The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

[OakTree500]

I recently read these books to my daughter, starting with "the Magicians nephew" which is a prequel to "The Lion...". In a very general manner, they are good children books, and my daughter enjoyed them.

For this book in particular, the themes of Christianity are very heavy, which as an adult I picked up fairly easily. It made me laugh in all honesty as it was just "Creation myth" but with different names/places.

As "just a story", they are pretty good for kids.

[Abaddon_ire]

Oh, I read them as a kid <mumble> years ago. At the time, I enjoyed them for what they were, childrens fairy tales. In later life, I learned that CS was a total christian apologist, but even as a child, I suspected the jebus analogy.

I dismissed it and took the tales at face value.
Why? Because growing up, we were a family of sci-fi/fantasy/horror fans and we were well accustomed to these archetypes and recognised them for what they were. I am grateful to my devout catholic and now long dead parents that they taught me to recognise when such was being intentionally foisted to pluck the harp strings of one's psyche.

Devout as they were, they managed to raise four critically thinking atheists.

And they were proud of doing so. They did not want robots. I am humbled by that.

[Whateverist]

As a kid, I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and thought it was an okay fairy tale. It wasn't until I was older that I heard it was a fairly obvious Jesus-story. By that time, I'd forgotten most of the particulars of the story, and just remembered the sacrifice and fight between good and evil. On our drive into town yesterday, we listened to it as an audio book. The similarities were very striking, but two things jumped out at me.

1) The professor (a very obvious author-insert) used Lewis' liar-lunatic-lord apologetic. He was talking about Lucy (before the kids believed her about Narnia), but that jumped out at me, as I know it's one of his favorite arguments.

2) Not only did the story catch a whole bunch of Jesus motifs, he even captured the pointlessness of the sacrifice. I've seen people complain about how Jesus' "sacrifice" was both not really a sacrifice (he knew he'd come back) and was done to make payment for an arbitrary system that could have just as easily been dropped. Aslan does the exact same thing in the story. Edmund was a traitor to the others and the White Witch (Satan) get automatically take ownership or all traitors. Aslan is powerless to stop this, because this rule is contained in "deep magic" referred to as "the Emperor's (God's) rules". Aslan decides to take Edmund's place, which the witch gladly agrees to. They kill him after torturing and mocking him, and then at sunrise, he comes back to life. He explains to the girls that another deep magic rule is that if someone innocent is sacrificed in someone's place, death will "work backward".

So, we basically have the exact same setup, here. Aslan "sacrifices" himself, knowing full well that he'll come back anyway, all to appease an arbitrary set of rules. In remaining so close to the source material, Lewis left his story open to the some of the same criticism of the crucifixion story.

One difference I note is that Aslan at least uses rules already in place and, as far as we know, not of his own making.  So when Jesus who is said to be the same as the all-knowing maker of everything chooses self sacrifice it is as a ploy in a game whose rules he himself has chosen.  Both stories just choose to ignore the question of why the sacrificed wouldn't just change the rules.  Perhaps it is in recognition of the role guilt plays for all sinners in binding them.

[Drich]

As a kid, I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and thought it was an okay fairy tale. It wasn't until I was older that I heard it was a fairly obvious Jesus-story. By that time, I'd forgotten most of the particulars of the story, and just remembered the sacrifice and fight between good and evil. On our drive into town yesterday, we listened to it as an audio book. The similarities were very striking, but two things jumped out at me.

1) The professor (a very obvious author-insert) used Lewis' liar-lunatic-lord apologetic. He was talking about Lucy (before the kids believed her about Narnia), but that jumped out at me, as I know it's one of his favorite arguments.

2) Not only did the story catch a whole bunch of Jesus motifs, he even captured the pointlessness of the sacrifice. I've seen people complain about how Jesus' "sacrifice" was both not really a sacrifice (he knew he'd come back) and was done to make payment for an arbitrary system that could have just as easily been dropped. Aslan does the exact same thing in the story. Edmund was a traitor to the others and the White Witch (Satan) get automatically take ownership or all traitors. Aslan is powerless to stop this, because this rule is contained in "deep magic" referred to as "the Emperor's (God's) rules". Aslan decides to take Edmund's place, which the witch gladly agrees to. They kill him after torturing and mocking him, and then at sunrise, he comes back to life. He explains to the girls that another deep magic rule is that if someone innocent is sacrificed in someone's place, death will "work backward".

So, we basically have the exact same setup, here. Aslan "sacrifices" himself, knowing full well that he'll come back anyway, all to appease an arbitrary set of rules. In remaining so close to the source material, Lewis left his story open to the some of the same criticism of the crucifixion story.

here's what I don't get about you guys who don't see what Christ did was any less sacrificial... Because Christ comes back it was suppoed to be the proof he had power over death. to which he points to a great resurrection where ALL will one day come back to be judge. some going on to eternal life while others will die or be consumed by Hell.

Now to you keeping in mind for 2000 years we have collectively known that through Christ all will come back, if anyone who dies for another does their sacrifice  not count as well?

because as a man like christ was a man when he knew he would come back, you potentially have the same assurances he did. therefore if you died for your platoon by tackling some guy wearing a bomb vest, did you not give up the rest of your life? did you not give up anything special? because in truth the process is the same you died you come back now you have the potential to live as long as jesus is currently living...

-or

or if you were killed would you see your death as some great loss? again process is the same.. death in this life is not the end. for you you will close your eyes here and I promise in an instant you will open them back up as if you blinked away all the time between your death and your judgement as you will have no way to tell time after you die. So you die, you blink and you hear the trumpets and you are in line for the judgement. Did you lose anything?

From God's perspective you lost a literal blink of an eye... from your perspective idk maybe you lost 50 years... So the question is are those 50 years worth anything in the light of eternity?

You in your argument about jesus not giving anything up says no he lost nothing... now with you in his position do you still argue the 50 years he gave up is nothing? Assume your going to heaven.. now what of your 50 years... is that still nothing? If God approached you and said you do have 50 years left (good years not in sickness or poverty but clean healthy years in prosperity,) would you trade them for heaven (and he showed you it was 1000%) real but he tells you we have to go now. would you give up 50 years of a very good life to go off into heaven now?

I wouldn't go now not because of me but because of those I leave behind. I feel like I have too much unfinished business, that more can be done so others can live well and pass the torch...

but what about you? would you go? Then why would you think Christ giving his life especially the way he went was any less sacrificial? What if you not only had to give up your 50 years, but you own way to heaven was through the cross??? make a difference?

[Ravenshire]

I read the Narnia Chronicles to my son when he was young. We simply read it as a fantasy story and didn't delve into any 'deep' meaning.

The series is special to me because they are the last books I read to him before he outgrew that stage of life. I see a lot of criticism and fussing over the religious meanings in the books but I still hold them dear. My son is my youngest so that was the end of my reading to my kids. sigh

I read them multiple times as a kid and multiple times again as an adult. I have them in print, ebook and audio book and will read them again. Lewis was fairly heavy handed with the allegory, but they're still very good fantasy stories. He also wrote a sci-fi series that I keep meaning to get to. I'll have to bump those up the list and review them here.

It's kinda funny how I was introduced to the Narnia books though. It was a pastor trying to pass himself off as an academic who had my fourth grade teacher select five or six of us to study the books, on school time, at the school. I guess he thought he could get around the separation of church and state that way and bring more kids to jeebus. He failed miserably.