Phillip Pullman update

So author Phillip Pullman (of The Golden Compass fame) has a new novel out.  Pullman, an avowed atheist, wrote The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ right in the middle of the controversy over the movie version of The Golden Compass, and whether it would turn our children into little avowed atheists–which it wouldn’t, as I wrote about in 2008 here. Judging by the title alone, which I know one shouldn’t do, it sounds like Pullman’ has made this book much more obviously polemical, even literal, than were the Compass series.  Which would be unfortunate.  His previous books have their own imaginative theology, which, while they contain veiled references to an authoritative, some say Catholic church, do not explicitly set out to “counter” a religious narrative. That’s what makes them so good.