The Shepherd, July 2006
Philip Pullman
and “His Dark Materials” Series, 2
Now is Pullman just attacking C. S. Lewis or does he further attack Christianity in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy? Peter Hitchens in “The Mail on Sunday” (27th January 2002), in an article entitled, “This is the most dangerous author in Britain,” states: “…If you are wondering why the children’s author Philip Pullman has collected a major prize and why such a huge fuss is being made of him, now you know. He is the anti-Lewis, the one the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed…. … For Pullman has said: ‘I hate the Narnia books, and I hate them with deep and bitter passion, with their view of childhood as a golden age from which sexuality and adulthood are a falling-away.’…
…He knows perfectly well what he is doing. He openly and rightly believes storytelling can be a form of moral propaganda: ‘All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions... We don’t need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do’s and don’ts: we need books, time and silence. “Thou shalt not” is soon forgotten.’ Pullman has said many times that he thinks God is dead…
…He told an Oxford literary conference in August 2000: ‘We’re used to the Kingdom of Heaven; but you can tell from the general thrust of the book that I’m of the devil’s party, like Milton. And I think it’s time we thought about a republic of Heaven instead of the Kingdom of Heaven. The King is dead. That’s to say I believe the King is dead. I’m an atheist’…
…If there is no God, then who makes the rules of the supernatural world which Pullman creates, in which people have visible souls called daemons; magic knives cut holes between the worlds and spectres devour life? How is it that the dead live on in a ghastly underworld of unending misery and torment, yet there is no Heaven? In his worlds, the Church is wicked, cruel and child-hating; priests are sinister, murderous or drunk. Political correctness creeps in leadenly. There is a brave African king and a pair of apparently homosexual angels. The one religious character who turns out to be benevolent is that liberal favourite, an ex-nun who has renounced her vows and lost her faith. Even so, she sets out on a perilous journey when ordered to do so by angels, who speak to her through a computer.”
From a review by Greg Krehbiel on www.crowhill.net/journeyman : “…Mid-way through ‘The Amber Spyglass’ Mr. Pullman shows his true colours. He doesn’t only hate the church. He hates God - or ‘The Authority’ as he prefers to call him.”
In Pullman's universe, matter decided to become self-aware about 30,000 years ago (we’re never told how such silliness could happen), and “The Authority” was merely the first conscious being. He then decided to try to deceive all the other creatures into believing that he was the creator and force them to do his bidding. (Satan and his lot are cast as freedom- loving rebels...)
…The heroes of the story are those who decide to cast off “The Authority’s” yoke and make war upon him, finally ridding the universe - that is, all the multiple worlds of the series - of this heavenly tyrant. The “good guys” are nuns who broke their vows, little girls who lie incessantly and fallen angels…
… Mr. Pullman portrays all of this as very healthy and reasonable because “The Authority” is a dreadful fellow. It goes without saying that his church makes life miserable for everyone, but even his promises of pie in the sky are hollow. The dead, both the just and the unjust, are doomed to a miserable half existence, bereft of hope, tormented by harpies - who were put there by “The Authority” for precisely that purpose. (Those familiar with early Christian heresies might recall the Gnostics and their Demiurge - the evil, spiteful pretender to the divine throne.)
 . Pullman's “Authority,” which he links to the God of Christianity, is a demented, vindictive, angelic being that the universe is certainly better without. But such calumny isn’t good enough for Pullman. In the end he portrays God as a decrepit, doddering, senile old Bubble Boy who has to be carted around in a crystal cage and protected from the slightest puff of breeze.
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