Then Canongate invited Pullman to contribute this volume to their Myths series. Pullman promised him that he would make this the subject of his next book. So, as Rowan Williams pointed out in an event at the National Theatre, Pullman was surprisingly quiet about Jesus in His Dark Materials. I can’t escape these influences on my background, and I would not wish to’. And very specifically, a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist. It would undermine what Pullman is in the sense that he has always insisted that he is a ‘Christian atheist and even more particularly, a Church of England atheist. It would mean undermining what I am as well.’ He told Bryan Appleyard in The Times recently that ‘I’d be a complete idiot if I tried to undermine Christianity.

One of the most quoted is ‘I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief’, though he admits he was out to wind up the reporter. Pullman also made some particularly outspoken remarks in a couple of interviews. It also contained an incident in which a being claiming to be God is killed, which really raised some hackles. His best-selling His Dark Materials trilogy was very negative about the church, which irked some.

He’s also capable of making Christians incandescent with indignation at some of the things he says. Some years back, The Independent declared that Pullman is ‘capable of lighting up the dullest day or greyest spirit with the incandescence of his imagination’. He has justifiably been acclaimed as one of Britain’s finest writers, having won several awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the internationally prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial award, as well as receiving a CBE. He has a sharp mind, a clever wit, and he’s a brilliant writer. When I interviewed Philip Pullman, I found him genial, generous and engaging. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – a review

Pullman the good man jesus