Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Thanks so much for clarifying about the books vs. what's on the movie screen (not having read the books yet is a real handicap, I'm coming to realize)!

I find it fascinating that Pullman was in some sense reacting against Lewis' fantasy novels. I have to say that I am in complete sympathy with the idea that the essence of childhood is growing up. It's the constant changing, learning, and growing that makes it so full of wonder, rather than anything static or frozen in ignorance.

I'm reminded of a line from Dorothy L. Sayers (I think it was), arguing that when the Christian scriptures report Jesus saying that you have to enter the Kingdom like a little child, he didn't mean that Christian believers needed to be unquestioning, passive, ignorant, or infantilized. Rather, what is most characteristic about childhood is that eagerness to move forward, to grow up, and to ask as many questions and investigate as much as you possibly can towards that end. Rather than returning to the peace of the womb, the goal is to awaken on your fiftieth birthday with the same eagerness to learn and explore and see what the future holds as you did on your fifth birthday.