We’ve all begun to read the articles in the newspapers and even more so on the internet. With the announcement from New Line that a movie is in the works, and with The Amber Spyglass winning Pullman the coveted Whitbread Prize (a prestigious British prize for literature that has never before gone to a children’s book), His Dark Materials has begun to emerge from beneath the umbrella of Harry Potter. And they’re taking notice.

The same, good ‘old it’s-for-your-own-good Christian book burners who demanded that Harry Potter be taken out of schools and libraries will soon be (and have already begun) calling for blood once again. Their target this time: His Dark Materials. Why? It dares to challenge their beliefs, it dares to say something different, it dares to portray the Church and God in a different light, and it generally goes against everything these people believe.

Harry Potter did not fall to them, due to the simply massive fan base of those books. But does His Dark Materials have that voice defending it? Take for instance, the case of this site, Bridge Through The Aurora. When it started, I was 14 years old, had a very little clue about web design, and didn’t have much content. Despite this fact, within two or three months I was within the top ten results on the Google search engine for the query “His Dark Materials”. If HDM had the fan base of Harry Potter, this site would still not have reached the third page of results, let alone its current sixth place on the first page. If the book burners march into the library of a small town where only two or three families have read the His Dark Materials books, they won’t be met by picket lines of protestors.

And they’ll do that- don’t think they won’t. They’ll have an easier time trying to get His Dark Materials out of the hands of other people’s children than they did with Harry Potter. They’ll quote Mary Malone “The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.” (-TAS, p. 441), and they’ll read out loud the scene where Lyra and Will encounter the babbling, senile, ancient of days. Where they had to make up a bunch of junk about Harry Potter clearly preaching witchcraft, Pullman has already given them enough atheism to go on for months. They’ll demand to school boards, “Look at these books! Read them, and you’ll see they’re blatant propaganda for atheism.”

That’s what they’ll do… but what will we do? Much wider spread than the fans of Harry Potter, we’ll have to utilize the might and power of e-mail to get our message across. But what message will that be? Easy as it may be, the argument “Haven’t you ever read a work of FICTION before? You take things so seriously” isn’t going to be enough to change opinions. While there’s nothing particularly wrong with this response to the book-burners, it simply isn’t enough. We need to come to a consensus on an argument that is strong enough to keep our beloved books in the libraries and schools... and just as importantly, we need to present our views in an educated, respectful, and polite manner. Sending long e-mails of threats and swear words will only be quoted and shown to the public: “See what these books make people say.”, the book burners will wave in front of the faces of those who have not read these wonderful books.

Our message will have to turn the book-burner’s views against them. His Dark Materials makes its argument NOT against God, but against the use of God as a tool by a corrupt church to get what it wants. Of course this is not always the case- the church has done many good things, and no doubt Pullman has no objection to them. What he does object to is the legacy of the inquisition, most present in these modern days in the form of our dear and beloved it’s-for-your-own-good book burners. Those who must have their views impressed on others, while quite firmly removing anyone and anything who dares to protest their actions from the public’s reach. Pullman’s stance on religion is that of a hatred of how humanity has corrupted the true meanings of God. We must clearly argue to the book-burners that the “Authority” of His Dark Materials is the human, misrepresentation of God, which has been used to justify all kinds of cruelty between human beings. Dust, on the other hand, is the presence of the true God, who exists at the core of Christianity, and indeed every other religion when all the frivolous bits we have tacked on are stripped away. Dust is Love, hope, life lived to its fullest, conscious thought. It is everything that every religious leader has ever taught their followers to embrace, and to practice. Dust is everywhere, part of everything. We cannot exist without it. It is a presence that cannot be comprehended by any being, because it is beyond any of us to do so. Dust is God, God is Dust.

We must argue to the book-burners that we seek to try to understand our religions by digging past the surface and seeing beyond the human corruption. Is there something wrong with seeking the Truth? Living under the mindset that “our religion is the only true religion” is a bunch of nonsense. What Christianity, and every other religion knows about God is merely a single grain of sand in the desert, a drop of water in the ocean, a blade of grass on the plain. In all of us there is a little bit of truth about God, and certainly there is some lies as well. His Dark Materials presents to us the chance of throwing off what humanity has imposed upon us, and allow ourselves to try to understand just a little bit more of the infinite knowledge, love, power, and existence that we have named “God”. His Dark Materials embraces free thought, and the ability to do so without fear of persecution. Tell us, book burners, what is wrong with that? You speak of God, yet so do we. You think you know enough, we admit the truth that none of us do, and we seek to know more. What, we shall ask, is wrong with that?

Return Home