Heresy

Pullman's shadowy stranger who is often at Christ's side guiding him, having at heart the interests of the church to be, begs from the reader some big questions. Taking, for example, Alister McGrath's masterly book, Heresy, we can see the process by which, in the days of the early Church, doctrine was formulated and negotiated. It was a matter of preserving the unity and strength of the community. Ideas coming from within the community, which might weaken it, were singled out as heretical. It was perhaps not so much a striving for truth as something more pragmatic.