Good stories?
Around the age of 12 or 13, I was either checking out or returning some books from St. Ann's Library in Tottenham. A lady in the queue commented on the books – I seem to recall her saying that she was a teacher. As I think about, one of the books must have been either Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, or Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle – in any case the works of both authors were mentioned and those titles being my favourites I at least would have named them. She asked a few questions about what I liked about the books, and who I was/what I was doing in the UK - the answers to both questions had to do with me being a Christian. She seemed subtly dismissive of Tolkien and Lewis, and I remember her telling me I really must read a trilogy by Philip Pullman called His Dark Materials.
I had never heard the name “Philip Pullman” before, and was not aware of the trilogy, but I remember instinctively knowing there was something very wrong about this recommendation and the motives behind it. It was only much later that I realised why, upon examining Pullman’s body of work and authorial intent. I am now quite convinced the friendly teacher was pitting Pullman and his worldview against the Christian worldview of Tolkien and Lewis, pursuant of the same agenda Pullman has stated of his books: “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/02/19/the-last-word/4bad376f-4ab7-441c-9c50-afc7e63dd192/) and “My books are about killing God” (https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-shed-where-god-died-20031213-gdhz09.html)
Bad stories
In April 2010, Pullman published his most transparent assault on [his perceived version of] Christianity yet: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. I read it as soon as I could get my hands on a copy. I was certain I had written and posted a review of it somewhere, but scouring my Facebook, Twitter, and this blog has produced nothing. Perhaps I wrote it and never got around to publishing it, and it is long lost. I may have begun writing it, but self-doubt prevented me from finishing – is anyone really interested in reading an obscure north London Assistant Pastor’s thoughts on a book that most people seem to be ignoring, despite the media and advertising campaigns? In any case, it is gone if it was ever written. I shan’t bore you with the details here, but the gist is a reimagining of the gospel story which leaves us with no gospel at all. Mary is seduced and impregnated. She gives birth to twins: one she names “Jesus” and the other she names “Christ.” Perhaps you can see where this is going… The twin/lookalike trope is more than a little overdone in literature and film. If you would rather not read the book for yourself, you could do worse than reading both (that cannot be overstated) of these reviews from the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian, which are obviously far more positive than I would have been, but nonetheless insightful:
Salley Vickers, “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” by Philip Pullman: review
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7544727/The-Good-Man-Jesus-and-the-Scoundrel-Christ-by-Philip-Pullman-review.html
Rowan Williams (then Archbishop of Canterbury), “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” by Philip Pullman
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/03/good-jesus-christ-philip-pullman
Bottom line, Jesus is a free-spirit and Christ is his sickly and spoiled power-hungry evil twin. Jesus basically becomes an atheist in the Garden of Gethsemane, is crucified, and his resurrection is a fake stunt his evil twin Christ uses, playing the role of his resurrected brother, to launch the powerful institution he had always craved. It’s absolutely bonkers, and not anywhere near as wonderfully innovative as adulating critics would like to think. I saw it coming a mile away.
The book is part of a series retelling various myths – which is offensive enough, considering Christian beliefs about Scripture’s inspiration and transmission. But at least Pullman’s work is transparent in itself being a myth. What about when the inattentive masses get hold of something like this and begin thinking its absurd story might actually have some merit? A few weeks ago, a regular attendee at Grace Baptist Church texted me asking to meet at a local greasy spoon for a coffee. As we talked, she raised the possibility of a scenario that basically blended Pullman’s fiction with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, and thought it quite plausible because someone had made a YouTube video about it.
A better story
My interest in Pullman goes deeper than literary curiosity or pastoral concern. It is primarily prayerful. Some years ago, prior to April 2010 (thus my eagerness to read Pullman’s take on Jesus!), my father, Barry King, led the church to pray for prominent atheists. Each person at the prayer meeting received a sheet of paper with a name. A Wikipedia biography about that person was read for everyone to hear, and then when it came time to pray, we prayed specifically for the person we had been assigned. My assignment was Philip Pullman. We were encouraged to continue remembering our assigned person in prayer. I still remember to pray for Pullman, though nowhere near as devoutly as I should. Particularly I am praying that he will discover, as so many before him, an even better story. I cannot help but wonder if his constant exploration and critique of religion, spirituality, and Christianity is the flailing of a man against the same tides that surprised and drew in an atheist CS Lewis to faith in Christ as “a true myth” - https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/85-years-ago-today-j-r-r-tolkien-convinces-c-s-lewis-that-christ-is-the-true-myth/. Be that the case, or not, Pullman, his books, the various adaptations that they spawn, and the audiences that they reach should be engaged with confidence, compassion, and clarity. The story of Jesus Christ is worth it!
In looking for my misplaced review of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, I came across a sermon introduction from a message I preached in Summer 2010, beginning a series through Galatians. I quoted extensively from Pullman’s ponderings in this article for the Daily Telegraph - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7564066/What-Jesus-Christ-means-to-me.html:
And what of Jesus? I keep thinking of that man who, 2,000
years ago, was betrayed and flogged and put to death. And I imagine this: I
imagine a procession of ghostly visitors to Jerusalem in that week before
Passover – spirits from the future, ghosts of Pope and priest and prelate and
preacher, cardinals and archbishops and elders and patriarchs, in all the
panoply of their rank, the chasubles, the albs, the copes, the pectoral
crosses, the jewelled rings, the mitres, the tailored suits and the Cadillacs,
the gleaming teeth and the bouffant hair; and I imagine that each of these
ghosts has the power, should he wish to use it, to embrace Jesus, much as Judas
did, but for a different purpose: their kiss can transport him magically at
once to Alexandria, or Athens, or Baghdad, or Rome, and thus save his life.
And I imagine each of these ghosts looking at the man as he
goes about his angry work, denouncing the money-changers, debating with the
scribes and chief priests and lashing them with his wit and his scorn, and
getting closer every day to the betrayal and the death that each of the ghosts
has known about for so long.
And I imagine the ghosts whispering: ‘Without this death,
there would be no church’; ‘It was God’s will’; ‘He foretold it himself’; ‘I
can’t stand in the way’; ‘It’s a painful and sorrowful thing, no doubt, but
after all, three days later’; ‘How could we bear to undo all the good we’ve
done in his name?’
‘My grandeur! The magnificence of my cathedral! The splendour
of the music in my choir! It is my duty not to give those things up’; ‘He knows
better than I do what is good for us all’; ‘No church! The world without a
church would be a desolation!’; ‘Without this death, that little dying child I
spoke to in the hospital will have no solace’.
They look at the man, they see his rough hands and dirty fingernails,
they hear the rasp of his voice, they smell a sweet ointment mingled with the
sweat from his body, they see the snap and flash of his eyes as he scoffs at
the Pharisees; and any one of the ghosts could reach out and save him from the
death that’s two days, a day, a few hours away.
And for a thousand reasons, for the very best of reasons as
well as the worst, each of the ghosts holds back; and proudly or fastidiously,
humbly or uneasily, with diplomatic murmurs of regret or with passionate sorrow,
they drift back to their own time and the comforts and rituals of the church
they know, and abandon the man to his death.
That’s the question I’d put to every believing Christian: if
you could go back in time and save that man from crucifixion, knowing that that
would mean that there would be no church, would you or not?
After reading these ponderings from the author Pullman, I read Galatians 1:1-5 from the apostle Paul:
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through
Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the
brothers who are with me; To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to
deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and
Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
My sermon was entitled “The God-man Jesus and the Saviour Christ”. I am persuaded that it told a better story.
The moral of these memories is not “don’t talk to strangers” – that advice has never made much sense to me. Nor is it “don’t send your kids to the library alone”. Parental guidance is good, right, and necessary but parental paranoia is not, and does nothing to equip children with critical thinking skills, the twin disciplines of logic and rhetoric, and basic instinctive discernment. Nor am I advocating for organised library boycotts or book bannings and burnings or any of the other ineffective ways in which people have tried to paste over the cracks of our relentlessly secular society. Our solutions must be redemptive, not reactive. Jesus said his disciples should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but from my observation we don’t do particularly well at either. The atheist school teacher did not say to me, “You mean there are still people who actually read that Tolkien and Lewis garbage? And you can get it here, in this library?” Rather, she pointed me to what she considered to be a better story. How are we doing, pointing people to a better story, indeed the Best Story?
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