Freitas, Pullman and traditional Christianity

I have no dog in this fight. I’m not Catholic, I have no young children to protect from dangerous books on the library shelves and my chances of seeing the movie The Golden Compass or reading Dan Pullman’s anti-Christian trilogy are slim to none. But I thought Donna Freitas’ review of the children’s books by the professed atheist as “theistic” and about the true God (a feminist-God rooted in the Old Testament), intriguing. She writes for Belief Net (quasi-spiritual web site), and a few days ago had a book review in the WSJ.

But then this view by Carl Olson made much more sense to me because Freitas‘ feminist brand of Christianity is certainly a type well known in the Protestant traditions (I’ve stopped attending certain “Christian” churches and worship services because of it). Luther, Wesley, Calvin, etc. were all wrong, or misguided, but truth can be found in various new-agey, pantheistic writings of obscure women, and we traditional Christians are just “knuckle-dragging, right-wing, hate-mongering, lite-beer swilling fundamentalists bent on the oppression of all that is open minded, free thinking, and otherwise delightfully dangerous.”

The problem, of course, is that the form of Catholicism touted by [Donna] Freitas is not the Catholicism rooted in Scripture and Tradition, articulated by the Councils, defended by the Magisterium, expressed in the Catechism, and taught by the popes—that is, authentic, historical, real Catholicism. But, again, Freitas believes that the councils, the Magisterium, the Catechism, and the popes are bad, rotten, oppressive, etc., etc. Like many of Dan Brown's [DaVinci Code] "Catholic" fans, she asserts that her brand of Catholicism is the real sort because it is opposed to the life-killing strictures of institution, authority, and doctrine, and open to the supposedly life-giving streams of pantheism, neo-paganism, and neo-Marxism. Insight Scoop

Also, I try to give people, even those I don’t like, even wildly successful, misguided authors, the benefit of the doubt. Pullman says he’s an atheist, that God is not only dead but never existed. Shouldn’t he know what he believes?