD OUT.

Please encourage your friends and family members to avoid the movie. Unless they are warned, they may be attracted by the preview for the movie that features a little girl riding a polar bear and fighting what look like bad guys.

There are two reasons to avoid this movie and encourage others to do so as well:

FIRST: The message of the movie, and the books on which it is based, is anti-Christian propaganda. THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie features a dishonest, selfish and stubborn heroine and is the opening to a story that glorifies atheism (primarily in the later two books). We believe in freedom of the press. Anyone can write a book or screenplay that makes Christians look sinister, stupid or wicked. That does NOT mean Christian parents need to buy that message and feed it to their children.

SECOND: In the movie business, the purchase of a ticket, or DVD, is a vote for more of something. If a studio loses money on an expensive anti-Christian adventure it is less likely to make more of the same. In this case, THE GOLDEN COMPASS is the first part of a trilogy that gets worse as it progresses. If THE GOLDEN COMPASS is a monumental flop the second and third book may never get made into movies.

While THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie is not as overtly anti-Christian as the books by looking at some of the excerpts from the novel you can see what the author hopes to teach children:

• One fallen angel tells one of the novel’s young heroes, “The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty – those were all 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, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself.”
• When the heroine finally finds this “god,” he is ultimately described as a “demented and powerless” creature that “could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery.” The boy then kills this “god” by breaking him out of his crystal cell, thereby evaporating him. The only “god” in this universe is matter.
• In the book, the Church is depicted as an organization bent on power, control and the torture of children by cutting.
• The heroine in the story turns from the Church when she realizes, “there wasn’t any God at all and…the Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all.”
  Children learn scripts of behavior from the movies and entertainment. The role model in this movie is Lyra who is commended for lying, stealing, cheating, and trying to kill her mother.
  Even worse, the official website has an area where children can meet their own daemon. It says: “To discover your very own Daemon, look into your heart, and answer the following twenty questions openly and honestly.. Your true character and the form of your Daemon will be reveled…”

There are many wicked movies made every year, but THE GOLDEN COMPASS is aimed at family audiences and is made to appear similar to Christian allegory THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Please help get the word out that this would be a movie to avoid.