Yesterday’s (30 December) TODAY published the comments made by one Philip Pullman, author and avowed atheist, who criticised the Chronicles of Narnia as relying too much on "martial combat".  Pullman said that

The highest virtue we have, on the authority of the New Testament itself, is love and yet you find not a trace of that in the books.

So now we have, on the one hand, critics like Vinita Ramani who slam Narnia for spoiling the fun of fantasy by being too "Christian".  And on the other hand, you have critics like Pullman who slam Narnia for not being "Christian" enough.  (Honestly I don’t see how Narnia would have been more appealing if written more like a "loving" My Little Pony or Carebear & Friends-type fable, if that’s why Pullman wants).

You just can’t please everyone, can you ?

Well, actually I think that’s not all there is to it.  To me the above also shows that once a person is biased against something, he will find an excuse - any excuse - to dislike it.  Objectivity is thrown out of the window.  In this connection, I think it will do all critics (including myself) well to be more circumspect, to be more aware of our personal biases when commenting on an issue.

The above also brings to mind 2 Timothy 4 : 3 - 4, where the Apostle Paul wrote that more and more people will ignore objectivity and truth, and will instead listen to and approve of whatever they want to hear to suit their personal biases.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.