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Christmas without the boycotts wouldn't be Christmas

Posted December 19, 2007

Another Christmas season. Another boycott. Christians sure know how to make the most of their best PR opportunity of the year don't they?

By now everyone's aware of the controversy over the anti-religious message behind the book trilogy of British author Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and how that was softened (for good or ill depending on how paranoid you are) for translation to the big screen.

Although I'm not surprised, I'm wondering why Christian pastors seem to fall into the traps set for them by secular journalists looking for this chestnut to roast by the fire every December?

It would be easy to criticize people for commenting without reading the book or seeing the movie, but it wouldn't have prevented the story when there's always going to be a loudmouth rent-a-quote from the Christian fringes more than willing to play the outrage game.

No, I think I'm just disappointed that the question of how Christian's consume secular culture always gets boiled down to "boycott or not?" In fact, I'd love to set up a joke Web site to that effect, perhaps asking the public to weigh in on the big theological threats of our time, such as ankle socks and cardigans.

Why don't pastors simply discuss the complexity of the Christian's daily "living sacrifice" to choose to dedicate oneself only to "what is true and pleasing and good?" The Bible tells us that the "god of this age" is secularism in general, and children are no less exposed to it via commercials on TV than they are in watching a fantasy movie.

As with most publicity stunts, getting exercised about a movie serves as a distraction of the general failure of the church to offer a Biblically relevant critique of popular culture in general.



I applaud blogger Jake Young's gloss in the article that Christians need to use The Golden Compass and other challenges to their faith as a way to build spiritual strength.

But I'd prefer a more practical approach: Why don't pastors simply suggest that parents use the movie and its associated debate to arm their children with wisdom and knowledge about their faith so as to defend them against playground ridicule or questions?

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