"The Golden Compass" Debate · 2007-12-07 17:38 by Jake Kauffman
What are your views on this new film, “The Golden Compass”? Nevermind that the book was released over ten years ago; the Christian boycotters don’t seem to jump on things until they get onto the big screen. I guess that you can already sense my disdain for boycotting this movie. I think that it is more worth it to see the movie and be able to intelligently respond to it rather than speculate about it.
Now, I don’t want to imply that I’m even going to see it in theaters, because I don’t make it out to the cinemas that much and it seems as though there are better movies (quality-wise) to see right now anyway. But I have a problem with some Christians trying to distance themselves and hurting their own cause, for athiests can only respect our opinions so much if we have never seen the film.
The issue of financially supporting the film by seeing it has been raised, but I wonder, in that case, which films ARE righteous enough to support, for almost all Hollywood films come from secular directors, writers, and so on, and those could affect the Christian climate just as negatively as “The Golden Compass”.
Flip the coin over and remember when “The Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” came out a few years ago. Christians were excited that such a film was hitting the theaters so as to sort of infiltrate the regular secular smut, so to speak. Am I incorrect? But how would it have made us feel if non-Christians and specifically athiests protested the film and boycotted it. I am sure that some of that did happen, but with almost $750 million in cumulative gross revenue, I think that it’s safe to bet that a few non-Christians did pay to see the film.
The one thing that I do agree with most of these Christian boycotters on is that it is not a children’s film in the sense that kids of all ages should watch it without any parental discretion. Hopefully, loving parents should know their kids well enough to be able to discern whether they are old enough or not to comprehend the athiestic themes and decide right and wrong, and even if the children are deemed old enough, there should be post-film discussion, as with all movies that we see!
Here’s my proposal: pay the piper (“Give what to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s” idea) and see the movie if you wish to see it, think about it, and then intelligently discuss it with athiestic friends. What’s that? You don’t HAVE any non-Christian friends in the first place? Well, then you’re really not doing any good (or bad) by not seeing the movie, for you’re not living IN the world as much as not living OF the world, and the line in which to righteously do both is, I admit, tough.
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