Reading what our children are given to read

I have spent the last year or two undertaking to read some of the books that our young people are given to read in schools to see what was being recommended and influencing the minds of teenagers in schools. It has been interesting.

There are great books like the Alex Ryder series, of which Stormbreaker, was made into a film last year. In it Alex plays a young spy recruited by MI5, these are just good fun books. Another series I've enjoyed are the Eragon books, of which a third is out later this year - again good stories about dragons and elves, good versus evil. There are of course the Harry Potter books, which have provoked a lot of debate but which again are about good verses evil and contain many potential discussion points about Jesus and God.

But then there are books which are altogether more worrying. Not least among them is Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy which will soon be coming to the big screen. I didn't really enjoy the books, but they twist reality so that the church is an evil agent of a perverse God who wants to keep mankind trapped. Christianity is viewed as an expensive mistake which wastes the lives of its victims. The Third book in particular attacks the church and God, as Lyra the heroine takes on the role of the second Eve destined to free man from God's clutches. In The Times (18 Oct 2000), Sarah Johnson described His Dark Materials as ‘the most savage attack on organised religion I have ever seen.’ And therein lies its danger it is written as a novel for children and teenagers espousing aggressive atheism.

It is a challenge for us to engage with such books, maybe even to read them ourselves and be equipped to discuss what they say and why they say it. Are our own children reading them? Or those in our church or youth group? How can we help them to examine the ideas behind the story?

In contrast to what Pullman maintains the evil in the world around us is not the result of God but of our rejection of him, the answer is not to overthrow him, down that road lie the further consequences of Romans 1:18-32. In fact it is telling that in the century when society did leave God's laws and standards we have definitely not bettered ourselves.