The Lion, the Witch and the Metaphor (Bizarre article on Narnia by the usual culprits)

New York Times ^ | December 12, 2005 | JESSICA SEIGEL

[indcons]

THOUGH it's fashionable nowadays to come out of the closet, lately folks are piling in - into the wardrobe, that is, to battle over who owns Narnia: secular or Christian lovers of C. S. Lewis's stories.

Children, of course, have been slipping through the magic cupboard into the mythical land for 50 years without assistance from pundits or preachers (though fauns and talking badgers have been helpful). But now that the chronicles' first book, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," has been made into a Disney movie, adults are fighting to claim the action. And that means analyzing it. Or not.

The 7-year-old who sat next to me during a recent showing said, "This is really scary." It was scary when the White Witch kills the lion Aslan, who dies to save the loathsome Edmund before rising to help him and his siblings vanquish evil. But adults reducing the story to one note - their own - are even scarier. One side dismisses the hidden Jesus figure as silly or trivial, while the other insists the lion is Jesus in a story meant to proselytize. They're both wrong.

[indcons]

Let me get this straight: people can come with with "queer theories" for all classics and nobody objects. On the other hand, Ms. Seigel finds it offensive that Christians are "...denigrat[ing] the pleasures of a good yarn."

[coconutt2000]

The true moral of the story is about coats.... One can never own too many coats. ;-)

[weegee]

Maybe the usual culprits, but they are making some of their hatred painfully obvious:

'Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion' (Guardian UK)

"Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?"

[rom]

"Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to?"

You didn't ask us to save your ass from the terrorists either you hideous she-beast, but that's just what we intend to do.

[familyop]

People in the USA can worship and publicly speak of whatever they wish to worship, as long as there is no establishment of a religion through our government or violations of rights of others while doing so (US Constitution).

[familyop]

That was my paraphrase, BTW--not a quotation.

[indcons]

An earlier profile on my FReeper home page had this statement:

"The Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution are the greatest civic and legal documents ever created by man."

[GeronL]

Did we ask him to?

what trash, we pray our thanks all the time.

[indcons]

Thanks for that additional link to leftist "tolerence" (/sarc) of contrarian opinions.

[NoCmpromiz]

leonid discourse later

[Caipirabob]

What a old, miserable, anti-Christ bitty.

These anti-Christ secular socialists are simply bitter that Narnia proceeds beat "Brokeback Mt" this weekend.

[mdmathis6]

siegel...probably progressive jewish...doesn't understand that even the old testament spoke of a coming Messiah who would indeed suffer and die!

[HitmanLV]

There was no doubt that Narnia would crush Brokeback Mountain. It was something like 3600 screens for Narnia vs 5 screens for Brokeback.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!