Media and even chain-letter email are cluttered with opinions about “The Golden Compass.” Some tell us to see it, many tell us not to. I guess that is normal for any movie but this one gets special attention because of its potential atheistic bent. For a while there it seemed like I was getting one message a day about this flick. I am a skeptic by nature, even if it is skepticism that I am being skeptical of. (If that is possible.) For some reason I have been bothered by all of this negative attention that TGC has been getting. Mainly, SO MANY people who have not read the book and obviously hadn’t seen the movie (since it wasn’t out yet) were telling me and the rest of the world how wrong it was. That kind of stuff drives me nuts. I mean, we have to listen to what other people tell us and take advice, but if you are going to get passionate about something, get educated on it first. Also, there are a myriad of anti-Christian/anti-religious things in our culture already. Why did this one get so much attention? The irony of the whole thing is that all this kicking and screaming has given the movie more publicity than it probably could have bought in the first place.

All that being said, I want to know what others think about seeing the movie. I read an article on MSNBC today where the author of the book answers some directed questions. I encourage you to check out his responses there. The short version is that he says he is not promoting atheism. Pullman said, “as for the atheism, it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I’m not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they’re kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression.” When asked specifically about the church represented in the work and how it is painted negatively, he equates it to something like the Taliban. He said his issue is with religious organizations gaining great political power and then using it “for bad.” Granted, “for bad” is a grey statement and we may all disagree on what is good or bad for the government to do.

So far, I do not see all the potential harm in this film that I have been warned about. As a family fantasy movie, it seems like it will be incredible. Children won’t pick up on or be looking for all of the “messages” that the rest of us think we see anyway. I do not see how it would do more harm than “Lord of the Rings” or “Narnia.” I think we just don’t get riled up at their fantastic content because we know the heart of those authors. I also recognize that after I see the movie I may have to take back what I said about it not being a big deal. Maybe it is a big deal and the author is playing it down. Know that at this point I am not promoting or protesting this movie. I am inquiring about it.

Have you seen it? Will you see it? What do you think about it if you have seen it?

-Travis

I just wanted to share another one of our videos. We are beginning a three week Christmas series this Sunday entitled “Be Still.” It is about, well, being still. You know, “Be still and know that I am God.” We saw a video at Drive Conference two years ago that made an impact on a lot of our staff and so we “adopted” their concept and made our own. The video was edited in After Effects and the graphics were created by my co-worker Chris in Photoshop.

The video will play following a prayer in the service. We will have all the lights out and wait about 8-10 seconds before we play it. That way there will be an awkward silence to get people’s attention and make the first word on the screen more noticeable. There is no audio on this video and there won’t be in the service either. If you get distracted, cut on iTunes and restart it. However, if you can’t make it through in silence, maybe you need to check on the podcasts of this series. HaHa.

Let me know what you think, and enjoy this special sneak preview if you are watching this before Sunday.

Travis

If you can’t get the video to play here, follow me over to YouTube.

Check this out over on drivl. I think I will skip phase 5 but I am between phase 4 and 6.

Here is the whole story.

Enjoy, Travis

I was reading through Gizmodo and came across this entry. Had to share it. If you don’t think its funny then you aren’t a geek. Deal with it.

Gizmodo Windows Error