Our views can make the world seem darker

I spoke recently with a businessman of my acquaintance, a man who is smart, rich, and a bit arrogant. He made his money by always being aware of the angles, by knowing who had their fingers in what pies, and by moving strategically. Because he is very clever, he moved well and succeeded where others have failed.

As often happens when I speak to this man, I found myself a bit saddened by our conversation.

He lives in a world that’s not the same as mine, a difference that has nothing to do with his wealth. His world is a bit darker, a bit less trustworthy. Motives need to be examined carefully, people are always suspect. After my conversation with him, I found myself thinking of Philip Pullman.

Pullman is a remarkably talented writer who has been in the news a lot lately because one of his children’s novels, The Golden Compass, has been made into a movie. Pullman is an avowed atheist, who has said his books are about the death of God, a view which has prompted several Christian organizations — including a few Catholic school boards — to question whether the books are suitable material for their children.

Pullman intensely dislikes the fiction of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, two authors whose books (the Narnia series and The Lord of The Rings) are rife with Christian allegory. Narnia and Lord of the Rings, he has said, are infantile, in that they celebrate childish innocence as an ideal state and lament the transition to adulthood.

So, in the true spirit of irony, The Golden Compass is being released as a feel-good movie for the family to go see at Christmas.

Christmas is a time for children, and not just because children enjoy getting presents and looking for Santa Claus. At Christmas we celebrate something that defies the rules of the world as we adults have come to know them. The miraculous birth of a child, visitations by angels, the foretelling of a death that would bridge the gulf between God and us: these are things that lie outside our adult world of contracts and deadlines, car payments and lunch meetings. At Christmas we are all invited to wonder and marvel like children, and to rejoice in the assurance that everything will work out in the end.

Atheists say that’s infantile, that we are denying our rational, adult thoughts by holding on to such a hope. There is no God, they say, only dim memories of a time in our childhood when our parents held us close and assured us that everything would be all right, coupled with a longing for those childhood days to return. They’re half right: we do long for that assurance. But they’re wrong to say we long for it mistakenly.

There are logical, rational — adult, if you will — arguments that support faith. But those rational arguments aren’t the same as faith, and they aren’t the reason so many of us celebrate Christmas with such fervour. We celebrate Christmas and hang on to faith — no matter how shredded and battered it becomes — because we recognize that a world without those things is incomplete.

Christmas is a promise that everything will indeed be all right in the end, a reassurance that there is someone out there who cares for us, and a reminder that we still need to care for each other. Without that promise, the world looks too much like the world of my businessman friend: dark, cold, hostile, and lonely.

Have a wonderful Christmas. Be good to each other. And let’s keep in touch in the New Year.