Can I Get An Amen?

From IMDB:

Movie Ordered To Axe Religious References

Hollywood studio New Line have banned proposed references to God and the church from new film His Dark Materials. Philip Pullman's screenplay portrays the church as an institution which is experimenting on its congregation in a effort to remove original sin. But the strong religious material terrified New Line bosses, and director Chris Weitz agrees changes were necessary for the scripts big screen incarnation. He says, "They have expressed worry about the possibility of perceived anti-religiosity. "All my best efforts will be directed towards keeping the film as liberating and iconoclastic an experience as I can. But there may be some modification of terms. "I have no desire to change the nature or intentions of the villains of the piece, but they may appear in more subtle guises."

Why would a studio make a movie based on these books if the studio was afraid of religion? Newsflash, New Line. The books are about religion. You take that out and there's no story. And that's a shame. Because so far -- I'm only half-way through the trilogy -- this is one of the best stories I've ever read.

Too bad New Line isn't doing the Chronicles of Narnia. I hear there's absolutely no references to God or the church in that. (ha) Or how about those Madeleine L'Engle books? No God propaganda in those either.

It's not like their target audience -- little kids -- will even get the religious undertones. They'll be so caught up rooting for Lyra and the armored bears, the subtext'll mean zilch.

Or maybe I'm just one of THOSE people. Maybe I'm saying these things to throw you off track. Maybe I eat kids. Especially unbaptized kids. Everybody knows they're the tastiest.

I'm just sayin'...