When Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (book one of the His Dark Materials trilogy) hits the big screen on December 7, I will be interested to see if Hollywood neuters the book’s heretical elements for the sake of broadening the film’s audience and avoiding an all out war with the Vatican.

I’m guessing they will. Hollywood loves money more than it hates organized religion, and Pullman’s engrossing fantasy shares the basic formula of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, another subversive book-turned-movie that ended up extolling the virtue of personal faith–albeit only after demeaning it for two hours.

Like Da Vinci, Compass is a quick read, a well-oiled narrative with engaging characters and unexpected plot twists in a vivid landscape populated by armored bears and gypsies. Pullman doesn’t “waste” pages on dwarf songs or recipes for wild rabbit stew (a la Tolkien). You won’t find him delving into messianic allegory or extended expositions on “deep magic” (a la Lewis). The self-described atheist doesn’t open a can of heterodoxy until around page 270 (of 299). But when he does, he opens it wide, rewriting the Adam and Eve narrative, sanctifying original sin and casting the church as a virulent and dehumanizing force in the world. And, from what I’ve read in summaries of the next two books in the trilogy, this just the beginning.

Even if these elements are transferred to the movie (and I predict they won’t be), I don’t see the The Golden Compass emptying churches or creating a generation of skeptics and God haters. I said it about Da Vinci, and the same applies to The Golden Compass. “Movies like this can only gain traction in a nation where careful explorations of challenging concepts like the virgin birth and deity of Christ [or Adam and Eve and original sin] have been exchanged for motivational speeches [or books about "becoming a better you"].”

The War on Terror is clearly a very selective war only against certain types of terror in certain places at certain times against certain people.

A 19-year-old woman is gang raped by six men and then sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape.” When the woman’s attorney attempted to appeal the case, he was banned from handling the case, his license to practice law revoked because he challenged the verdict and summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee.

What kind of twisted, warped “society” allows this perversion of justice? Al Qaeda in Iraq? The Taliban of Afghanistan?

I’m sure they do, but not in this instance. Instead, this incident is business as usual in Saudi Arabia, an “ally” in the war on terror and a supposedly moderating influence in the Middle East. I don’t expect to hear reproachful words from any official representative of the Western nations who remain inebriated with the oil provided by this regime.

This incident, among others, reveals the utter failure of human governments to deal with the wickedness at the root of such institutional injustice. The problem in Saudi Arabia is a spiritual problem: national adherence to a false religion and the judicial enforcement of that religion’s values through Sharia law—a marriage made in hell.

It should make anyone long for this day:

I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen,white and clean, were following Him on white horses.From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. – Revelation 19:11-15

That’s the tagline to Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me! fame)’s new documentary What Would Jesus Buy?, which …

… follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

The idea of a flamboyant televangelist (who, if it’s possible, is even faker than the ones on TBN) warning his audience of the dangers of consumerism is ironic to the core. Why does it take a secular documentary film maker to point out the folly of storing up treasures “where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal”?

Spurlock’s not the only one questioning American consumerism these days. Marketplace, a business news show I listen to on NPR, is exploring the consequences of what they call the “disease of greed” in a series titled “Consumed.”

Of course, the reasons Christians should consider the benefits of living a sustainable lifestyle are usually different from those of an unbeliever. As a steward of Creation, I want to conserve the natural resources God has entrusted to me. As a steward of God’s money, I want to leverage the financial resources God has entrusted to me for Kingdom activity. This is a particularly weighty responsibility as I (and most likely you) am a member of the top 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the world.