toledoblade.com --

The Golden Compass is being advertised as "an exciting fantasy adventure" for children set in "a world where witches rule the northern skies, where ice bears are the bravest of warriors, and where every human is joined with an animal spirit who is as close to them as their own heart."

But the $180 million Hollywood movie, which opens Dec. 7, is also drawing criticism from religious groups that describe it as "militantly atheistic," "blasphemous," "heretical," and "diabolical."

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the American Family Association are among the groups calling for a boycott.

The controversy stems from His Dark Materials, the series of children's fantasy novels on which The Golden Compass is based. Written by 61-year-old British author Philip Pullman, the books in the trilogy have sold more than 14 million copies since debuting in 1995.

Mr. Pullman has described himself at various times as either an atheist or an agnostic, but in a recent interview with Donna Freitas for Beliefnet.com he called himself "a religious man" because he is "preoccupied by the questions religion is preoccupied with," including "Who created the universe?" "What are we here for?" and "What happens when we die?"

Mr. Pullman has made it clear that he is not happy with the way religious institutions have answered those questions.

He told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003, for example, that "my books are about killing God," and that he was amused that American Christians have been more critical of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books than His Dark Materials.

"I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything old Harry has said," Mr. Pullman said.

He has stated a number of times that he wrote His Dark Materials in part to counter the Christian themes and values woven into C.S. Lewis' literary children's classic, The Chronicles of Narnia. That series was the basis for the 2005 blockbuster film, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, grossing more than $740 million worldwide, and a sequel, Prince Caspian, due for release in May.

"Pullman's been pretty upfront that part of his intention is to write sort of the 'anti-Narnia' story," said Bruce Edwards, a Lewis scholar and professor of English at Bowling Green State University.

"I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with a deep and bitter passion," Mr. Pullman told one interviewer, according to Christian movie guide Plugged-in Online.

Lewis' epic begins with a young heroine named Lucy ducking inside a wardrobe that opens into the land of Narnia. In The Golden Compass, 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards in the film) hides inside a wardrobe, where she hears her uncle talking about Dust, a mysterious element that becomes a key component of the story.

Her uncle, Lord Asriel (played by Daniel Craig, who starred as James Bond in Casino Royale), is heading to the Arctic Circle to find this Dust, but the story's institutional villain, the Magisterium, desperately wants to prevent him from finding it.

Not coincidentally, the Roman Catholic Church's sacred teaching authority is called the Magisterium.

Lyra has been given the last existing "alethiometer," or Golden Compass, a truth-telling device that answers questions formed in the mind, and is befriended by Nicole Kidman's character, Marisa Coulter, a scientist, world traveler, and secretly an agent for the Magisterium.

All the humans in Mr. Pullman's story are accompanied by their own personal "daemons" that take the form of animals and represent the person's soul or conscience.

"My understanding is that in the first film, the anti-religious message would be very muted," said Mr. Edwards, who is familiar with Mr. Pullman's books but had not yet seen the film. "I think the filmmakers have tried to sanitize it to give it some broader appeal."

He said the action and adventure sequences in The Golden Compass book eventually give way to "increasingly dense, thematically thick" chapters that "fall into a lot of soliloquies and speeches."

"By the third written text, it's very explicit that God needs to be 'taken out,'" Mr. Edwards said.

Compared to Lewis' skill at telling stories with spiritual metaphors, Mr. Pullman packs in his atheistic message "like a sledgehammer," he said.

The Catholic League's president, Bill Donohue, is urging Christians not to see The Golden Compass or to buy the trilogy for their children, saying that Mr. Pullman's "twin goals are to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity - to kids."

Although New Line Cinema toned down the anti-religious elements of The Golden Compass, the first book in the series is already more restrained than the second installment, The Subtle Knife, which Mr. Donohue said is "more overt in its hatred of Christianity," and the third book, The Amber Spyglass.

Mr. Donohue is urging parents to read a booklet published by the Catholic League titled "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked," saying that its readers "will be armed with all the ammo they need to convince friends and family members that there is nothing innocent about Pullman's agenda."

Mr. Pullman, in his online interview with Ms. Freitas, said parents "should read the book and trust the book and trust your children. If you brought them up decent, open-minded, wise, and clear-sighted, you don't need to worry about them turning into little monsters or little atheists or anything."

Ms. Freitas' interview with The Golden Compass' author Philip Pullman was granted on behalf of her recent co-authored book, Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in 'His Dark Materials.'

Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.

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