Th Next Great Media Crusade.

The email forwards are making the rounds. Soon a new movie, The Golden Compass, will be hitting theaters. It's based on a trilogy of books by Phillip Pullman called 'His Dark Materials'. Pullman, according to the forwards is a vowed atheist.

Like the Harry Potter freak-out of yesteryear, forwards are warning parent's not to let their children see the film. The reason is quite an alarming one; The movie has been dumbed down in hopes of fooling parents and children into reading the books - you know, the ones that will turn them into card carrying hedonists. In fact it is said when a young innocent Christian girl finishes the last word of the trilogy, she becomes impregnated.

I've never understood these crusades against reading materials. Do we believe that the truth that we hold so dear will not rise to the top? Are we pissed because people are better at telling their stories than we are at ours? We can't captivate our own children's minds?

I have a 1 and half year old son. I desperately want him to grow up to be a man of God. But there's a hiccup. I want HIM to grow up to be a man of God. I want HIM to choose. There are two kinds of faith. Wether one is better than the other, I'm not sure yet.

The first type, is picked up at birth. Born into a Christian family, raised in Christian schools, friends from youth group. For the most part (aside from the schools bit) This was how I came to know Christ. The simple fact is, if I had been born in Saudi Arabia, I would be Muslim. Now at some point, I had to 'accept' it all apparently. It's that last finishing nail Christian parents point to as the validity of their child's faith. But is it true? Could it have been inevitable? Like a children raised in homes that value sports, generally play sports?

It's a house of cards. And I think the fact that parent's sound the alarm bells so quickly and vehemently over 'anti-Christian' literature and movies, might prove it. If you're afraid reading Harry Potter, or Watching the Golden Compass, will bring your children's faith crashing down on their heads, then you have much bigger problems - a faith that's not their own.

The second type, to me, is more appealing. This faith has been tested, wrestled, disregarded at times. This faith has been through the grinder, spat on, brushed off and still holds up. This faith has been juxtaposed against everything the world has to offer, including the Golden Compass, and still comes out ahead. This faith has been worked over and over to the point that it finally metastasized.

It's not enough for me for my son to simply be a "Christian". What's more is for him to bludgeon his faith, leaving no corner unexplored, and no easy answer ignored, to finally produce a faith that will last a lifetime.

They say 80% of 'Christian' students never return to church after high school. Maybe they should have watched the Golden Compass.