The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

[RobbyPants]

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.

[Foxaèr]

I only read his book after I already knew about the connections. I must be younger than you, hehe.

The irony is that he was a relatively good fiction writer, but his writings on theology were absolute crap. A teacher gave me one of his books as a gift in high school (I was christian at the time), yet reading it just raised doubts. The book was Mere Christianity.

[Jehanne]

Ah, the memories, and now, the shame!  I grew-up on the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" BS, also, and swallowed it whole, line and sinker.  I understand now how the geocentrists felt after Johannes Kepler published his first two laws of planetary motion (the 3rd would come 10 or so years later), which removed all and any doubt as to the predictive power of the Copernican system over that of Ptolemy.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Read the whole series many moons ago.

Of them all "The voyage of the Dawntreader" is the name I remember fondest. Don't ask me about the plot or to even name characters..... but the feelings that I liked it the most remain.

[arewethereyet]

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

[vulcanlogician]

What I'm wondering is: does someone who interprets the Bible as allegory and lives accordingly and another person who accepts the Narnia chronicles allegorically and lives accordingly (whilst rejecting the Bible) follow the same religion?

[Joods]

Well I learned something new today. I've always enjoyed the movies but I never looked for a deeper, religious meaning in the series.

[Angrboda]

I'd heard that the Narnia chronicles were religious allegory, but I didn't know it was that blatant.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I saw the three movies and didn't ascribe a religious meaning to them at all. Silly me.

[GUBU]

At work.

Read the whole series many moons ago.

Of them all "The voyage of the Dawntreader" is the name I remember fondest.  Don't ask me about the plot or to even name characters..... but the feelings that I liked it the most remain.  

That's the one where they go off to find the edge of the world, the new guy gets turned into a dragon because he is a cheap off-brand substitute for Edmund, and at the end the mouse fellow goes to heaven via surfing up a waterfall.

---

Well I learned something new today. I've always enjoyed the movies but I never looked for a deeper, religious meaning in the series.

Oh the movies were far more evangelical than the books. CS Lewis went church of Ireland to high anglicanism (which is essentially catholicism 'cepting Brenda's the pope).

The movies were financed by Walden Media, a US evangelical company.