Is 'The Golden Compass' really anti-Christian?

What these topics and messages don't do is spark the kind of rigorous, open-minded questioning that defines truly mature thought. They're group-think in disguise. That is to say, they're still what adults – those arbiters of publishing for children – have, collectively, deemed "appropriate." And sadly, what's "appropriate" often sidesteps that which can't just be conveyed as information – the deep intellectual, ethical, and spiritual issues that require children to be thoughtful participants in a dialogue, not just empty vessels waiting to be filled.

Meanwhile, Pullman compels his young readers to do the edgiest thing of all, which is to think for themselves. It's not that he rejects adulthood. Instead, he recasts his best adult characters as interlocutors. And in his wonderful concept of Dust, Pullman gives the players in his trilogy a whole universe of stories and ideas to explore and to try on and, eventually, to settle into.

What we're really dealing with, then, in the Pullman debate is an orthodoxy of thought that's as stifling in its own way as what Galileo – and countless others – have faced throughout history. It's just more insidious today because it exists under the guise of enlightenment.

Pullman himself resists this orthodoxy by speaking through metaphor, thus allowing his readers to make meaning on their own terms. And what better metaphor for set-in-stone, preapproved ways of thinking than organized religion itself?

Indeed, Pullman's God is not the God of religion, but the didactic, authoritarian voice of adulthood. It's the Authority that pays lip-service to free thought, but then limits free thought within the narrowly defined parameters of what it judges comfortable and acceptable. It is this Authority – and not the God of the Bible – that Pullman silences.

What Pullman encourages is unmediated, critical thinking – the only antidote to the mental stupor that today's culture cultivates in young people. And Pullman does so in multiple ways. For example, by turning the familiar story lines of Genesis, Narnia, and the like, on their heads – thereby prompting the reader to reimagine those stories for him- or herself.

In short, Pullman doesn't tell his readers what to think, but how to think. And to think, period. This, I suspect, is what Pullman's critics really find unnerving.

It's hard to imagine that the big-screen adaptation of "The Golden Compass" will do justice to the nuances and intricacies that make the novel so remarkable. What's not hard to imagine, however, is one contingent's reaction to it: That it's not safe for children and should be boycotted.

And to that I say, go ahead and boycott. Just don't pretend it's in the name of religion.

• Jenny Sawyer is a freelance writer and children's literature critic.

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