Posted on 12/12/2005 10:37:57 PM PST by churchillbuff
"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is a new film based on the Narnia children's books by English writer C.S. Lewis. According to an unnamed Disney executive in a recent issue of The New York Times, Narnia will provide the company with a Christian niche, among the lucrative fantasy franchises like "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings." Since some 80 percent of Americans claim to be Christian, this would be pretty big niche. However, it seems likely that the executive meant the evangelical Christian niche, and thus was adopting the evangelical presumption that only those who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible can claim to be Christian. Thus a tedious and contemptuous article in The New Yorker equated the popularity of Lewis with his teaching of doctrines that appeal to evangelicals.
I confess that such ignorance gives me a headache. Lewis was not a Christian in the sense of the word that the evangelicals insist upon. He was an Anglican who sometimes skirted, in his writings at any rate, dangerously close to the thin ice of Catholicism. Many in my generation of Catholics simply assumed he was one of us. But even as an Anglican, he would certainly fall out of the realm of the "saved" when the rapture blasts all of us who do not believe in word for word inerrancy into oblivion.
I hasten to add that not all evangelicals claim a monopoly on Christianity. Indeed only half of those in the evangelical denominations believe in that kind of biblical literalism and a smaller proportion believe that the rest of us will be vaporized on the day of the rapture. Moreover, they are certainly within their rights to claim that those who disagree with them about the Bible are not Christian and that C.S. Lewis is a "Christian" writer. If his quasi-Catholic work helps them in their religious life, then more power to them.
I wish merely to make two observations. While I leave to professional movie critics like my colleague Roger Ebert (who is also destined as I am for vaporization) an evaluation of Narnia as film, I insist that the Narnia stories -- charming nursery tales for young and old -- deserve a much broader audience than just biblical fundamentalists. Better or worse than Harry Potter? That question simply does not compute, though they're both about the struggle between good and evil.
Secondly it seems to me that the evangelicals slip dangerously close to Catholic idolatry when they embrace a wondrous allegory as a summary of the biblical story. Jesus is not and never was a lion like Aslan in the film. To interpret him as a lion is to go light years beyond literal inerrancy. The evangelical enthusiasm about the sufferings of Jesus in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" put them one step away, it seemed to me, from importing crucifixes and stations of the cross into their churches.
I'm afraid that their enthusiasm for both films shows just how seductive the Catholic temptation is. We delight in pictures and stories and allegories and symbols and signs because the appeal to the whole human person and not just to the rigid, rational mind. We are a church designed for the media age with its deluge of pictures and stories, though we usually don't know what to do with the opportunity.
There are certainly risks in this Catholic imagination, superstition and idolatry among others, though it does make the world a warmer and a more human place. Someone gave me a medallion of the Mexican Saint Malverde, the patron of the narcotrafficantes, who need a patron if anyone does. I don't wear it, incidentally. Mel Gibson's imagination is certainly Catholic, though perhaps with a certain masochistic twist. In his retelling of the Gospel in allegorical form, C.S. Lewis goes back to the miracle and morality plays of the Middle Ages, in a sense as if the Reformation never happened.
However, I think someone should warn the evangelicals that they are playing with, one should excuse the expression, fire. They are drifting into an imaginative world where the Whore of Babylon lives and dominates. They had better beware. They are sliding toward oblivion on the day of the rapture.
On the other hand, many Catholics ashamed of their imaginative heritage, may be drifting in the opposite direction.
What religion is the writer? He seems to be sending up both Protestants and Catholics together.
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How about that for cogent analysis. Should I go see the movie or not?
Pray that Fr. Greeley drift towards Catholicism.
Andrew Greeley's e-mail address is agreel@aol.com
I noticed that too.
To me this was the gist of what he was trying to say:
**In his retelling of the Gospel in allegorical form, C.S. Lewis goes back to the miracle and morality plays of the Middle Ages, in a sense as if the Reformation never happened.**
"Thus a tedious and contemptuous article in The New Yorker equated the popularity of Lewis with his teaching of doctrines that appeal to evangelicals."
Guess the author has this article in mind
The Lion, the Witch and the Metaphor (Bizarre article on Narnia by the usual culprits): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1539312/posts
This man is both genius and prodigy to all questions, theologic and moral. One can only accept his near-divinity as our new savior and guide.
Perhaps if the "good" Fr. were to actually READ his Bible, inerrant, or not, he would notice that there is no basis in the idea that: "the rest of us will be vaporized on the day of the rapture". This is, of course, NOT the teaching of the evangelical church or the Bible, simply a fabrication, possible on his part?!
Furthermore, the evangelical church does NOT teach that belief in inerrancy of the Bible is a prerequisite for the Salvation of Christ. This is a further fabrication on the part of the author. Evangelicals DO, for the most part, believe in the inerrancy of scripture, at least, as originally imparted in the original languages.
That belief leads us to search scripture diligently for the truth of how God would have us behave. We find, in Scripture, that God wants us to accept the gift of His grace offered to us through the death of His Son on the cross. Christ died in our place taking upon Himself our guilt so that we might be redeemed into the Kingdom of God.
How this exactly works and why God loves us so much that He went to such lengths to redeem us is, in fact, a mystery. I will grant that such mysteries are a tradition we share with the Roman Catholic Church.
Embrace it as a summary of the biblical story? He understands evangelicals as poorly as do secular liberals.
I think the good man is guilty of wishful thinking, he needs to go to confession
No, we just like to see films once in a while that confirms our faith
"Father" Greeley is Catholic; he writes soft porn novels.
I trust your post was made with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.
That's exactly what I was going to say!
I liked Greeley back in the late 70's when he was quite critical of Jimmy Carter. Then he became a multi-millionaire with his silly novels and became much too full of himself.
...very unusual. He's a political lefty, but he presents a good case against the paganism of deification of an artificial beast as allegory.
It wouldn't hurt for him to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, either.
Go see it. Just don't buy a stuffed lion and start praying to it.
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