Taken from Belief.net, a multi-faith site: What's Christian About Narnia?

[acker_75]

What's Christian About Narnia?
>
> There's that death and resurrection of Aslan, for one thing. But
> that's only the beginning
> By Lauren Winner
>
> Recently, I was chatting with my friend Summer. She's never read C. S.
> Lewis's great apologetics for the Christian faith, "Mere
> Christianity." Nor has she read his conversion story, "Surprised by
> Joy," or his adult fiction, or his essays of literary criticism. But
> she did, years ago as a kid, read his "Chronicles of Narnia," at about
> the same time she read "Anne of Green Gables" and "Nancy Drew." "Now,
> I know these Narnias are supposed to be Christian allegory, but I
> never saw anything Christian about them," she told me. "Frankly, I'm
> not sure I see them as much more religious than Anne or Nancy." My
> friend is not alone. Part of what distinguishes the Narnia series is
> that it can be read on so many different levels. Setting aside any
> religious interpretation, it's still just a heck of a good tale.
> Nonetheless, a deeply Christian vision shapes Narnia. The most
> unmistakably Christian trope in "The Lion, the Witch and the
> Wardrobe"-- Lewis's famous novel about four British children who find
> themselves in a magical land called Narnia where they meet witches and
> fauns and a wonderful lion called Aslan--is Aslan's death and
> resurrection. In order to save one of the children from death at the
> hands of the evil White Witch, Aslan allows himself to be killed upon
> a great Stone Table. The "crucifiers" mock him, just as Jesus was
> mocked: "Why, he's only a great cat after all!"; "Poor Puss! Poor
> Pussy.... How many mice have you caught today, Cat?" These jeers, of
> course, recall the soldiers' cry to Jesus: If you are king of the
> Jews, save yourself!
>
> The resurrected Aslan then reappears to Lucy and Susan. The girls, of
> course, are taken aback--Susan fears that she is seeing a ghost. But
> Lucy realizes this is no specter: "Oh, you're real, you're real! Oh,
> Aslan!" she cries. And Aslan explains that while the White Witch's
> magic is powerful, there is a deeper, truer, more powerful magic at
> work--and now that an innocent and willing victim was killed in the
> intended victim's place, "Death itself would start working backward."
>
> That phrase is about as concise a summary of the Gospel message as one
> could hope for. Yet the story of Aslan is so engrossing in itself that
> readers understandably don't always make the connection. Pauline
> Baynes, who illustrated the first edition of The Chronicles, says she
> wept while creating the illustration for this scene--but she didn't
> realize until later that Aslan's death mirrored Christ's suffering on
> the cross.
>
> The entire Chronicles follow biblical contours. If in "The Lion, the
> Witch, and the Wardrobe" we have a retelling of Christ's suffering,
> death, and resurrection, the subsequent Narnia stories tell about the
> children's adventures in Narnia--their adventures, that is, during the
> time between Aslan's redemption of Narnia, and his final victory. This
> is, from the Christian viewpoint, the very same in-between time in
> which we are living now.
>
> That final coming is reckoned in "The Last Battle," the last book of
> the Chronicles, which describes the ultimate battle between good and
> evil, and the final triumph of Aslan. As David Downing has pointed out
> in his marvelous study "Into the Wardrobe," the very opening of the
> book sets an apocalyptic tone: "On the last days of Narnia�" Echoing
> the foretelling of the end-times in The Gospel of Matthew and the Book
> of Revelation, "The Last Battle" depicts the children dying in London
> and being received at a fabulous banquet by Aslan. Lewis's depiction
> of Aslan's folding all of history and culture into his kingdom never
> fails to give me chills:
> The things that began to happen...were so great and beautiful that I
> cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and
> we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for
> them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in
> this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover
> and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the
> Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in
> which every chapter is better than the one before.
>
> Maybe it's even a little sacrilegious to think of God becoming a cat...
> For literary representations of the end times and the consummation of
> the new heavens and new earth, I'll take that over the apocalyptic
> "Left Behind" any day. Beyond the larger story of Aslan's death and
> resurrection, one could comb through the Chronicles page by page and
> point out innumerable ways in which Lewis specifically invokes
> Scripture. These are just a few examples:
> · A favorite "old rhyme" in Narnia, "At the sound of his roar,
> sorrows will be no more," echoes Hosea 11:10-11--"They shall go after
> the Lord, he will roar like a lion..."--and also Isaiah 65:19, "...no
> more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of
> distress."
> · Aslan's admission, shortly before he is killed, that he is "sad and
> lonely" recalls Jesus' telling his disciples "My soul is overwhelmed
> with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."
> · "The Last Battle"'s "rock with refreshing water" echoes Paul's
> words in I Corinthians 10:4 that "our forefathers... drank from the
> spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."
>
> Lewis, however, never intended the "Chronicles of Narnia" to be read
> simply as a coded retelling of the Bible. He insisted that he didn't
> set out to write a "Christian children's story." Narnia came to him
> first as a series of images--a faun, a lion. That an unmistakably
> biblical narrative emerged is perhaps a testimony to Lewis's own
> formation, a reminder of how deeply steeped he was in the Christian
> story. Indeed, Lewis never liked to call the Chronicles "allegory,"
> with the term's implication that every last animal, tree, and chair
> was simply a cipher, standing for some specific thing in the Bible. He
> preferred to think of the Chronicles as "supposals"--"Let us suppose,"
> he wrote in his essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to
> be Said," "that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God,
> as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine
> what would happen."
>
> Lewis once received a letter from a worried correspondent, who was
> distressed to find that Aslan's death stirred him more deeply than the
> biblical accounts of Christ's passion ever had. "The reason why the
> Passion of Aslan sometimes moves people more than the real story of
> the Gospels is," replied Lewis, "...that it takes them off their
> guard. In reading the real story the fatal knowledge that one ought to
> feel a certain way often inhibits the feeling."
>
> This may be one reason that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
> continually delights and startles Christian readers. For the novel not
> only offers an emotionally engaging retelling of the crucifixion
> story. It also gets at the essence of the wonderful, strange,
> remarkable fact of God's incarnation as a human being. For aren't we,
> Christians and non-Christians alike, a little uncomfortable with the
> idea that, in order to have communion with and redeem the creatures of
> Narnia, God became a lion. A lion? Surely not. I mean, maybe it's even
> a little sacrilegious to think of God becoming a cat�
>
> But the biblical story of God becoming man is no less startling. Of
> course, it doesn't startle us so much anymore, because after 2,000
> years we've gotten used to it. Even Christians sometimes forget how
> bold and odd the Incarnation is: All our sweet Christmas pageants have
> domesticated, even tamed, the story of Jesus being born a babe in a
> manger. Christmas rolls around and it is hard, amid all the shopping,
> to recapture the radical shock of God becoming a baby. For those of us
> who proclaim the Christian faith, Narnia makes a fine Advent
> devotional, inspiring in us a little of the awe and discomfort that
> the Incarnation demands.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>

[Cardinal Bunal]

holy butt of his pontificate declares the Incarnation's focus is the Conception of the Immaculateness of the blessed mother to therefore bestow much favor in the rosary and reparation of sins against the immaculate heart. (PCP 1: 10 - 21, Vatican 3)

Compare against Heb. 7: 25, Luke 1: 43 and Heb. 10: 18

[torcuato marcelo]

The anti Christians are at it again.

This is what I like.

If the devils have their harry Potter, Christians should answer back by having films like narnia. I guess talbog sa takilya ang witch harry potter by this Christian Narnia.

[Cardinal Bunal]

Not quite, Mr. M.P.

Actually there's a Christian author who wrote "Finding God in Narnia" and "Finding God in Harry Potter", even Potter although perceived by many zealous believers to contain subliminal messages that glorify witchcraft also contains parralels to Christianity, and the message of selflessness and compassion that the Christian religion is all about.......

Visit CLC bookshop.

[fingolfin]

... if you want to find God or the Devil in both movies you can do so. Just interpret and associate every scene to God or the Devil. It depends on how you watch the movie. People and their so called "logic". crazy.

[torcuato marcelo]

Quote: Originally Posted by fingolfin ... if you want to find God or the Devil in both movies you can do so.Â* Just interpret and associate every scene to God or the Devil.Â* It depends on how you watch the movie.Â* Â*People and their so called "logic". crazy.

Are you calling me crazy? Or my logic crazy? Thats personal attack. I doubt if it is okay for you if I call you gay?

[vanceloma]

Quote: Originally Posted by torcuato marcelo Quote: Originally Posted by fingolfin ... if you want to find God or the Devil in both movies you can do so. Just interpret and associate every scene to God or the Devil. It depends on how you watch the movie. People and their so called "logic". crazy. Are you calling me crazy? Or my logic crazy? Thats personal attack. I doubt if it is okay for you if I call you gay?

no, you call him Maximo Oliveros

DA VINCI CODE RULZ JOO!!!!!

[Kai Shinks]

Quote: Originally Posted by torcuato marcelo Quote: Originally Posted by fingolfin ... if you want to find God or the Devil in both movies you can do so. Just interpret and associate every scene to God or the Devil. It depends on how you watch the movie. People and their so called "logic". crazy. Are you calling me crazy? Or my logic crazy? Thats personal attack. I doubt if it is okay for you if I call you gay?

I agree with fingolfin

I probably wouldnt have known the Christian symbolism in Narnia if I didnt know about it beforehand, in any case I probably would have made the connection eventually. Especially about the death and ressurrection of Aslan, the creation in the Magicians Nephew and the Last Battle.

[fingolfin]

Quote: Originally Posted by torcuato marcelo Quote: Originally Posted by fingolfin ... if you want to find God or the Devil in both movies you can do so. Just interpret and associate every scene to God or the Devil. It depends on how you watch the movie. People and their so called "logic". crazy. Are you calling me crazy? Or my logic crazy? Thats personal attack. I doubt if it is okay for you if I call you gay?

... what?? am i referring to you?? im talking to all not you. What made you think that's for you......anyway, i'll watch that movie with no associations whatsoever.

[DebutsAndIDos]

Acker_75:

Thanks for posting a great essay.
It has teased my cusiority into researching for the other essays mentioned, esp. Into the Wardrobe, which I hope to read soon. If you have a copy of this, PM me also.

Sadly, I think this is going to become fodder for some debates again.
But the essay is very enlightening, thanks!

[larvs]

i agree with fingolfin. it depends on who watches it and what psychological state the person is in while watching it. honestly, i'd want to find God somewhere else. although he may really be in the movie, but i'm hoping else where.