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Certainly anyone has a right to defend his beliefs, and that includes Christians who are the clear target of Pullman's trilogy. While "The Golden Compass" itself is not notably anti-Christian, it does serve as the introduction to the rest of the series, especially the last book which is flagrantly anti-Christian. "The Golden Compass" appears to be a baited hook, designed to lure readers into the rest of the trilogy in which Pullman presents his anti-religion views as fact.

That is not to support censorship, Pullman has a right to his opinions and to express them as he choses. Aand he is an excellent writer.) However he has no right to remain free from criticism. Christians should defend themselves. In fact anyone, Christian or not, interested in unvarnished truth has a right to critize this series for the distortions it presents.

Anyone who doubts Pullman's agenda or my claim that he distorts religion need only look at how he presents mainstream religion. His version is a caricature of medieval, inquisitional Catholocism, a church having near absolute power and using that power to suppress any dissent. The trilogy does not allow any version of Christianity beyond that. He ignores the fact that the inquisitional period started only after centuries of more benign Christianity, was never really effective in Northern Europe, and vanished long ago. By presenting the choice as only between that caricature and no religion, Pullman sets up a straw man which he then destroys. Those of us who regard inquisitional Christianity as apostate have a right to be offended by that caricature.

Further evidence of the anti-religious bias in this trilogy is the fact that the two heroes only really succeed after engaging in pre-marital sex. This is reminiscent of pagan/idolatry practices of sex as worship and a means of getting pagan gods to help with what the worshiper wants. Judeo-Christian morality is replaced with pagan practices.

Finally, the killing of God in the final volume is flagrantly anti-monotheistic. This is portrays God as a weak impostor, not as the omnipotent creator of the world. It would be difficult to imagine a more anti-Judeo-Christian picture.

I did enjoy this series. Originally I became interested because of its use of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. I wondered where that was leading (pretty much nowhere it turned out, that did not figure heavily in the later parts of the trilogy). However as the trilogy progress, it became obvious that it was a well-written anti-Christian scree.

Learn more about this author, Hal Lillywhite.
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