Let’s hope the unhinged religious fanatics targeting Philip Pullman manage to propel him to even greater heights of fame and sales success. From the Times:
The novelist Philip Pullman has been threatened by religious zealots over his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.
He has received scores of letters condemning him to “eternal hell” or “damnation by fire” and accusing him of blasphemy.
“Many refer to the title itself, for which there is clearly a passionate objection from some out there,” said Pullman.
Published next week, the book is written in the form of a gospel. It says that a man called Jesus lived 2,000 years ago but that Christ, as the son of God, was the invention of the disciple Paul.
“The letter writers essentially say that I am a wicked man, who deserves to be punished in hell,” said Pullman. “Luckily it’s not in their power to do anything like sending me there.”
Pullman is expected to have special security when he appears next Sunday at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.
Pullman, famous for the trilogy His Dark Materials, was partly inspired to write the book by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. “I was at a debate with him at the National theatre, and he asked why I had not put Jesus in His Dark Materials. So I told him that I would in my next book. And that’s what I have now done.”…
