"Stop this game," he shouted, "Joe is cheating!"
"How do you know?"
"He's not playing the hand I dealt him."
NOTE: Names for this humor selected at random
and have nothing to do with anyone currently
living or dead. Besides this joke took place back
in the Old West before anyone now living was born!
We're 'T&H':
EXPLORE!!!
Doing the Devil's Work:
ReplyDeleteSpinning Yarns that Deceive
The Harry Potter phenomenon is the biggest thing to
happen to children's literature in decades. And
plenty of ink has been spilled arguing about the
underlying worldview of these books.
But right behind Harry Potter on the bestseller
lists are the books of another author whose worldview
is perfectly clear -- and that's the problem. Philip
Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy illustrates that
stories may be used for ill as well as good, and
reminds us of the importance of having a well-
developed worldview critique.
Philip Pullman is a teacher and a storyteller who
delights in capturing kids' imaginations -- and he's
very good at it. His fantasy series, the "Dark
Materials" trilogy, has been translated into 21
languages and has sold more than a million copies.
Some have compared this English author to J.R.R.
Tolkien and C.S. Lewis -- and there are parallels.
Not only are his stories immensely popular, he lives
and writes in Oxford. What's more, he's very
conscious of the relationship between literature and
worldview. For him, children's stories are about
questions like: "Where did we come from?" and "Where do we go?"
By all accounts, Pullman's trilogy is quite
sophisticated: Even adults are attracted to the way
he weaves together elements from Star Wars, quantum
mechanics, John Milton, William Blake, and other
literary sources.
But that's where the similarities end. As Pullman
himself puts it, Tolkien would have "deplored" his
writing and "Lewis would think [he] was doing the
Devil's work." Why? Well, by his own admission
Pullman is writing stories to "undermine the basis of
Christian belief."
In a perverse twist on Milton's Paradise Lost,
Pullman creates a fantasy universe in which God is
weak and deceitful, and the biblical Fall is the
origin of human liberation. What's more, Pullman's
version of the war in heaven ends with God's defeat and death.
Are these stories a challenge to the Christian faith?
Yes, they're a direct assault. But they are also
utterly transparent.
Think about it. Pullman claims he's trying to
undermine Christianity. But the Christian faith
doesn't appear in his novels. The god he depicts is
feeble, not omnipotent. The religion he describes is
petty and malicious, not the faith that inspired
almost every significant humane and charitable
endeavor in Western culture.
Pullman is using Christianity as a straw man to make
his case. But no matter how flawed and incoherent
these books may be, they are still dangerous. Just as
writers like C.S. Lewis used stories to "smuggle"
Christian theology into readers' minds, secularists
like Pullman slip misinformed prejudices into the
minds of unsuspecting -- and uncritical -- readers.
Obviously I don't recommend that your kids read these
books. But their growing popularity makes it likely
they'll run into them. So you need to take the
occasion of these books' popularity to sit down and
explain these issues to your kids. Preparing
ourselves and our kids to respond to books like these
forces us to hone our own worldview.
What's more, Pullman's books will likely be on the
same shelves with tales of Narnia and Middle Earth.
You've got to be sure that your kids and grandkids
can distinguish the counterfeit from the real thing.
For further reference:
"Pullman's Potent Pen Has Power." Southland Times,
27 January 2001.
Wartofsky, Alona. "The Last Word; Philip Pullman's
Trilogy for Young Adults Ends with God's Death, and
Remarkably Few Critics." Washington Post, 19 February, 2001.
Quills & Poison Pens:
The Rehabilitation of
a Scoundrel
Since its opening a few weeks ago, the film Quills
has enjoyed both good reviews and better-than-
expected commercial success. I say "better-than-
expected" because of its subject: the Marquis de Sade.
The star, Geoffrey Rush, has been nominated for a
"best actor" Oscar. He may honestly deserve the
award. But that would be just about the only honest
thing about this movie.
Moviegoers whose knowledge of the Marquis is limited
to what they see in Quills would have little idea of
why his name is synonymous with cruelty -- the source
of the word "sadism."
Most of the movie is set in an asylum where the
sixty-nine-year-old de Sade is imprisoned, presumably
because of his writing. The clear intent is to
portray the Marquis as a martyr in the cause of free
speech -- oppressed by both the Church and secular authority.
The problem is that the real Marquis de Sade was
never imprisoned for anything he wrote. He was in the
asylum because his mother-in-law, tired of his
mistreatment of her daughter, arranged to have him
confined at her expense.
This misrepresentation sets the tone for how the film
treats its subject. Nearly every significant detail
of the story either distorts the historical record or
is a fabrication intended to endear de Sade to moviegoers.
The most notable example is the film's depiction of
the Marquis himself. The de Sade of Quills is an Age-
of-Reason Larry Flynt. He is a pornographer whose
work is too sexually explicit for his sexually-
repressed contemporaries -- especially the authorities.
There's no exploration of the sexual violence that is
central to the Marquis' work. Viewers aren't told
that, in De Sade's work, the link between sex and
cruelty is unbreakable, or that qualms about hurting,
and even killing, another person must not stand in
the way of sensual pleasures. Or that, as de Sade put
it, "guilt is an illusion."
Nor are viewers told that de Sade's commitment to
these ideals transcended literature: The hero and
"martyr" of this film tortured and poisoned real-life women.
The question is: Why the whitewash? Why go to all
this trouble to rehabilitate one of the most
notorious men in Western history? The answer, as is
often the case, has more to with our time than with de Sade's.
And this time no inference is necessary. Director
Phillip Kaufman told Sight and Sound magazine that a
large part of the inspiration for the film came from
following the Clinton impeachment scandal. He said
that he saw a parallel between de Sade's principal
tormentor in the film and independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
In the worldview represented by the film, sexual
repression is, if not the greatest evil, one of the
greatest. Those who stand for sexual expression and
license are the good guys, and those who oppose it
are the bad guys. Adherents to this worldview are so
committed to it that they are even willing to embrace
a fiend like de Sade.
Well, regardless of what happens at the Oscars,
there's one award I'm ready to bestow on Quills: best
example of why history is best learned from a book,
not from a Hollywood movie.
For further reference:
Last, Jonathan. "Cheap Quills: The Marquis de Sade
Does Hollywood." Weekly Standard, 29 January 2001.
As you read the Scriptures with your family, I hope
you'll have a new appreciation for who the "Word made
flesh" really is: He's the Creator who existed before time.
He's the Logos who made heaven and earth, and who
steers the stars in their courses. He is the Truth that is
ultimate reality. He is the 'Babe of Bethleham & the
'Word' of John 1. If you know of others who would
enjoy receiving BreakPoint in their E-mail box each
day, tell them they can sign up on the Web site at
www.breakpoint.org. If they do not have access to
the World Wide Web, please call 1-800-457-6125.
This is the listing of David's top men. Josheb. He was chief of the Three. He once put his spear to work against eight hundred - killed them all in a day. Eleazar was the next of the elite Three. He was with David when the Philistines drew up for battle, Israel retreated. But Eleazar stood his ground and killed Philistines right and left until he was exhausted - but he never let go of his sword! A big win for God that day. Shammah was the third of the Three. The Philistines had mustered for battle but Israel fled. He took his stand at the center of the field, successfully defended it, and routed the Philistines. Another great victory for God!
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