Toynbee's just got the books wrong. Not sure if he's read them, but they're really a lot of fun: a mishmash of mythology (there's a bacchanale, minus the wine and nudity, in the second book), fighting an evil Witch who has enslaved a magical fairy land with the help of a magical lion, redeeming the younger brother who is tempted and sides with the Witch, and then getting crowned kings of Narnia-fairy-land because they won the war.
Yes, it is a heavy-handed Christian metaphor. Lewis isn't terribly good at being subtle, and as a child I felt vaguely icky when I read it -- couldn't figure out if Lewis was mocking Christianity or not. (I was young. Couldn't see the point of parody.) Aslan is a Christ figure. We get it already.
But it's not really a story of how God is on the side of the strong, white, and rich any more; it's basically a fairy tale where the ordinary children save an oppressed land with magical creatures with a badly written Christ stand-in.
What's next, a screed against Harry Potter because the kid is dubbed the Chosen One in book six, and that shows that rulebreakers are really the best, bravest students?
The Toynbee piece bugged me, too. The crowning imagery aside, anyone who thinks that Lewis didn't thoroughly understand and thoughtfully deal with anti-Christian arguments is someone who hasn't read the Screwtape Letters.
But I read the Narnia books once when I was too young to understand them, and haven't revisited them, so I can't remember how specifically objectionable the Christian imagery might be. My guess is "not very".
We should also keep in mind that it was written for children, who might not be attuned or amenable to the subtleties of the religion. Kids start out liking Superman, not Rorschach.
There was a funny piece on Lewis in the NYer recently, and, if I remember it right, Lewis went through a "God only gives you the suffering you can bear" phase, which really is so vapid as to deserve a punch in the mouth. He got better after his wife got the bone cancer, I think is the story, but this recollection is hazy.
Did you see Gopnik's piece on this? I thought this was really good.
Yet a central point of the Gospel story is that Jesus is not the lion of the faith but the lamb of God, while his other symbolic animal is, specifically, the lowly and bedraggled donkey. The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory. A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth.
My recollection is a bit... fogged... since I read it a long time ago, but isn't Aslan insulted, humiliated, shorn of hair, and so on, before undergoing a crucifixion of sorts? He's a lion but goes through rather a lot.
Also it's worth pointing out that LW&W, at least, is patterned on classic fairy tales. In fairy tales there isn't a lot of subtlety: the youngest child is always the most worthy and, if not the most beautiful, will be the most beautiful by the end of the story; witches are ugly and cruel; the peasant's third son always is the one to defeat the tricky troll and gain the princess's hand and up to half the kingdom, payable in monthly installments.
So the little Narniaette kids go on an adventure, slay the evil Witch, and capture the kingdom.
Now, such a warped version of reality might be a reason to reject a fairy tale (I think not), but as such, it's not a criticism of Lewis specifically nor of his Christianity.
I think the animal form is just supposed to be a reflection of soul, and makes the humiliation more dramatic. The child thinking, They're treating him so badly but he's really a lion.
Even atheist Philip Pullman sort of borrows that notion--the animal form/daemon as the spirit.
The Gopnik excerpt highlights the fundamental problem with Narnia's Christianity, and I don't think it can be explained away with, "Lewis wrote the screwtape letters, so he must have thought about this stuff, and can't be so obviously wrong." In fact, he was.
I think a better way to look at the Narnia books is as regular children's books, which happen to feature a christ-figure, and not as any serious kind of commentary on religion. The last book aspires to more, and it fails. As children's fantasy books, they are pretty good. Lots of literature has christ-figures, and we don't demand that those works adhere all that rigorously to gospel doctrine. See, e.g., Faulkner. In those works, the christ-figure serves purely literary functions. So it is in the Narnia books.
The problem is that Lewis' works are pushed forward as having something interesting to say about religion. I just don't think they do. I think it says something about the people who push them forward -- perhaps they'd rather have a Christianity with a Lion-Christ who reinforces the social structure, supports wars agaisnt the infidels, and otherwise makes rich people feel comfortable.
Aslan gets treated bad for one night, and then gets sacrificed. Otherwise we get to think of him as a lovely, strong lion, with big teeth to protect us. And then he leads the children into war.
It's all fine, so long as you don't take it for more than it is.
I think a better way to look at the Narnia books is as regular children's books, which happen to feature a christ-figure, and not as any serious kind of commentary on religion.
I read the books literally dozens of times apiece as a child, and have fond memories of them, but I'm with text -- they're not very good as allegories. in some cases they're awful: the imperialist and racist attitudes in the books makes Rudyard Kipling look like Howard Zinn.
I think it means something that the evil bits were the best part. When the Faun betrays Lucy, and, of course, the Turkish Delight scene. Maybe he just had to tack on the Christ part to disguise his true theme: e-vil is interesting.
Shouldn't we be keeping in mind that this all happens to a Lion in a magical land? Christ's underdog status is only relevant so far as it relates to our earthly, material, un-Narnian world. That side of the character is pretty decisively discarded once you start talking about his metaphysical aspects.
If the Narnia books are supposed to be some sort of muppet retelling of the new testament, they clearly miss the point. If they're supposed to be a fairy tale about Jesus's immediate religious relevance to the child reading the book, it seems like the lion imagery is less problematic.
Yes -- Kipling is better on those issues than he's often given credit for, and Lewis is worse.
Did anyone else who liked them find this complicated by liking the other books in the series far more than LW&W? The last one is lame, but the middle five are far more entertaining than LW&W, and while written in an explicitly Christian framework, are less allegorical and more just fantasy.
If the Narnia books are supposed to be some sort of muppet retelling of the new testament, they clearly miss the point. If they're supposed to be a fairy tale about Jesus's immediate religious relevance to the child reading the book, it seems like the lion imagery is less problematic.
This too -- there's something that I find disturbing about a bunch of secular humanists (of whom I'm one) telling a Christian that his theology is incorrect in Christian terms. It's not impossible: one can be thoroughly educated in theology without any particular belief in it. Still, it seems likely that the Christian is going to have a better grasp of the fundamentals of his faith.
Really, LB? I think LW&W is, far and away, the best one. Voyage of the Dawn Treader, on the other hand, seems like it was tossed off before teatime one day.
Prince Caspian is pretty good, but only if you're into the idea of animals conducting a guerrilla war against the BAD white rulers in favor of a GOOD white ruler.
I liked Voyage of the Dawn Treader the best. But The Silver Chair is pretty awful. Then again, I was 8 or 9, and just trying to plow through the books at that point.
ac's enjoyment of the E-vil might have more to do with ac than cs, my hypothesis.
from what I recall, at the end of each book, there is at least one full chapter devoted to jolly celebration, and sometimes two chapters. That can get tedious.
What I do find interesting, though, is the different slants that Lewis gives on traditional Christian ideas. The Judas character is humanized and is forgiven after repenting, and ends up rewarded with a coronation. There's a touch of Unitarianism in the last book (one guy who worshipped "Tash" all his life is told that he was really worshipping Aslan all his life, since he was honorable, and all honorable things done in Tash's name get somehow transferred to Aslan). The white master stuff is really, really troubling, though.
Re: the underdog complaint. The lamb certainly isn't the only image of Christ; he's compared to a lamb when sacrificed, a shepherd when caring for the meek and lowly, but he also is portrayed as a bit of a badass with the sword and flame in the second coming and all.
Aslan isn't reinforcing the status quo, which seems to be Toynbee's objection; all the magical animals in Narnia are magical, but they are meek, lowly, and out of power.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, on the other hand, seems like it was tossed off before teatime one day.
Now, I haven't read it since I was a kid, but I loved that "What if Herodotus was right, and when you travelled you actually found really, really strange stuff?" aspect of Dawn Treader. I liked A Horse and His Boy (like everything that mentions the Calormenes, of course, problematic racismwise) a great deal as well (and that one fits much more comfortably into the 'last shall be first' paradigm) and was really fond of the Silver Chair, mostly for Puddleglum and his drinking problem ("Respectawiggle.").
I liked the series a great deal, but never found myself going back to LW&W, at least not nearly as much as the others.
My memory is hazy on all but LW&W (which I am currently reading to Sylvia and quite enjoying) but I seem to recall liking Prince Caspian a lot. But I seem to recall liking all of them. This was ~27 years ago now.
I also remember liking Voyage of the Dawn Treader the best (I didn't read more than 3 or 4 of them, though), plus I learned later that it has a Travels of Sir John Mandeville thing to it.
On the other hand, I'm still waiting for the 8th book in the series, C. S. Luther's 95 Theses of Narnia.
I like The Silver Chair largely because of the Orwellian scene in which the underworld witch makes everyone believe that there's no sun, there's no sky, and there's no Aslan. That sort of thing (like the "I will not tell lies" cutting in Order of the Phoenix) is sort of terrifying to me. Even in the kids books, twisting the truth and rewriting people's memories and forcing them to say that up is down and black is white practically gives me nightmares.
Narnia is now present day Narni. Perhaps there are magical talking animals there.
re: 28 -- Christ is just never a lion, especially before he is crucified. Think of the opposite of a lion: that would be Jesus. And what Aslan does in LW&W is restore the rightful social order -- which the Queen had usurped -- as a monarchy. He doesn't raise up the lowly, but rather puts the lowly back in their place.
I personally don't think that LW&W should have to stand up as a rendition of the gospel, but if anyone wants to assert that it does, I will fight you on it.
Though I could see the whole "destined to be king" thing bugging people.
A sociology prof I once had said that Scar was supposed to be a representation of a black person, and thus, the movie was racist. Which seemed a little over the top to me.
This too -- there's something that I find disturbing about a bunch of secular humanists (of whom I'm one) telling a Christian that his theology is incorrect in Christian terms.
Why? If the Bible is (or can be) a text like any other.
Right, Jesus throws out the moneychangers, and says "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
But Jesus doesn't wield the sword. People don't cower from him, nor did he look like a king. He looked as far from a king as one can. Which makes throwing out the moneychangers a much more interesting act -- it is surprising. He couldn't have done it from mere intimidation. It's the little guy, standing up for himself, showing strength that was not apparent.
That, to me, is more interesting than a scary looking bad ass kicking ass in a scary manner. But who knows, the gospels themselves are kind of difficult to make sense of.
and was really fond of the Silver Chair, mostly for Puddleglum and his drinking problem ("Respectawiggle.").
Puddleglum made that book my absolute favorite, hands down. With his constant griping and his slurred speech he came across as a mythical, more froglike version of my dad. In the BBC version, he's played by Tom Baker, who was another iconic figure from my childhood (Doctor Who). Together they came together to overpower all sense of Liony Jesusness and helped me realize I didn't care much about going to heaven, I just wanted a robot dog.
That of course, and the way the prey animals need a strong, charismatic predator to rule over them -- when Simba or his father is king, the shots of the prey animals grazing in contentment and looking rapturously up to Pride Rock make me sick; when Scar has usurped the throne, I can't remember exactly but there was a shot that made it clear the prey animals were longing for their old, benevolent predator. That was the whole backbone of the movie.
It's just Hamlet without all the interesting indecision and monologues. Oh, and Nala doesn't commit suicide because Simba convinces her that he is mad.
Together they came together to overpower all sense of Liony Jesusness and helped me realize I didn't care much about going to heaven, I just wanted a robot dog.
Re 4, and its descendent comments, esp. 12 and 38,
Lewis's emphasis is clearly on transcendent God becoming human, paying for sins etc. etc. Not so much on a historical Jesus. That's actually pretty common throughout evangelicalism.
Jeremy, it's been a while, but I remember thinking it was gross for similar reasons. My (by now very, very vague) recollection is that Scar is demonized specifically for being intelligent. Also, I found the faux feminism kind of grating too. If you're going to make a movie in which the females sit around lamenting the absence of a male leader, and finally on a big pilgrimage to restore their him to the throne, than don't have the female cub beat the male cub in a wrestling match. It's hypocritical.
Wait, wait... I thought Christianity was a Mithraic myth. Doesn't the transitive property factor into this somewhere?
If you knew exactly what the Mithraic myths were, you could say that. But nobody actually knows.
If you can tell me what all that business with the bull and the dog and the sacrifice and the guys with the torches is actually intended to mean, I could say.
If you were going to be fairly literal, I'd think the bull sacrifice would be closer to the burnt offerings made in the Temple in Jerusalem than anything else. Which was one of the things Jesus was (ostensibly) against.
my take on "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword":
that the immediate ramifications of Jesus' life would not be world peace, but rather, lots of people killing each other, the disciples being tortured and killed, and the eventual destruction of Jerusalem.
I suppose you could take the passage to mean: "I am going to kick some ass now." But I think that interpretation jives less well with the rest of the text.
Of course, we can blame a certain medieval scribe for the loss of Jesus' subsequent phrase, bringing the entire passage much further into light: "at the mineshaft."
Text, it is actually pretty rare that something here makes me laugh out loud, rather than just stimulating my cleverness appreciation ganglia, but that was one such thing.
I guess I'm just saying that Aslan being a lion doesn't bother me; fairy tales usually have the heroine as the sweetest and youngest and prettiest, but that hasn't translated into my youngest sister assuming I'm the official elder shrew. Part of the cool factor of Christianity is that God, Who is A Badass Generally, comes down and deals with being human and ends up dying horribly for the sake of little old us.
If we were really taking Aslan too seriously, the only part where he is Jesus-as-carpenter would be the point where he decides to save Edmund and allows himself to be sacrificed - the point where he is powerless, utterly weak, and humiliated. The rest of the time he's God-as-Incorporeal/post-resurrection-Badass, and the lion imagery fits decently well.
I admit it would be niftier if the first time the kids saw Aslan, he was a battered old toothless lion, and they didn't think much of him until he goes and dies and comes back as über-Aslan (only for hardcore players), but this is a children's fable and a really simple one at that. The Beast fell for Beauty, not She's Got A Nice Personality.
How isn't overthrowing the Witch flipping the system? You can talk about how the Pevensie kids were privileged middle-class English children, but they were certainly not the Narnian power structure.
Well, I liked the books. AFAIK, I still like the books. I didn't catch the racism at the time, so I'm not sure kids today would either. Christianity - eh. I'm Christian, so that didn't bother me. And I quite liked that there was some sort of way out that let my non-Christian friends go to heaven, too. Heck, I've always thought of the books as liberal because of that bit. And, on consideration, that's really the only part of the series that I remember.
Also, you are all heathens. Thanks for trying to ruin childhood. FUCKING LIR'RURLS!
"but this is a children's fable and a really simple one at that."
exactly. It's one that I am particularly fond of, so long as we see Aslan as a literary character, and not a particularly truthful rendition of Christ.
How isn't overthrowing the Witch flipping the system?
I guess because the Witch is overthrown by a badass. And, in the system, Witches are supposed to be overthrown by badasses.
But, again, I think your defense is a pretty reasonable snapshot of of Lewis' thinking, as I pointed out upthread. It's about the badass becoming the carpenter. Not so much a historical Jesus.
even in post-resurrection form, Jesus is not a badass. He doesn't kick any pharisee ass. He doesn't lead anyone to war, or put anyone on a throne. He teaches, goes away, and his followers get killed. He's not a lion before the resurrection, nor after the resurrection, nor is there any evidence that he will be a lion at any other point, not in revelations -- I don't think, though hard to say what any of that means -- nowhere.
It's been awhile since I've read the books, but as far as the social order, here's what I remember: there is a given social order, with the pretty talking animals atop, and "sons of adam, daughters of eve" [humans] as monarchs. The witch comes, takes control, and during that time, the undesirables who were once at the bottom of the social caste rule over those who were once at the top. In LW&W, Aslan comes and restores the social order. The former monarchy and aristocracy are restored.
I often wondered if Rowling's "pensieve" is an anagram shout-out to Lewis's Pevensie kids.
I think it's just an example of her tendency to make words sound vaguely exotic/Latin, while still remaining comprehensible to the English-speaking reader. Avada Kedavra, Expeliarmus, etc.
I'd like to take this opportunity to promote the excellent musical version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Narnia , which someone involved in community theater (Tripp?) should think about producing, because it roxx.
Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." Revelation 5.5
There's a lot of stuff in Revelation. There's also a lot of extra-Biblical tradition that Lewis had to work from -- the Harrowing of Hell, in which Jesus spends the three days between crucifixion and the Resurrection kicking demon ass and releasing virtuous pagans from hell, is pretty kickass.
He teaches, goes away, and his followers get killed. He's not a lion before the resurrection, nor after the resurrection, nor is there any evidence that he will be a lion at any other point, not in revelations -- I don't think, though hard to say what any of that means -- nowhere.
Are we going with John's interpretation of Jesus as the Lamb of God, or going by what Jesus said hisownself?
As far as I can tell, calling Jesus an 'apocalyptic prophet' is pretty close to what he was saying.
80, Well part of what makes it flipping the system is that the OT predicts all this Kingly ass-kicking, and all they got was this teacher who hangs with the unsavory. I think part of the story that is not being told here is that Jesus is kicking all kinds of ass, just not in the way that we all expected.
Don'tcha love online concordances (I am so not claiming more detailed Biblical knowledge than anyone)? Really, all I'm arguing here is that when we've got this book written by a Christian, and which other Christians are wild about as harmonious with their faith, I am dubious of the capacity of a bunch of pointy-headed secularists (which category I'm blithely assuming you fall into, I do apologize if I'm worng) to say that it gets Christianity all wrong. It's possible, but coming form a non-Christian, I want the argument backed up with cites from Tertullian, Aquinas, and Pope Gregory the Great.
Or, whoever wrote comment 22? Pretty much on point.
While I can't remember a single verse in the NT that compares Christ to a lion, Satan is memorably compared to a lion at one point. The lamb metaphor pops up all over, though, although John's "giant, seven-eyed lamb of wrath" in Revelation is itself a pretty big departure from the norm.
Well I am Christian, though a pointy-headed one. It offends me to see the way the religion is often used, which seems to me more in accordance with Lewis' Aslan than with the gospels' Jesus.
My head isn't actually very pointy, but rather quite spherical. I've got a bit of an axe to grind, and I'll take secular humanists as allies if they want to volunteer.
Not that every unfogged thread should turn into text's axe grinding extravaganza.
it strikes me that the specific extra-biblical work that Lewis was applying in his Narnia books may have been Pope Urban II's various calls to fight the infidels; I don't find that a compelling basis, however.
I don't see that (although, by my own reading, you have better credentials than atheist I to interpret the books). The only war with the Calormenes is a defensive one, in TH&HB. In TLTW&TW, the Witch isn't overthrown as an infidel, so much as an oppressor (at least, there's no indication that if she'd treated people well, that slaughtering her would have been the response to her refusal to be ruled by Aslan.)
Pensieve=pensive + sieve? I like the anagram thing anyway, though, Joe.
And somehow I'd missed the Kedavra ~ Cadaver thing until just now, but everytime I read Avada Kedavra, I think it sounds like Abracadabra.
The only thing I remember about the Narnia books: I read of them in school, must have been somewhere around 2nd grade? It wasn't a whole class thing. So I think the original kids get magically warped over to Narnia world unprepared, and are roughing it, and somehow they get bear meat, which they wrap around apples and roast over a fire. I'm always amazed at the details that stick with you, but this one has something of an explanation - besides the exotic food bit, I was talking one-on-one about it with some helper figure, not with my actual teacher, and I said I didn't think it sounded very fun. In my memory, she kind of snapped at me for this: "But it's an adventure!" If she could just see me now - sitting around lurking on blogs. Someday, though, I will wrap meat around apples and roast it over a fire, just to show her.
87: Do pointy-headed secularists who used to be Christians get to play?
LB, there's several problems with contemporary Christianity's enamoration with Jesus-as-King. For me, though, the biggest problem is that it's a bait and switch: the heart of the Christmas story for Christians - which is heavily played up to win converts - is the notion that God became a lowly carpenter when he could have become a rich man or a king, which strikes a powerfully populist chord. But the religion many ultimately believe in - and the religion they're ultimately selling - is one with a regal Christ enthroned over the universe, which is basically the same God-as-king setup you find in every other major religion.
Incidentally, many mainline Protestants, unlike Catholics, Anglicans, or Orthodox churches, reject the notion that tradition and "church fathers" hold just as much weight as the Bible. The Bible is supposed to be the prime, and in some cases the only, source of Christian theology. Of course, this isn't quite the case - there are certain traditions of interpreting the Bible which are considered "correct" over other, newer ones - but if you asked a premillenial dispensationalist where their beliefs about the end of the world came from, they'd tell you it came from the Bible and only the Bible.
Jesus is also described as a lion in one of the Old Testament prophecies, as interpreted by Christians traditionally. There's also the part where Peter cuts the dude's ear off and Jesus tells him to stop because he could call down angels to kill all the Romans anytime he wanted to.
Point is, the lion image is perfectly consistent with Christian theology. Jesus is weak while he's on earth, but it's by choice, like he's putting on a costume. He's the Son of God, after all. Aslan might be weak for only a short time in LW&W, but if you're a Christian who believes in the concept of eternity, Jesus is also weak for only a short time in the grand scheme of things.
As for the rest of the books, Dawn Treader is the second best after Horse and His Boy, racism notwithstanding. Prince Caspian sucks.
And in the Lion King: Scar is obviously white. He has a freakin English accent. Admittedly, the hyenas are problematic.
I don't think there is a direct connection between LW&W and the Crusades, but rather that Aslan, in LW&W maps with the image of Christ the "Christian Soldier," (or a Christ that roots on the Christian Soldiers) which, I think, is not reflected in the gospels themselves.
As far as justifications for the battle, it's the people (or animals) who were once at the top of the social ladder that think the witch mistreats them. Those who were at the bottom, and now in charge, the undesirables -- I don't think they would agree.
I'll admit that this is all silly, and that we should just root for Aslan and the kids when we read the books. But if you want to take the works as serious christian allegories, then they have to work as such.
Just confirming terminology, don't you mean non-mainline Protestants? I thought that mainline referred to the non-Biblical literalists, all of the New Englandy Congregationalists/Methodists/Lutherans etc.
For me, though, the biggest problem is that it's a bait and switch: the heart of the Christmas story for Christians - which is heavily played up to win converts - is the notion that God became a lowly carpenter when he could have become a rich man or a king, which strikes a powerfully populist chord. But the religion many ultimately believe in - and the religion they're ultimately selling - is one with a regal Christ enthroned over the universe, which is basically the same God-as-king setup you find in every other major religion.
Here, I just can't figure out how to avoid the bait and switch: once you have an omnipotent God, how can it be anything other than regal in it's relationship to the universe? Isn't the Christmas story not so much "Look at this actually humble and insignificant child" but "Look at this apparently humble and insignificant child who is actually the all-powerful Deity?" If it were the first, one could just go two mangers down, and hand the gifts to Brian with similar effect.
(But my perspective on all of this is warped in that I was raised heathen, and the only source I have for serious theology is medieval English poetry. Handlyng Sinne is one of the funniest things I've ever read.)
Only if they're Pevensie and male; girl Pevensies get to be Queens.
"Tolkien hated Narnia: the two dons may have shared the same love of unquestioning feudal power, with worlds of obedient plebs and inferior folk eager to bend at the knee to any passing superior white persons - even children; both their fantasy worlds and their Christianity assumes that rigid hierarchy of power - lord of lords, king of kings, prince of peace to be worshipped and adored."
Yes, certainly this is why Tolkien's characters unquestioningly followed the leader of the White Council, Saruman; King Theoden; and the Steward of Gondor, Denethor I, and the books show them in such a light.
Good thing no one has been either discussing these sorts of issues, or those of Lewis's theology since, hmm, the 1950's. These thoughts are all so fresh and new! Have you heard that Tolkien is a racist? And that Christ-as-a-Lion isn't humble? Something to stop and think about, eh?!
"Point is, the lion image is perfectly consistent with Christian theology."
I'm talking a bit out of my ass here, as I don't have complete faculty with the text, but I just don't think that statement is supported in your post or others. I will take it for granted that the old testament, at some point, describes the messiah as a lion. The gospels themselves paint a very different picture.
If we are talking about the Jesus presented in the gospel -- the only place that Jesus is actually described -- he cannot be accurately depicted as a lion. He is described, quite often, as a shepherd, or as a lamb. He is, I think we can agree, a modest looking, non-violent sort.
I think you are taking the cutting of the ear incident completely out of context. Jesus says what he says in order that Peter stop committing violent acts, and what he says is surprising, because it is does not map with Jesus' physicial presentation. These armies he describes, you cannot see them. They are not large, visible, claws.
There's a lot of contradiction in the gospels -- that's what makes them interesting to me. But, taken as a whole, I think the gospels do not portray a Jesus that can be anthropomorphized as a lion.
Come on, Gary, they're not being published as new Lewis scholarship, they're being published as a response to the movie: "To those millions of people who are now about to encounter Narnia for the first time, here are some time honored reasons for disliking it."
text, I have to say that I really agree with your take. I loved the books as a kid but don't think they work as Christian allegory. They're just fun books with some Christian mythology thrown in with other mythologies.
I'm a Christian too, and I find the way that evangelical Christians are latching onto this movie to be rather offensive. They're totally playing into the hands of corporations who don't give a damn about their faith; they just want to make money.
Well, shit, here I'm being called out, and the only thing I have to write is, "Well, shit, here I'm being called out and the only thing I have to write is, 'Well, shit, here I'm being called out and...'"
Arg, the problems caused by not filling in one's Name box.
text, I pretty much agree. It's impossible to convey the richness of the character of Christ with one perfect allegory. (This was why J.R.R. Tolkien thought that allegory was a waste of time.)
But all metaphors for, well, a badass eternal Presence are weak in some ways; the lamb isn't perfect, either, nor is the shepherd, and Aslan as a shepherd who wandered around in winter Narnia would probably annoy me ('This is a fairy tale! Get to the asskicking/nametaking part already!')
I think the wingnuts would count Lewis as an apostle. That's absurd, but Narnia isn't supposed to replace all catechetic education. And as has been pointed out, it's got some decent bits: forgiven sinners, grace extended to all who are good people (wondering how the fundies deal with that, actually.)
Farber: I don't claim to have been very original in this thread, but I feel inclined to make the point that Christ-as-Lion doesn't work very well for as long as people continue to disagree with it.
Just confirming terminology, don't you mean non-mainline Protestants? I thought that mainline referred to the non-Biblical literalists
I used that term just to cut out branches of Christianity which openly acknowledge the influence of tradition as being just as important as Biblical text itself. You don't have to be a Biblical literalist to believe that the Bible is a primary source of theology. That makes the Bible more important, but not necessarily "fundamentally true." A friend of mine used to go to a church with a pretty liberal pastor who believed every Christian had to interpret the Bible for themselves. That's a very direct, very literal theological dependence on Biblical primacy, but it sure wasn't literalist - she tossed out most of the Old Testament as bunk, if I recall.
nor is the shepherd, and Aslan as a shepherd who wandered around in winter Narnia
As a kid, someone gave me a Narnia-ripoff book with, I believe, Canadian children and a shepherdy, human, Christ figure (named something close enough to Anthropos that I can't remember the actual name.) Really badly written.
Here, I just can't figure out how to avoid the bait and switch: once you have an omnipotent God, how can it be anything other than regal in it's relationship to the universe?
This is something that's always bugged me. Why does God have to have a king-subject relationship with the universe? Let's say I'm a painter and I've just made a painting. It would be mighty strange of me to treat that painting as some kind of subject or vassal simply because I had the power to create it. In fact, if you walked in on me informing my painting that I was its King and it would serve only me, you'd probably have me locked up. Similarly, people don't build terrariums to boss around their plants, or compose symphonies so they can yell at the notes. When we act in our capacity to create, we rarely do so with the motivation or the need to rule.
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
I will take it for granted that the old testament, at some point, describes the messiah as a lion. The gospels themselves paint a very different picture.
I assume it was all fleshed out in the secondary material, but the Book of Mark is the one that is associated with the evangelist vision of Jesus as lion (as opposed to ox, man, or eagle). I believe it's drawn from the opening lines, which refer to a voice crying out in the wilderness, which I suppose was taken by the author of Revelations to resemble a lion's roar, or at least did for the purposes of his metaphor.
I was fascinated by the Narnia books as a kid, and read all seven to my son about this time last year. My favorite as a kid (and this time, too) was The Magician's Nephew.
But, taken as a whole, I think the gospels do not portray a Jesus that can be anthropomorphized as a lion.
Well, maybe, but as someone said before Aslan during the crucifixion scene doesn't seem like much of a lion either. The whole point of the Christian account of the Gospels is that Jesus' allowing himself to get beat up and killed for the sake of humankind was a sacrifice, and the reason why it was a sacrifice was that he was God so he didn't have to go through all that but did it by choice. His meekness etc. throughout the Gospels wouldn't be nearly as noteworthy without the backstory.
As far as the Christmas bait-and-switch, my main point is that the story emphasizes the importance of Christ's humility (though God, he chose to come to earth in the form of the poor son of a carpenter), and it implies the existence of a positive, attractive trait (humility even in the presence of his own creation) which is promptly chucked out the window when Jesus II: Holy Balls Of Vengeance shows up with a flaming sword coming out of his mouth to nuke Gog and Magog, rule the world, and toss most of the human race into the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.
No, I meant for going after the most recent revealer of the One True Faith, CS Lewis. (This comment made in light of the New Yorker claim that CS Lewis is treated as a saint in many conservative Christian circles.)
Oh well. CS and I will laugh at your eternal torment together.
I'll just say that I have trouble with people claiming to know what the "whole point" of Christianity is, while disregarding much of what is actually said in the gospels.
I thought I took pains not to use the phrase "the whole point of Christianity." In any case, if the Gospels say A, and someone says A is especially noteworthy in light of B, I don't see how that's supposed to be disregarding A.
Am I the only one who HATED the Narnia books as a kid? I always thought they were grossly overdetermined, and condescending to boot.
In re. the Lion King, the racism argument at the time was actually that they Hyenas were black--ghettoized, and the characters whose voices were recognizably speaking black English. And it is true that Scar is dark, while Simba and his pop are golden blond lions.
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
Well, if you lived in a desert culture ruled over by kings, and that was the only system anybody had ever known, God being King of the Universe probably seems natural, particularly when you're tying to explain the whole thing to illiterates.
Why would you worship an entity that DID NOT create the universe, or at least the local ground? 'Some diety came along and we just sorta like him, so on our knees we got.'
As to whether God is/could/would be behaving rationally - how big is the psych ward you have to put God in to figure out if he/she/it is 5150 or not?
It would be mighty strange of me to treat that painting as some kind of subject or vassal simply because I had the power to create it.
Yeah, but a considerable fraction of the people who start businesses seem to create them primarily for the joy of establishing themselves as king. All that stops the analogy being perfect is the current lack of Asimovian robots.
Well, if you lived in a desert culture ruled over by kings, and that was the only system anybody had ever known, God being King of the Universe probably seems natural, particularly when you're tying to explain the whole thing to illiterates.
This is kind of my point, ash. Christians looking for converts often try to sell Christianity as unique, and therefore more likely to be true, than other religions (which are clearly made-up). One of the primary examples of its uniqueness is that the Jesus story frames Jesus as a servant, rather than a king. But the religion ultimately maintains the exact same "God-as-king" structure of every other world religion, and with good reason - it was informed by a worldview in which power was the authority of the king, so God had to be the biggest king there was.
Actually I think there is some value in having pointy-headed heathens (like me!) discussing this sort of thing because we don't have any particular personal conception of Christianity and are more inclined to see if the story matches any Christian's interpretation of the religion (rather than just our own, which is always a risk for Christians analyzing Christian allegory).
That said, I basically agree with text that they're just children's stories with some Christian themes thrown in. I liked them as a kid, and I had no idea they were Christian -- but then, I had basically no idea what Christianity was at the time. All I knew was Santy Claus.
Yeah, but a considerable fraction of the people who start businesses seem to create them primarily for the joy of establishing themselves as king.
There's a sizable disparity between the amount of power wielded by an employer over his employees and a theoretical world-creator over his universe (or a painter over his painting, for that matter) - so much so, in fact, that I suggest that it would never occur to most people to issue commandments to their pottery, or to threaten their houseplants with damnation. When we have power over other humans, who in any other circumstance might be our equals, that power is palpable because we're controlling things we instinctively perceive to be of great value: things very much like ourselves.
"Aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion" in many dialects (also "Arslan"). Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was the Chechen rebel leader until his death -- the Chechens aren't Turkish, but names get passed around.
"The Lion King" -- extremely unfair to hyenas. I believe that there are a number of natural-history inaccuracies in the film, but I can't remember what they are.
Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of "Beowulf".
Wow, am I late to this party! Fun times. Thanks for reading, Fontana. Substnatively, I think we just gotta go to the Gopnik:
The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory.
To which, I say, Adam Gopnik, you are so far from an officially acredited interpreted or monotheistic doctrine it's not funny: so don't front. The amazing, magical story of monotheistm is that The Good Guys are gonna win. They are stronger, they are better, and Satan is out of luck. It's Good News. Yes, we should not confuse the marks of wealth and pride with spiritual election, but monotheism is not about loving the underdog. Satan is the fucking underdog, and he's going down.
In this respect, LB's 79 is spot on. Think of the harrowing of hell. Jesus (much less The Lord of Hosts) is not just some sandal-wearing hippie dipshit. He's all about the righteous might. Remember when McCain won the New Hampshire primary, and it looked like he was going to topple Bush and dance on Gore? In a Christian universe it's that moment to the nth degree at all times: there is a unity of moral righteousnesss and ultimate might. It's pretty cool.
but I must ask you: what is this monotheism of which you speak -- the singular monotheism that you sum up so succinctly? Is that the religion practiced by the judeochristians one hears so much about?
I think the original kids get magically warped over to Narnia world unprepared, and are roughing it, and somehow they get bear meat, which they wrap around apples and roast over a fire
made me think of Gene Wolfe's "Tracking Song." There's an allegory for you! Maybe.
It's been so long since I read the books that I remember pretty much nothing, except Aslan scratching the princess's back in Horse and His Boy (as payback for the servant girl who was whipped when she escaped) and Lucy seeing the face of Aslan in the book Voyage when she was thinking of doing something she shouldn't ought to. And then eavesdropping on her friends and hearing them say nasty things about her. And that I didn't like the last two in-order-of-writing.
Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of "Beowulf".
I wouldn't say it was dishonest; I'm sure he genuinely believed it was a heavily Christian text. Also, he was the first to vigorously defend it as a masterpiece in itself rather than a window into the Altgermanische past, so props for that.
Props for defending the poem, but I think he was dishonest. He simply asserted that the book was deeply Christian and clerical in origin, but without argument or evidence in what I read, especially about the clerical part.
I went through the text looking for Christianity, and I did find monotheism, a passage on monsters loosely tied to the Bible, and a condemnation of pagans, but some of it looked pasted on, and the theology was very thin, with no Christ, no redemption, no Passion, no trinity, and so on. I really prefer the older theory that a pre-Christian work was retrofitted for Christianity.
A lot of the Christian touches he found were only there the way they are in Moby Dick or D H Lawrence, as subtle symbolism, but as far as I know Christians of that time always explained their messages explicitly. (There may also have been an analogy with people like Chaucer, who was deeply Christian though sometimes anti-clerical. But Chaucer and the Beowulf we are least 400 years apart, reallyin different worlds.)
Yeah, it's Judeochristian all the way to mormonism, my man!
Seriously, I do think a unifying philosophical strand in the major monotheisms (or at least Judaism and Xianity, Islam I simply don't know) is the basic goodness will triumph motif. It can be that we focus on this as a "the tables are turmed!" moment with respect to the popular kids in high school (or in liberation theology, the rich landowners). This is what Gopnik clearly imagines. And, let's be frank, it's a lazy, politicized, spiritually anemic vision of the inherent radicalism of of monotheism. Maybe, maybe, if you are a Haitian peasant, this version of politico-spiritual radicalism makes lots of sense -- just wait till you see what Jesus has planned for you, you aristocratic Tonton Macoute backing scumbags! -- but for Gopnik it's just inexcusable to try to cram a round Jesus peg into a square political hole. It is just wrong -- and wrong in a predicatable, lefty, politicized way -- to think that The Message of Christianity is that socially marginal = good. No, it's that the ruler of the universe = good. That's just a bigger message.
What huh? Is Christianity = monotheism? Since when? Last time I checked, most of the Catholic churches I attended did, indeed, teach that the Christ part of Christianity--the gospels part--was, in fact, about the socially marginal in a hell of a lot of ways.
"There's a sizable disparity between the amount of power wielded by an employer over his employees and a theoretical world-creator over his universe [...] it would never occur to most people to issue commandments to their pottery, or to threaten their houseplants with damnation."
But that disanalogy is subtle enough not to occur to most people.
Yeah, fer sure. But to center the message on the socially marginal is already a category error. God's bigger than our politics and our class prejudices. So he must also be bigger than the inversion of our politics and class prejucices, right?
Yeah, fer sure. But to center the message on the socially marginal is already a category error. God's bigger than our politics and our class prejudices. So he must also be bigger than the inversion of our politics and class prejucices, right?
I think what baa's saying is that there's nothing inherently *good* about *remaining* socially marginalized. That's the promise of the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs."
It's not "Blessed are the poor, and they should stay poor and meek because that's good." it's basically, one day, you who are stuck being meek will get a chance to kick ass, too.
The amazing, magical story of monotheistm is that The Good Guys are gonna win. They are stronger, they are better, and Satan is out of luck. It's Good News. Yes, we should not confuse the marks of wealth and pride with spiritual election, but monotheism is not about loving the underdog. Satan is the fucking underdog, and he's going down.
I don't think that's the case. Most of the gospel stories I remember are, precisely, about inverting social status. The fact that that seems too simple to us in post-Marxist 21st century ways doesn't really have a whole lot of bearing on a text written two thousand years ago (roughly).
Fine, but this says nothing about how one should live one's life. It says only that, in the end, Good shall triumph over Evil. It doesn't say how. The extension of it to a system of living is normally read into the bible, and it does, often enough, have to do with bettering the lot of those less fortunate.
Are there other ways to read it? Of course. But you seem to be making a stronger argument than that.
Ah, Joe O, that only applies to Catholicism. Somehow Protestants have gotten rid of the whole spirit thing and see God and Jesus as one. It's we Catholics who are the damned polytheists, what with our saints and our Virgin Mary--except that, of course, as any good Catholic would tell you, none of those things challenge the supremacy of the one God.
Isn't it only inverting the social status because the poor and the meek get to kick ass, though? It's not much of a story if Aslan and the kids give up and keep eating bear meat and apples over secretive fires.
I think it's right, though, to say that even the Gospel stories aren't wholly about rescuing the poor and ill (washing Jesus' feet with expensive oils, he doesn't demand that they be sold, etc); God's after people's souls. It happens to be easier to get those souls when people are poor and meek, and it's good for people's souls to help the poor and meek and not be pre-occupied with material possessions, but eternal salvation's the Big Promise along with some Satan Ass-kicking.
Look, I know that there's a very strong "invert the social order" message to the Gospel. True enough. But if this were *all* Christianity was, Nietszche would be right: it would be slave morality. It isn't just the F(x) = -x function applied to our current performed order of respect and deference. God's order is just not a political order, an exaltation of the rich, the poor, the lucky, the unlucky. That's what I mean by spiritual anemia: a desire to read some favored politics off of monotheism in an uncontroversial way.
And SCMT, you are of course right that God beign the winner does not tell us how to live. But Lewis does not say that being godly = obeying the king, the queen, the rich. It's about doing what is right. Of course this means charity, the liberation of slaves, and all that good stuff. But it does not mean that any identification with the good, the bold, or the successful is ungodly, or imperfectly Christian. Does Moses only get to be a prophet if he fails to liberate the Israelites?
I don't claim to have the gospels down to one succinct message. But here's one thing that's in there, for sure:
we have responsibilities for each other. Or, better yet, we are responsible for each other. And we are failing over and over again to meet those responsibilities. The poor aren't blessed because they are poor, but because they aren't rich -- that is, they don't have these resources that they aren't spending on their fellow men. There's nothing feel-good about Jesus' teachings. There's nothing in there about sitting back and waiting for good to win, because it will, and that will be sweet. You should be troubled after reading the gospels. If you feel smug instead, you're doing it wrong. In other words, baa, you are the anti-christ.
No, and I dislike a lot of the muscular Christianity rhetoric, especially since it is so often tied to political causes that are anti-Christian (torture, maybe?) or just really unrelated ('God wants you to be a fiscal conservative' -- what???)
I don't know about more textual or institutional; but it's pretty clear that the Satan Ass-Kicking isn't supposed to mean people get to kick each other's ass, or a celebration of being wealthy, but a triumph over death kinda thing. Maybe you get issued a big sword once you're dead and get to take on a demon.
Here it's supposed to be about helping poor people, loving thy neighbor, and helping them get a chance to pwn a demon, maybe, too.
Of course not, B-wo! I screwed up and posted twice, and thus decided to blame the single least likely person to do that. (assuming that everyone would understand that it was me) My apologies!
Maybe you get issued a big sword once you're dead and get to take on a demon.
I think the "kingdom" of the Pevensie children should be understood in exactly this way. Everyone gets to be king in Narnia. In "The Magician's Nephew", a cockney cab driver becomes the first King of Narnia. In "Prince Caspain" we learn that Caspian (and all his line) are decendents of murderous pirates. The idea is: you were born to be Kings and Queens of the Earth, behave with appropriate nobility!
I think there's a lot of room for joy in the message, though, text: 'O death, where is thy sting?' and all that. It doesn't mean to do nothing and sit around being self-congratulatory, but it's a pretty cool promise.
There are two messages here:
Death sucks.
God defeated death.
This is pretty fucking sweet. (The only proper response is joy, or at least relief.)
God said to love even the smallest person like she was God.
You wouldn't let God starve and be cold and hungry, would you?
(One might note that while some of my theological training made it as far as Aquinas, the basics stopped pretty much around age 8).
The Narnia stories don't deal with the daily grind of caring for the poor and meek; they're all about the promise of the kingdom of heaven for even cabdrivers and schoolkids. Peter even gets a sword!
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
Versus
But the religion ultimately maintains the exact same "God-as-king" structure of every other world religion, and with good reason - it was informed by a worldview in which power was the authority of the king, so God had to be the biggest king there was.
If God exists, how Christians interpret God isn't necessarily how God IS so much as how he is perceived.
If you start with the assumption that God does not exist, then pointing out that Christianity is often similar in hierarchial structure to other religions is fine (and I'd agree). But you seem to be arguing that that is because the God that doesn't exist wouldn't be sane.
Depending on how I want to slice that, either it's a tautology, a self-negating loop, or a statement of implicit solipcism (in which instance, you should stop arguing with yourself, since you're going to win, unless you're insane).
Let's please keep in mind that in the context of Christianity, "good" means "Christians," "bad" means "everybody who doesn't figure out that Christianity is true," and "ass-kicking" amounts to "God sends everyone who guesses wrong to hell to eternal wailing and gnashing of teeth."
170 sums it up for me. I'll go back to retirement. baa, you are not the anti-christ. I feel as though we reason in the same manner to opposite conclusions, creating headache for me.
If only that pdf fellow were here, he'd show us how reasoning always leads to agreement. In conclusion, Aslan eats his own poo.
174: Depends. Catholicism doesn't hold ex cathedra any more, I don't know about most of the mainline Protestant sects, but a lot of them are kind of wishy-washy on sin, so I don't think so and C.S. Lewis allows his pretend-Hindu-man into heaven because he is following his conscience and doing the right things. Fundies think that, but fundies think Catholics aren't Christian either so they're obviously out of their damn minds.
There's a real problem here with even just using the term "Christianity." There are a lot of theological variations under that name. Are we talking Calvinist predestination, Methodist populism and focus on free will, Catholic Marianism, post-Vatican II Catholicism, those weird Sedevacantists, high church & state Anglicanism, or what? Because they all have different attitudes towards social inequality, justice, peace, power, the relation of church and state....
I'm glad if you agree with my opinion as-presented, that Aslan parallels the Trinity better than Christ. I simply hadn't seen you actually agreeing with me.
I'll try to be more specific. Much of what makes Christianity a religion per se (as opposed to a sort of collection of instructions for being nice to people) is a very particularly mystical sort of redemption story. It's awfully hard* to get around the notion that Jesus isn't just dying because of some goofy cosmic screw-up, but that his death, in and of itself, is supposed to accomplish something. It's equally hard** to get around the notion that he died specifically to redeem mankind, which leads us to ask the question, "redeem them from what?" Which leads us to sin and hell and all that. You could get pretty figurative about all those things, and say that sin isn't real or hell is a metaphor or something, but again, it's pretty dicey territory (the New Testament gets a lot more explicit about this sort of thing than you'd think).
If you do accept a literal hell - and from every poll I've seen, the majority of Christians to - you've got a God who specifically creates a place of eternal torment and damnation, and then sets up a religion as the means to avoid that place, which is kind of a nasty God.
(*you can do it, but it involves chucking out huge chunks of the text, as WELL as tradition, teachings of "church fathers," etc., at which point you might as well be a Unitarian - not like that's necessarily a bad thing)
I've re-read 173 several times and have no idea what ash is saying there, much less where he's disagreed with me in this thread.
I reread what you first wrote 173 times and couldn't make sense of that. The part that hung me up was:
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
But it doesn't say anything about whether God exists or not, or even whether a specific religion is true, unless you decide that the given religion (the diety described is presumably a separate entity from the religion itself) encompasses all that the diety is. God could be described as ruling the universe like a king, but that doesn't mean that that is the way he is running a show, only that his worshippers describe it that way. In any event tho, if you accept that God exists and demands to be worshipped as a king, that doesn't prove he doesn't exist, it proves you think he exists and insane.
If you are saying that a diety that created the universe demanding to be worshipped as a king doesn't seem true to you, well then, fine, that's a matter of personal opinion. (If your personal opinion dictates whether God exists or not, that's solipcism.)
Wait a second, baa. Good triumphs, but not after the battle, where Han and Luke accept their laurels. Reward is eternal reward, meted out after we're dead. In this life, no outcome is guaranteed, and all that's left to us is to live the proper life. You're right that weakness != goodness, but it doesn't follow that strength = goodness, either. In fact, much of the gospels are devoted to teaching us that the earthly categories don't correspond to the holy ones. You make this point, but then say that good triumphs. Well, yes, eventually, but not in any necessarily recognizable (or even cognizable) way. And the problem with an allegory in which the Lion comes back to rule isn't that it's wrong, because we don't know that, but that it fails to note the possible gap between the earthly and holy.
On re-reading your complaint, I don't understand it. Toynbee is arguing against a specific description of Christianity. You are arguing that he misreads that description. I think. But it's not as if his reading of that discription isn't comprehensible. We do see what he sees - it's the same thing we react against (if so inclined) in real world muscular Christianity theology. So it may be political, but it's not crazy.
I recall that the reason I didn't like 6 and 7 was not enough battle--7 ends with several chapters of boring stuff, and 6 is all boring stuff--which provides support for someone's view.
But what I'm here to say is, Toynbee's name is Polly.
I don't know much about the mechanics of hell, but I do know that Catholicism, while believing in sin and hell and redemption, and while believing that Jesus' dying was necessary to get that redemption working, doesn't hold that a person goes to hell automatically if she isn't Catholic or Christian.
Basically the idea is that Jesus died for everyone, and if you haven't heard of Jesus, but live a moral life according to your conscience, God ain't going to make you burn just due to an accident of birth. That's been roughly the Church's position since they discovered there was a whole continent of people that hadn't been saved. Now, conversion is still important because you're guaranteed heaven if you believe in Jesus, but you're not totally out of luck otherwise. (It's a little more complicated, but that's close enough.)
Tim, not so much, I don't think. I think she just doesn't get Christianity:
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.
This doesn't sound like someone who thinks Christianity is fine and dandy, but thinks the Narnia portrayal focuses too much on the Satanic Ass-Kicking and not enough on Love thy Neighbor, but someone's whose just not onboard with having to explain, like, why Aslan's alive again.
Agreed that Toynbee's hostile to Christianity. That said, the part quoted by baa and FL stands on its own as its own critique of Lewis's instantiation of Christianity. And again, it's a perfectly comprehensible critique that could and has been made by people who are Christian. Indeed, note above that baa takes as related Gopnik's criticism, which baa then describes as a deracinated version of liberation theology, itself a Catholic (if not approved) product.
baa, that post is what is wrong with America. And yet reading it, I like you. It makes me very sad.
To make a similarly broad statement, this is what America thinks is wrong with liberalism.
Seriously, why is monotheism's enthusiasm for whipping evil's ass (as in baa's account) wrong? We're speaking in purely theoretical absolutes. There is nothing wrong with good triumphing over evil in the abstract. It's the identification of the respective parties that's the problem. Once/if you can ID evil its ass ought to be whipped, tautological-style.
what's wrong is that it is self-satisfying. It presents the obvious part of the story while ignoring the difficult, and (I think) more important part. The gospels take it as a given that good will triumph -- frankly, I think there's little space devoted to that trope -- and concentrate on what it is to live well.
The problem with concentrating on the "let's whip evil's ass" aspect of religion -- conceding for the moment that the aspect even exists -- is that it allows you to assume that you are on the good side. It's lazy, frankly. In my mind, it completely misses the point of religion.
And one more thing: thinking of religion as being about kicking evil's ass has often (and is presently) led to kicking ass for no good reason at all.
Tim, I get that, but I think the mistake is that while it's a one-sided version of Christianity,no one's claiming this is all there is to Christianity. You only get there if you can't even grant that the resurrection might be kind of cool.
And frankly, I don't think LW&Ws terribly muscle-bound; the Pevensies aren't storming through England's public schools fighting Evil, or fighting evolution or fat atheist scientists, but in a fantasy world they get to be kings and queens for a little while and save all the forest animals. When they go back to England, they're normal kids who lost their flashlight in Narnia.
also, what's wrong with it is what ogged said: the good triumphing part comes not in this world, and we have no idea what form it will take. All we can accurately predict for our own lives is pain. I would fo so far as to say that pain is the purpose of life -- to suffer pain and yet live the good life, to sublimate, which is the formation of the soul. I'm cribbing that from Tolstoy, and doing a poor job of it.
This rah rah stuff, it's a good way to stop thinking about the consequences of your own actions.
Then there is the fact that Aslan eats his own poo, which we have only barely touched on.
The text refers to the breath of Aslan as having a powerful, terrifying effect. That is so because he eats his own poo. Often it is written that Aslan's roar debilitates his opponents. Of course, that is a euphemism, one that we as readers are meant to see through, quite readily, given the tools at hand. For what is a roar, but a collection of sound, a reverberation felt within the ear, a sensation. It could make one afraid, sure, but not physically debilitate.
Yet when we consider the roar as not just the sound that emits, but the particles of poo in the air -- for it is the air particles reverberating that create the sound, and in this case, particles of poo within the air -- it becomes self-evident that the roar, vis-a-vis the poo that carries the roar, is a debilitating force indeed. For poo carries cooties, and when one eats one's own poo, the strength of the cooties is multiplied several score.
Which would also explain why Aslan's breath is so very hot. And why he goes away for long periods of time: it is shameful to eat one's poo in public.
I agree that the rah-rah stuff leads to bad outcomes, but I don't think that means it ought to or can be ignored. I tended to tune out during those parts of the church service, but they were definitely there, every week. And I was raised Presbyterian, for pete's sake -- hardly a fire and brimstone denomination.
It seems like the main objection to the Aslan/Christ formulation is that it doesn't take pains to invalidate our tendency toward a might=right heuristic in the way that the bible does. Pointing out the flaws in that idea is a big deal in Christianity, but I'm not sure it's the biggest. The frequency with which some Christians ignore it entirely is galling, but I'm prepared to let the Narnia books off the hook, given their intended audience.
I like LW&W very much myself. I think we are disagreeing here: I think the mistake is that while it's a one-sided version of Christianity,no one's claiming this is all there is to Christianity.
To the extent there is a unitary Christianity, its requirements are fairly minimal. Beyond that, we are talking about a number of variants of Christianity. Christianity as viewed through Lewis's eyes looks and feels very different from Christianity viewed through Graham Greene's eyes, for example. I take Toynbee to be saying that Lewis's Christianity is of a particular type, and that he doesn't much like that type, for certain reasons. I don't know how much textual support there is for claiming that the LW&W presents a muscular Christianity view of the world, but I think it's fair to claim that Lewis himself espoused such a view.
I don't see where the coolness of resurrection enters into it, I'm afraid. AFAIK, Christians after Lewis's own heart and Christians who find his brand of Christianity discomfitting both believe in resurrection and think it's cool.
Since people keep asking other people what they thought of Narnia, my last answer is here. (Some other recent Lewis posts here, here, here, here, here.)
I fear I don't think I have anything new to say about Lewis in this thread, otherwise.
"Perhaps he's an insane god who lies to himself and us."
Made for decent stories for Harlan Ellison and Lester del Rey, and arguably James Blish, and Mary Doria Russell, among many others. (David Zindell, Michael Moorcock, and if one goes in another direction perhaps Greg Egan, and in another direction, perhaps Phil Dick.)
""Aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion" in many dialects (also "Arslan")."
Ever read M. J. Engh's novel? (Kneejerk association for me.)
"Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of 'Beowulf'."
Having just tried to do another riff off that well-known auteur, Professor "Tolkein," about an hour ago, and been earnestly told I should read his books, I'll just say nothing. That's the ticket.
Has anyone ever resolved why Hagrid wasn't given a second chance after the student who turned him in turned out to be the Dark Lord? It would seem that would call for a retrial, is all I'm sayin'.
The text refers to the breath of Aslan as having a powerful, terrifying effect. That is so because he eats his own poo.
You're on the wrong track here. Rabbits are creatures who eat their own poo, and neither they nor their breath has a powerful terrifying effect.
Cellulose needs a lot of digesting, and various creatures solve the problem in various way. Rabbits (which are not rodents any more, thank you) solve the problem by running everything through twice.
It couldn't be C.S. Lewis's mistake. There's some subtle point of his which is being missed.
Aslan the Turkish rabbit/lion -- that's where you have to start.
Tim: Toynbee's problem with LW&W, specifically the part quoted here, doesn't seem to stem from even a basic understanding of Christianity or really of the books. I don't think it's fair to say of Narnia that its message is war-happy politics and rewarding the rich at all; it's a fairy tale, and it's a fairy tale only of one small part of Christianity.
There's a difference between, I think, the critiques going on in this thread (mostly that Aslan isn't a good avatar of social justice, and that the Narnia stories aren't a perfect allegory or Gospel material) and "Wow, that incarnation sure is repugnant. Plus, it's a brand of Christianity only Bush supporters could identify with because I once heard that the poor shall inherit the earth and these kids are KINGS. Duh! Kings aren't poor!"
Point is, I think the tensions between Lewis' Narnia are a little more subtle than the picture Toynbee presents, and I'm not so sure that her lack of charity isn't due to her worries that she might (oh, horrors) have to explain why Aslan comes back from the dead.
I'm left to wonder what a good allegory of "the meek shall inherit the earth" would be. The "inheriting the earth" part suggests that those who are socially marginalized will end up ruling something; in Christianity generally, this is interpreted spiritually, but , ordinary kids (war refugees, even) and ordinary (if talking) animals winning over a cruel, exotic Witch and a pack of fierce wolves and monsters doesn't really seem like a bad symbolism.
I'm enjoying the thing where someone stumbling across this thread by googling "Anal-Ease" will have to scroll down all the way to comment 227 to find it.
Tripp, can you do a Cockney accent? Because Mr. Beaver is a really fun part with lots of comic potential. My dad was once Mr. Beaver, which is how I know of this musical's existence. Also, presumably you could play Aslan/Father Christmas/the guy in the beginning who turns out to be the kid from Magician's Nephew whose name I can't remember, i.e. the star. That requires a lot of singing though. (Do you sing?)
I'm trying like gangbusters to make a dirty joke about comma splices and Swedish gymnasts in response to 231, but i can't come up with one.
Also, I hesitate to wade into all this, since I'm not Christian and my only Christian education ended when I left Episcopal School at age 8, but aren't the wolves, etc. who are cast down after Aslan's return not properly understood as the meek of the earth but as the demons of Hell? Thus, it's not a social but a metaphysical order that Aslan restores.
Everybody can do a cockney accent - the question is how well. As for singing - reasonably well. I'm not quitting my day job, but my singing doesn't seem to frighten the animals either.
So your father played Mr. Beaver? Hmmm. For starters the character name is great - but I hope this was years ago when your father was younger. I'd prefer you think of me as your older brother. Maybe an older cousin, or perhaps as that mysterious charming gentleman from out west.
I haven't see WTL and I don't know a lot about Johnny Cash. But my internet friends say that it completely glosses over the fact that Cash was almost kicked to death by an ostrich. I don't want to see a movie made by the type of people who think a country star getting attacked by an ostrich isn't worth committing to film.
241: You could see it that way, but I don't think it's a very good construction. The wolves and all the other nasty looking fellows are corporeal beings. They walk around Narnia like everyone else, and they can die. My construction -- the nasty creatures are the meek -- doesn't hold up perfectly either. I'm not trying to show that Lewis intended my construction, but rather that the work doesn't really hold up as a religious parable under close analysis.
What I find more interesting today is the passage where the wolves perform annilingus on the white witch, while the amputated dwarves jerk themelves into the golden chalice, until the one twitchy dwarf OD's on turkish delight. That part was pretty sweet.
Toynbee's just got the books wrong. Not sure if he's read them, but they're really a lot of fun: a mishmash of mythology (there's a bacchanale, minus the wine and nudity, in the second book), fighting an evil Witch who has enslaved a magical fairy land with the help of a magical lion, redeeming the younger brother who is tempted and sides with the Witch, and then getting crowned kings of Narnia-fairy-land because they won the war.
Yes, it is a heavy-handed Christian metaphor. Lewis isn't terribly good at being subtle, and as a child I felt vaguely icky when I read it -- couldn't figure out if Lewis was mocking Christianity or not. (I was young. Couldn't see the point of parody.) Aslan is a Christ figure. We get it already.
But it's not really a story of how God is on the side of the strong, white, and rich any more; it's basically a fairy tale where the ordinary children save an oppressed land with magical creatures with a badly written Christ stand-in.
What's next, a screed against Harry Potter because the kid is dubbed the Chosen One in book six, and that shows that rulebreakers are really the best, bravest students?
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 1:51 PM
The Toynbee piece bugged me, too. The crowning imagery aside, anyone who thinks that Lewis didn't thoroughly understand and thoughtfully deal with anti-Christian arguments is someone who hasn't read the Screwtape Letters.
But I read the Narnia books once when I was too young to understand them, and haven't revisited them, so I can't remember how specifically objectionable the Christian imagery might be. My guess is "not very".
We should also keep in mind that it was written for children, who might not be attuned or amenable to the subtleties of the religion. Kids start out liking Superman, not Rorschach.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 1:55 PM
There was a funny piece on Lewis in the NYer recently, and, if I remember it right, Lewis went through a "God only gives you the suffering you can bear" phase, which really is so vapid as to deserve a punch in the mouth. He got better after his wife got the bone cancer, I think is the story, but this recollection is hazy.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:00 PM
Did you see Gopnik's piece on this? I thought this was really good.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:00 PM
Wait, wait... I thought Christianity was a Mithraic myth. Doesn't the transitive property factor into this somewhere?
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:03 PM
Yes, that's the thing I was thinking of. Thanks for being less lazy.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:03 PM
My recollection is a bit... fogged... since I read it a long time ago, but isn't Aslan insulted, humiliated, shorn of hair, and so on, before undergoing a crucifixion of sorts? He's a lion but goes through rather a lot.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:06 PM
Sounds like a fraternity prank to me.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:09 PM
Also it's worth pointing out that LW&W, at least, is patterned on classic fairy tales. In fairy tales there isn't a lot of subtlety: the youngest child is always the most worthy and, if not the most beautiful, will be the most beautiful by the end of the story; witches are ugly and cruel; the peasant's third son always is the one to defeat the tricky troll and gain the princess's hand and up to half the kingdom, payable in monthly installments.
So the little Narniaette kids go on an adventure, slay the evil Witch, and capture the kingdom.
Now, such a warped version of reality might be a reason to reject a fairy tale (I think not), but as such, it's not a criticism of Lewis specifically nor of his Christianity.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:09 PM
I think the animal form is just supposed to be a reflection of soul, and makes the humiliation more dramatic. The child thinking, They're treating him so badly but he's really a lion.
Even atheist Philip Pullman sort of borrows that notion--the animal form/daemon as the spirit.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:10 PM
The Gopnik excerpt highlights the fundamental problem with Narnia's Christianity, and I don't think it can be explained away with, "Lewis wrote the screwtape letters, so he must have thought about this stuff, and can't be so obviously wrong." In fact, he was.
I think a better way to look at the Narnia books is as regular children's books, which happen to feature a christ-figure, and not as any serious kind of commentary on religion. The last book aspires to more, and it fails. As children's fantasy books, they are pretty good. Lots of literature has christ-figures, and we don't demand that those works adhere all that rigorously to gospel doctrine. See, e.g., Faulkner. In those works, the christ-figure serves purely literary functions. So it is in the Narnia books.
The problem is that Lewis' works are pushed forward as having something interesting to say about religion. I just don't think they do. I think it says something about the people who push them forward -- perhaps they'd rather have a Christianity with a Lion-Christ who reinforces the social structure, supports wars agaisnt the infidels, and otherwise makes rich people feel comfortable.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:15 PM
Aslan gets treated bad for one night, and then gets sacrificed. Otherwise we get to think of him as a lovely, strong lion, with big teeth to protect us. And then he leads the children into war.
It's all fine, so long as you don't take it for more than it is.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:19 PM
I think a better way to look at the Narnia books is as regular children's books, which happen to feature a christ-figure, and not as any serious kind of commentary on religion.
This is exactly right.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:23 PM
I read the books literally dozens of times apiece as a child, and have fond memories of them, but I'm with text -- they're not very good as allegories. in some cases they're awful: the imperialist and racist attitudes in the books makes Rudyard Kipling look like Howard Zinn.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:25 PM
I think it means something that the evil bits were the best part. When the Faun betrays Lucy, and, of course, the Turkish Delight scene. Maybe he just had to tack on the Christ part to disguise his true theme: e-vil is interesting.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:28 PM
btw: Narnia was an actual ancient city in Italy during the early Roman Empire, or so my volume of Tacitus says, in one of the maps.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:28 PM
Shouldn't we be keeping in mind that this all happens to a Lion in a magical land? Christ's underdog status is only relevant so far as it relates to our earthly, material, un-Narnian world. That side of the character is pretty decisively discarded once you start talking about his metaphysical aspects.
If the Narnia books are supposed to be some sort of muppet retelling of the new testament, they clearly miss the point. If they're supposed to be a fairy tale about Jesus's immediate religious relevance to the child reading the book, it seems like the lion imagery is less problematic.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:28 PM
muppet retelling of the new testament
This made me laugh out loud.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:30 PM
Yes -- Kipling is better on those issues than he's often given credit for, and Lewis is worse.
Did anyone else who liked them find this complicated by liking the other books in the series far more than LW&W? The last one is lame, but the middle five are far more entertaining than LW&W, and while written in an explicitly Christian framework, are less allegorical and more just fantasy.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:30 PM
18: wanna collaborate on a treatment?
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:30 PM
(by which I mean "send me checks")
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:31 PM
If the Narnia books are supposed to be some sort of muppet retelling of the new testament, they clearly miss the point. If they're supposed to be a fairy tale about Jesus's immediate religious relevance to the child reading the book, it seems like the lion imagery is less problematic.
This too -- there's something that I find disturbing about a bunch of secular humanists (of whom I'm one) telling a Christian that his theology is incorrect in Christian terms. It's not impossible: one can be thoroughly educated in theology without any particular belief in it. Still, it seems likely that the Christian is going to have a better grasp of the fundamentals of his faith.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:33 PM
Really, LB? I think LW&W is, far and away, the best one. Voyage of the Dawn Treader, on the other hand, seems like it was tossed off before teatime one day.
Prince Caspian is pretty good, but only if you're into the idea of animals conducting a guerrilla war against the BAD white rulers in favor of a GOOD white ruler.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:35 PM
I liked Voyage of the Dawn Treader the best. But The Silver Chair is pretty awful. Then again, I was 8 or 9, and just trying to plow through the books at that point.
ac's enjoyment of the E-vil might have more to do with ac than cs, my hypothesis.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:36 PM
from what I recall, at the end of each book, there is at least one full chapter devoted to jolly celebration, and sometimes two chapters. That can get tedious.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:38 PM
alright, now that I've said it, this thing is casting itself:
- Miss Piggy Magdalene
- Animal as Barrabus
- Bunsen and Beaker as the Pharisees
- Kermit on the cross, examining the nails: "Hrmm"
I think Rolf would make a solid John the Baptist.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:38 PM
What I do find interesting, though, is the different slants that Lewis gives on traditional Christian ideas. The Judas character is humanized and is forgiven after repenting, and ends up rewarded with a coronation. There's a touch of Unitarianism in the last book (one guy who worshipped "Tash" all his life is told that he was really worshipping Aslan all his life, since he was honorable, and all honorable things done in Tash's name get somehow transferred to Aslan). The white master stuff is really, really troubling, though.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:39 PM
Re: the underdog complaint. The lamb certainly isn't the only image of Christ; he's compared to a lamb when sacrificed, a shepherd when caring for the meek and lowly, but he also is portrayed as a bit of a badass with the sword and flame in the second coming and all.
Aslan isn't reinforcing the status quo, which seems to be Toynbee's objection; all the magical animals in Narnia are magical, but they are meek, lowly, and out of power.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:39 PM
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, on the other hand, seems like it was tossed off before teatime one day.
Now, I haven't read it since I was a kid, but I loved that "What if Herodotus was right, and when you travelled you actually found really, really strange stuff?" aspect of Dawn Treader. I liked A Horse and His Boy (like everything that mentions the Calormenes, of course, problematic racismwise) a great deal as well (and that one fits much more comfortably into the 'last shall be first' paradigm) and was really fond of the Silver Chair, mostly for Puddleglum and his drinking problem ("Respectawiggle.").
I liked the series a great deal, but never found myself going back to LW&W, at least not nearly as much as the others.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:40 PM
My memory is hazy on all but LW&W (which I am currently reading to Sylvia and quite enjoying) but I seem to recall liking Prince Caspian a lot. But I seem to recall liking all of them. This was ~27 years ago now.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:40 PM
- Miss Piggy Magdalene
Nah, the Virgin Piggy. Janice makes a better Magdalene.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:42 PM
- Kermit on the cross, examining the nails: "Hrmm"
Really, really, nice.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:44 PM
I seem to recall The Magician's Nephew being my favorite, because it explains everything. (Which I appreciated even more than e-vil.)
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:44 PM
I also remember liking Voyage of the Dawn Treader the best (I didn't read more than 3 or 4 of them, though), plus I learned later that it has a Travels of Sir John Mandeville thing to it.
On the other hand, I'm still waiting for the 8th book in the series, C. S. Luther's 95 Theses of Narnia.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:45 PM
I like The Silver Chair largely because of the Orwellian scene in which the underworld witch makes everyone believe that there's no sun, there's no sky, and there's no Aslan. That sort of thing (like the "I will not tell lies" cutting in Order of the Phoenix) is sort of terrifying to me. Even in the kids books, twisting the truth and rewriting people's memories and forcing them to say that up is down and black is white practically gives me nightmares.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:45 PM
Also, Stadler and Waldorf as a sort of joint Pontious Pilate.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:46 PM
Pontius
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:47 PM
Narnia is now present day Narni. Perhaps there are magical talking animals there.
re: 28 -- Christ is just never a lion, especially before he is crucified. Think of the opposite of a lion: that would be Jesus. And what Aslan does in LW&W is restore the rightful social order -- which the Queen had usurped -- as a monarchy. He doesn't raise up the lowly, but rather puts the lowly back in their place.
I personally don't think that LW&W should have to stand up as a rendition of the gospel, but if anyone wants to assert that it does, I will fight you on it.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:48 PM
Christ is just never a lion, especially before he is crucified. Think of the opposite of a lion: that would be Jesus.
Throwing the moneychangers out of the temple?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:48 PM
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Matthew 10:34
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:50 PM
Right but a lion would have eaten the moneychangers.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:51 PM
Hey speaking of lions, anybody else have a problem with Disney's "The Lion King"? Sylvia is way into this movie and it seems toxic to me.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:52 PM
Never liked it all that much, but I can't say it set off any major alarms for me. What bothers you?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:54 PM
it seems toxic to me.
Speak not your blasphemous words.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:54 PM
The score is pretty toxic.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:55 PM
Jeremy,
As well it should. You've got a song telling kids to slack off and then there are fornicating jackals with their smoke messages.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:56 PM
Though I could see the whole "destined to be king" thing bugging people.
A sociology prof I once had said that Scar was supposed to be a representation of a black person, and thus, the movie was racist. Which seemed a little over the top to me.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:57 PM
This too -- there's something that I find disturbing about a bunch of secular humanists (of whom I'm one) telling a Christian that his theology is incorrect in Christian terms.
Why? If the Bible is (or can be) a text like any other.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:57 PM
Oh, and the obviously gay uncle . . .
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 2:57 PM
Right, Jesus throws out the moneychangers, and says "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
But Jesus doesn't wield the sword. People don't cower from him, nor did he look like a king. He looked as far from a king as one can. Which makes throwing out the moneychangers a much more interesting act -- it is surprising. He couldn't have done it from mere intimidation. It's the little guy, standing up for himself, showing strength that was not apparent.
That, to me, is more interesting than a scary looking bad ass kicking ass in a scary manner. But who knows, the gospels themselves are kind of difficult to make sense of.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:00 PM
and was really fond of the Silver Chair, mostly for Puddleglum and his drinking problem ("Respectawiggle.").
Puddleglum made that book my absolute favorite, hands down. With his constant griping and his slurred speech he came across as a mythical, more froglike version of my dad. In the BBC version, he's played by Tom Baker, who was another iconic figure from my childhood (Doctor Who). Together they came together to overpower all sense of Liony Jesusness and helped me realize I didn't care much about going to heaven, I just wanted a robot dog.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:01 PM
The score is pretty toxic.
That of course, and the way the prey animals need a strong, charismatic predator to rule over them -- when Simba or his father is king, the shots of the prey animals grazing in contentment and looking rapturously up to Pride Rock make me sick; when Scar has usurped the throne, I can't remember exactly but there was a shot that made it clear the prey animals were longing for their old, benevolent predator. That was the whole backbone of the movie.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:01 PM
It's just Hamlet without all the interesting indecision and monologues. Oh, and Nala doesn't commit suicide because Simba convinces her that he is mad.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:01 PM
Scar was supposed to be a representation of a black person
Aren't they all supposed to be black, if thought of as people? The setting is Africa, after all.
I found the "Zebras really respect your right to tear their guts out" bit of it weird, admittedly.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:02 PM
Together they came together to overpower all sense of Liony Jesusness and helped me realize I didn't care much about going to heaven, I just wanted a robot dog.
This sentence is magic.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:02 PM
Why? If the Bible is (or can be) a text like any other.
Because Christian theology is not simply contained within the Bible -- there's the church fathers, other tradition, etc.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:06 PM
Re 4, and its descendent comments, esp. 12 and 38,
Lewis's emphasis is clearly on transcendent God becoming human, paying for sins etc. etc. Not so much on a historical Jesus. That's actually pretty common throughout evangelicalism.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:10 PM
Jeremy, it's been a while, but I remember thinking it was gross for similar reasons. My (by now very, very vague) recollection is that Scar is demonized specifically for being intelligent. Also, I found the faux feminism kind of grating too. If you're going to make a movie in which the females sit around lamenting the absence of a male leader, and finally on a big pilgrimage to restore their him to the throne, than don't have the female cub beat the male cub in a wrestling match. It's hypocritical.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:12 PM
Wait, wait... I thought Christianity was a Mithraic myth. Doesn't the transitive property factor into this somewhere?
If you knew exactly what the Mithraic myths were, you could say that. But nobody actually knows.
If you can tell me what all that business with the bull and the dog and the sacrifice and the guys with the torches is actually intended to mean, I could say.
If you were going to be fairly literal, I'd think the bull sacrifice would be closer to the burnt offerings made in the Temple in Jerusalem than anything else. Which was one of the things Jesus was (ostensibly) against.
ash
['Who's next? Ah, a bunny? Right.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:12 PM
In ancient London, Toynbee wandered the streets of Narnia seeking knowledge.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:13 PM
my take on "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword":
that the immediate ramifications of Jesus' life would not be world peace, but rather, lots of people killing each other, the disciples being tortured and killed, and the eventual destruction of Jerusalem.
I suppose you could take the passage to mean: "I am going to kick some ass now." But I think that interpretation jives less well with the rest of the text.
Of course, we can blame a certain medieval scribe for the loss of Jesus' subsequent phrase, bringing the entire passage much further into light: "at the mineshaft."
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:17 PM
Text, it is actually pretty rare that something here makes me laugh out loud, rather than just stimulating my cleverness appreciation ganglia, but that was one such thing.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:19 PM
I aim to please.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:20 PM
I guess I'm just saying that Aslan being a lion doesn't bother me; fairy tales usually have the heroine as the sweetest and youngest and prettiest, but that hasn't translated into my youngest sister assuming I'm the official elder shrew. Part of the cool factor of Christianity is that God, Who is A Badass Generally, comes down and deals with being human and ends up dying horribly for the sake of little old us.
If we were really taking Aslan too seriously, the only part where he is Jesus-as-carpenter would be the point where he decides to save Edmund and allows himself to be sacrificed - the point where he is powerless, utterly weak, and humiliated. The rest of the time he's God-as-Incorporeal/post-resurrection-Badass, and the lion imagery fits decently well.
I admit it would be niftier if the first time the kids saw Aslan, he was a battered old toothless lion, and they didn't think much of him until he goes and dies and comes back as über-Aslan (only for hardcore players), but this is a children's fable and a really simple one at that. The Beast fell for Beauty, not She's Got A Nice Personality.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:21 PM
I suppose you could take the passage to mean: "I am going to kick some ass now."
Even so, that statement is all about flipping the system, which doesn't map to Lewis's Jesus.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:22 PM
Anon here, in 64, captures Lewis pretty well, though, I think.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:24 PM
How isn't overthrowing the Witch flipping the system? You can talk about how the Pevensie kids were privileged middle-class English children, but they were certainly not the Narnian power structure.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:25 PM
Well, I liked the books. AFAIK, I still like the books. I didn't catch the racism at the time, so I'm not sure kids today would either. Christianity - eh. I'm Christian, so that didn't bother me. And I quite liked that there was some sort of way out that let my non-Christian friends go to heaven, too. Heck, I've always thought of the books as liberal because of that bit. And, on consideration, that's really the only part of the series that I remember.
Also, you are all heathens. Thanks for trying to ruin childhood. FUCKING LIR'RURLS!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:25 PM
"but this is a children's fable and a really simple one at that."
exactly. It's one that I am particularly fond of, so long as we see Aslan as a literary character, and not a particularly truthful rendition of Christ.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:25 PM
I often wondered if Rowling's "pensieve" is an anagram shout-out to Lewis's Pevensie kids.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:29 PM
How isn't overthrowing the Witch flipping the system?
I guess because the Witch is overthrown by a badass. And, in the system, Witches are supposed to be overthrown by badasses.
But, again, I think your defense is a pretty reasonable snapshot of of Lewis' thinking, as I pointed out upthread. It's about the badass becoming the carpenter. Not so much a historical Jesus.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:30 PM
As thread get long enough, we can quote our own earlier comments, and gloss them by saying "I think this gets it exactly right."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:33 PM
even in post-resurrection form, Jesus is not a badass. He doesn't kick any pharisee ass. He doesn't lead anyone to war, or put anyone on a throne. He teaches, goes away, and his followers get killed. He's not a lion before the resurrection, nor after the resurrection, nor is there any evidence that he will be a lion at any other point, not in revelations -- I don't think, though hard to say what any of that means -- nowhere.
It's been awhile since I've read the books, but as far as the social order, here's what I remember: there is a given social order, with the pretty talking animals atop, and "sons of adam, daughters of eve" [humans] as monarchs. The witch comes, takes control, and during that time, the undesirables who were once at the bottom of the social caste rule over those who were once at the top. In LW&W, Aslan comes and restores the social order. The former monarchy and aristocracy are restored.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:35 PM
That's funny, ogged.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:36 PM
That's funny, ogged.
This gets it exactly right.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:37 PM
In 69, I was quoting 64, which I did not write.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:40 PM
I often wondered if Rowling's "pensieve" is an anagram shout-out to Lewis's Pevensie kids.
I think it's just an example of her tendency to make words sound vaguely exotic/Latin, while still remaining comprehensible to the English-speaking reader. Avada Kedavra, Expeliarmus, etc.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:41 PM
I'd like to take this opportunity to promote the excellent musical version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Narnia , which someone involved in community theater (Tripp?) should think about producing, because it roxx.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:42 PM
As with me in 71.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:42 PM
There's a lot of stuff in Revelation. There's also a lot of extra-Biblical tradition that Lewis had to work from -- the Harrowing of Hell, in which Jesus spends the three days between crucifixion and the Resurrection kicking demon ass and releasing virtuous pagans from hell, is pretty kickass.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:42 PM
As thread get long enough, we can quote our own earlier comments,
I think this gets it exactly right!
ash
['I agree.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:42 PM
He teaches, goes away, and his followers get killed. He's not a lion before the resurrection, nor after the resurrection, nor is there any evidence that he will be a lion at any other point, not in revelations -- I don't think, though hard to say what any of that means -- nowhere.
Are we going with John's interpretation of Jesus as the Lamb of God, or going by what Jesus said hisownself?
As far as I can tell, calling Jesus an 'apocalyptic prophet' is pretty close to what he was saying.
ash
['Is apocalyptic == badass?']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:46 PM
I've gone too far and been pwned by LB. Still, I think Aslan makes a shitty Jesus.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:49 PM
80, Well part of what makes it flipping the system is that the OT predicts all this Kingly ass-kicking, and all they got was this teacher who hangs with the unsavory. I think part of the story that is not being told here is that Jesus is kicking all kinds of ass, just not in the way that we all expected.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:49 PM
There's a lot of stuff in Revelation. There's also a lot of extra-Biblical tradition that Lewis had to work from
Who's to say we're not getting it all wrong again. Kinda like the Jews did the first time around.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:52 PM
as in the fact that I am getting lots of work done today, just not in the way that was expected.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:55 PM
Don'tcha love online concordances (I am so not claiming more detailed Biblical knowledge than anyone)? Really, all I'm arguing here is that when we've got this book written by a Christian, and which other Christians are wild about as harmonious with their faith, I am dubious of the capacity of a bunch of pointy-headed secularists (which category I'm blithely assuming you fall into, I do apologize if I'm worng) to say that it gets Christianity all wrong. It's possible, but coming form a non-Christian, I want the argument backed up with cites from Tertullian, Aquinas, and Pope Gregory the Great.
Or, whoever wrote comment 22? Pretty much on point.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 3:56 PM
While I can't remember a single verse in the NT that compares Christ to a lion, Satan is memorably compared to a lion at one point. The lamb metaphor pops up all over, though, although John's "giant, seven-eyed lamb of wrath" in Revelation is itself a pretty big departure from the norm.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:00 PM
Well I am Christian, though a pointy-headed one. It offends me to see the way the religion is often used, which seems to me more in accordance with Lewis' Aslan than with the gospels' Jesus.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:07 PM
My head isn't actually very pointy, but rather quite spherical. I've got a bit of an axe to grind, and I'll take secular humanists as allies if they want to volunteer.
Not that every unfogged thread should turn into text's axe grinding extravaganza.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:10 PM
KERMIT:
Why, God, did you forsake me?
Man's gain will be my loss.
It's like a kind of torture
To die upon a cross.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:15 PM
but more axe-grinding:
it strikes me that the specific extra-biblical work that Lewis was applying in his Narnia books may have been Pope Urban II's various calls to fight the infidels; I don't find that a compelling basis, however.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:15 PM
♫ ♪
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:17 PM
I don't see that (although, by my own reading, you have better credentials than atheist I to interpret the books). The only war with the Calormenes is a defensive one, in TH&HB. In TLTW&TW, the Witch isn't overthrown as an infidel, so much as an oppressor (at least, there's no indication that if she'd treated people well, that slaughtering her would have been the response to her refusal to be ruled by Aslan.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:20 PM
Pensieve = pensive, sieve? That's not too subtle.
"I think this gets it exactly right."
A NTWICB! bonus track.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:21 PM
Pensieve=pensive + sieve? I like the anagram thing anyway, though, Joe.
And somehow I'd missed the Kedavra ~ Cadaver thing until just now, but everytime I read Avada Kedavra, I think it sounds like Abracadabra.
The only thing I remember about the Narnia books: I read of them in school, must have been somewhere around 2nd grade? It wasn't a whole class thing. So I think the original kids get magically warped over to Narnia world unprepared, and are roughing it, and somehow they get bear meat, which they wrap around apples and roast over a fire. I'm always amazed at the details that stick with you, but this one has something of an explanation - besides the exotic food bit, I was talking one-on-one about it with some helper figure, not with my actual teacher, and I said I didn't think it sounded very fun. In my memory, she kind of snapped at me for this: "But it's an adventure!" If she could just see me now - sitting around lurking on blogs. Someday, though, I will wrap meat around apples and roast it over a fire, just to show her.
Posted by oz | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:22 PM
87: Do pointy-headed secularists who used to be Christians get to play?
LB, there's several problems with contemporary Christianity's enamoration with Jesus-as-King. For me, though, the biggest problem is that it's a bait and switch: the heart of the Christmas story for Christians - which is heavily played up to win converts - is the notion that God became a lowly carpenter when he could have become a rich man or a king, which strikes a powerfully populist chord. But the religion many ultimately believe in - and the religion they're ultimately selling - is one with a regal Christ enthroned over the universe, which is basically the same God-as-king setup you find in every other major religion.
Incidentally, many mainline Protestants, unlike Catholics, Anglicans, or Orthodox churches, reject the notion that tradition and "church fathers" hold just as much weight as the Bible. The Bible is supposed to be the prime, and in some cases the only, source of Christian theology. Of course, this isn't quite the case - there are certain traditions of interpreting the Bible which are considered "correct" over other, newer ones - but if you asked a premillenial dispensationalist where their beliefs about the end of the world came from, they'd tell you it came from the Bible and only the Bible.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:27 PM
And you can hunt bears in New Jersey now, so the whole thing is very practical.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:27 PM
Jesus is also described as a lion in one of the Old Testament prophecies, as interpreted by Christians traditionally. There's also the part where Peter cuts the dude's ear off and Jesus tells him to stop because he could call down angels to kill all the Romans anytime he wanted to.
Point is, the lion image is perfectly consistent with Christian theology. Jesus is weak while he's on earth, but it's by choice, like he's putting on a costume. He's the Son of God, after all. Aslan might be weak for only a short time in LW&W, but if you're a Christian who believes in the concept of eternity, Jesus is also weak for only a short time in the grand scheme of things.
As for the rest of the books, Dawn Treader is the second best after Horse and His Boy, racism notwithstanding. Prince Caspian sucks.
And in the Lion King: Scar is obviously white. He has a freakin English accent. Admittedly, the hyenas are problematic.
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:29 PM
I don't think there is a direct connection between LW&W and the Crusades, but rather that Aslan, in LW&W maps with the image of Christ the "Christian Soldier," (or a Christ that roots on the Christian Soldiers) which, I think, is not reflected in the gospels themselves.
As far as justifications for the battle, it's the people (or animals) who were once at the top of the social ladder that think the witch mistreats them. Those who were at the bottom, and now in charge, the undesirables -- I don't think they would agree.
I'll admit that this is all silly, and that we should just root for Aslan and the kids when we read the books. But if you want to take the works as serious christian allegories, then they have to work as such.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:29 PM
mainline Protestants,
Just confirming terminology, don't you mean non-mainline Protestants? I thought that mainline referred to the non-Biblical literalists, all of the New Englandy Congregationalists/Methodists/Lutherans etc.
For me, though, the biggest problem is that it's a bait and switch: the heart of the Christmas story for Christians - which is heavily played up to win converts - is the notion that God became a lowly carpenter when he could have become a rich man or a king, which strikes a powerfully populist chord. But the religion many ultimately believe in - and the religion they're ultimately selling - is one with a regal Christ enthroned over the universe, which is basically the same God-as-king setup you find in every other major religion.
Here, I just can't figure out how to avoid the bait and switch: once you have an omnipotent God, how can it be anything other than regal in it's relationship to the universe? Isn't the Christmas story not so much "Look at this actually humble and insignificant child" but "Look at this apparently humble and insignificant child who is actually the all-powerful Deity?" If it were the first, one could just go two mangers down, and hand the gifts to Brian with similar effect.
(But my perspective on all of this is warped in that I was raised heathen, and the only source I have for serious theology is medieval English poetry. Handlyng Sinne is one of the funniest things I've ever read.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:35 PM
Goddam do I hate misspelling 'its'.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:36 PM
"I once heard the famous preacher Norman Vincent Peel in New York...."
Good to see the Grauniad carrying on its historic tradition from whence it got its name.
"Is everyone else King of Narnia too?"
Only if they're Pevensie and male; girl Pevensies get to be Queens.
"Tolkien hated Narnia: the two dons may have shared the same love of unquestioning feudal power, with worlds of obedient plebs and inferior folk eager to bend at the knee to any passing superior white persons - even children; both their fantasy worlds and their Christianity assumes that rigid hierarchy of power - lord of lords, king of kings, prince of peace to be worshipped and adored."
Yes, certainly this is why Tolkien's characters unquestioningly followed the leader of the White Council, Saruman; King Theoden; and the Steward of Gondor, Denethor I, and the books show them in such a light.
Good thing no one has been either discussing these sorts of issues, or those of Lewis's theology since, hmm, the 1950's. These thoughts are all so fresh and new! Have you heard that Tolkien is a racist? And that Christ-as-a-Lion isn't humble? Something to stop and think about, eh?!
Deep. But mostly: so original.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:40 PM
"Point is, the lion image is perfectly consistent with Christian theology."
I'm talking a bit out of my ass here, as I don't have complete faculty with the text, but I just don't think that statement is supported in your post or others. I will take it for granted that the old testament, at some point, describes the messiah as a lion. The gospels themselves paint a very different picture.
If we are talking about the Jesus presented in the gospel -- the only place that Jesus is actually described -- he cannot be accurately depicted as a lion. He is described, quite often, as a shepherd, or as a lamb. He is, I think we can agree, a modest looking, non-violent sort.
I think you are taking the cutting of the ear incident completely out of context. Jesus says what he says in order that Peter stop committing violent acts, and what he says is surprising, because it is does not map with Jesus' physicial presentation. These armies he describes, you cannot see them. They are not large, visible, claws.
There's a lot of contradiction in the gospels -- that's what makes them interesting to me. But, taken as a whole, I think the gospels do not portray a Jesus that can be anthropomorphized as a lion.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:42 PM
Come on, Gary, they're not being published as new Lewis scholarship, they're being published as a response to the movie: "To those millions of people who are now about to encounter Narnia for the first time, here are some time honored reasons for disliking it."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:43 PM
text, I have to say that I really agree with your take. I loved the books as a kid but don't think they work as Christian allegory. They're just fun books with some Christian mythology thrown in with other mythologies.
I'm a Christian too, and I find the way that evangelical Christians are latching onto this movie to be rather offensive. They're totally playing into the hands of corporations who don't give a damn about their faith; they just want to make money.
Posted by singular girl | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:43 PM
Well, shit, here I'm being called out, and the only thing I have to write is, "Well, shit, here I'm being called out and the only thing I have to write is, 'Well, shit, here I'm being called out and...'"
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:44 PM
Arg, the problems caused by not filling in one's Name box.
text, I pretty much agree. It's impossible to convey the richness of the character of Christ with one perfect allegory. (This was why J.R.R. Tolkien thought that allegory was a waste of time.)
But all metaphors for, well, a badass eternal Presence are weak in some ways; the lamb isn't perfect, either, nor is the shepherd, and Aslan as a shepherd who wandered around in winter Narnia would probably annoy me ('This is a fairy tale! Get to the asskicking/nametaking part already!')
I think the wingnuts would count Lewis as an apostle. That's absurd, but Narnia isn't supposed to replace all catechetic education. And as has been pointed out, it's got some decent bits: forgiven sinners, grace extended to all who are good people (wondering how the fundies deal with that, actually.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:44 PM
Farber: I don't claim to have been very original in this thread, but I feel inclined to make the point that Christ-as-Lion doesn't work very well for as long as people continue to disagree with it.
Perhaps an ill-advised strategy.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:46 PM
Just confirming terminology, don't you mean non-mainline Protestants? I thought that mainline referred to the non-Biblical literalists
I used that term just to cut out branches of Christianity which openly acknowledge the influence of tradition as being just as important as Biblical text itself. You don't have to be a Biblical literalist to believe that the Bible is a primary source of theology. That makes the Bible more important, but not necessarily "fundamentally true." A friend of mine used to go to a church with a pretty liberal pastor who believed every Christian had to interpret the Bible for themselves. That's a very direct, very literal theological dependence on Biblical primacy, but it sure wasn't literalist - she tossed out most of the Old Testament as bunk, if I recall.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:46 PM
nor is the shepherd, and Aslan as a shepherd who wandered around in winter Narnia
As a kid, someone gave me a Narnia-ripoff book with, I believe, Canadian children and a shepherdy, human, Christ figure (named something close enough to Anthropos that I can't remember the actual name.) Really badly written.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:47 PM
Deep. But mostly: so original.
As was this comment.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:49 PM
people agree with me! woot!
I now retire.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:51 PM
Here, I just can't figure out how to avoid the bait and switch: once you have an omnipotent God, how can it be anything other than regal in it's relationship to the universe?
This is something that's always bugged me. Why does God have to have a king-subject relationship with the universe? Let's say I'm a painter and I've just made a painting. It would be mighty strange of me to treat that painting as some kind of subject or vassal simply because I had the power to create it. In fact, if you walked in on me informing my painting that I was its King and it would serve only me, you'd probably have me locked up. Similarly, people don't build terrariums to boss around their plants, or compose symphonies so they can yell at the notes. When we act in our capacity to create, we rarely do so with the motivation or the need to rule.
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 4:59 PM
text is so going to hell.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:02 PM
ac's skincare religion is Mithraic.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:03 PM
Back when it was first published, in fact, Christians complained that the Narnia stories were anti-Christian--kind of like Harry Potter.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:08 PM
SCMT: do you mean for 61? could be.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:08 PM
I will take it for granted that the old testament, at some point, describes the messiah as a lion. The gospels themselves paint a very different picture.
I assume it was all fleshed out in the secondary material, but the Book of Mark is the one that is associated with the evangelist vision of Jesus as lion (as opposed to ox, man, or eagle). I believe it's drawn from the opening lines, which refer to a voice crying out in the wilderness, which I suppose was taken by the author of Revelations to resemble a lion's roar, or at least did for the purposes of his metaphor.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:10 PM
I was fascinated by the Narnia books as a kid, and read all seven to my son about this time last year. My favorite as a kid (and this time, too) was The Magician's Nephew.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:10 PM
But, taken as a whole, I think the gospels do not portray a Jesus that can be anthropomorphized as a lion.
Well, maybe, but as someone said before Aslan during the crucifixion scene doesn't seem like much of a lion either. The whole point of the Christian account of the Gospels is that Jesus' allowing himself to get beat up and killed for the sake of humankind was a sacrifice, and the reason why it was a sacrifice was that he was God so he didn't have to go through all that but did it by choice. His meekness etc. throughout the Gospels wouldn't be nearly as noteworthy without the backstory.
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:12 PM
Re: 101 again:
As far as the Christmas bait-and-switch, my main point is that the story emphasizes the importance of Christ's humility (though God, he chose to come to earth in the form of the poor son of a carpenter), and it implies the existence of a positive, attractive trait (humility even in the presence of his own creation) which is promptly chucked out the window when Jesus II: Holy Balls Of Vengeance shows up with a flaming sword coming out of his mouth to nuke Gog and Magog, rule the world, and toss most of the human race into the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:13 PM
See, I could get behind Christianity if he'd just stopped at the flaming sword Gog and Magog stuff. Goddamned right I'll fear and worship!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:15 PM
text:
No, I meant for going after the most recent revealer of the One True Faith, CS Lewis. (This comment made in light of the New Yorker claim that CS Lewis is treated as a saint in many conservative Christian circles.)
Oh well. CS and I will laugh at your eternal torment together.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:16 PM
I'll just say that I have trouble with people claiming to know what the "whole point" of Christianity is, while disregarding much of what is actually said in the gospels.
But I remain retired.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:19 PM
I'm pulling you down with me, SCMT.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:20 PM
I thought I took pains not to use the phrase "the whole point of Christianity." In any case, if the Gospels say A, and someone says A is especially noteworthy in light of B, I don't see how that's supposed to be disregarding A.
But it's dinnertime so I'm retiring too.
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:30 PM
Am I the only one who HATED the Narnia books as a kid? I always thought they were grossly overdetermined, and condescending to boot.
In re. the Lion King, the racism argument at the time was actually that they Hyenas were black--ghettoized, and the characters whose voices were recognizably speaking black English. And it is true that Scar is dark, while Simba and his pop are golden blond lions.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:35 PM
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
Well, if you lived in a desert culture ruled over by kings, and that was the only system anybody had ever known, God being King of the Universe probably seems natural, particularly when you're tying to explain the whole thing to illiterates.
Why would you worship an entity that DID NOT create the universe, or at least the local ground? 'Some diety came along and we just sorta like him, so on our knees we got.'
As to whether God is/could/would be behaving rationally - how big is the psych ward you have to put God in to figure out if he/she/it is 5150 or not?
ash
['Next on Unsolved Religions.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:41 PM
Am I the only one who HATED the Narnia books as a kid?
Ne'er read them.
ash
['I'll stick to Oz.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:43 PM
One of the hyenas was actually Cheech talking Cheech-like but I guess the overall point still holds.
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 5:49 PM
It would be mighty strange of me to treat that painting as some kind of subject or vassal simply because I had the power to create it.
Yeah, but a considerable fraction of the people who start businesses seem to create them primarily for the joy of establishing themselves as king. All that stops the analogy being perfect is the current lack of Asimovian robots.
Posted by Mary | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:03 PM
Well, if you lived in a desert culture ruled over by kings, and that was the only system anybody had ever known, God being King of the Universe probably seems natural, particularly when you're tying to explain the whole thing to illiterates.
This is kind of my point, ash. Christians looking for converts often try to sell Christianity as unique, and therefore more likely to be true, than other religions (which are clearly made-up). One of the primary examples of its uniqueness is that the Jesus story frames Jesus as a servant, rather than a king. But the religion ultimately maintains the exact same "God-as-king" structure of every other world religion, and with good reason - it was informed by a worldview in which power was the authority of the king, so God had to be the biggest king there was.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:05 PM
Actually I think there is some value in having pointy-headed heathens (like me!) discussing this sort of thing because we don't have any particular personal conception of Christianity and are more inclined to see if the story matches any Christian's interpretation of the religion (rather than just our own, which is always a risk for Christians analyzing Christian allegory).
That said, I basically agree with text that they're just children's stories with some Christian themes thrown in. I liked them as a kid, and I had no idea they were Christian -- but then, I had basically no idea what Christianity was at the time. All I knew was Santy Claus.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:06 PM
Yeah, but a considerable fraction of the people who start businesses seem to create them primarily for the joy of establishing themselves as king.
There's a sizable disparity between the amount of power wielded by an employer over his employees and a theoretical world-creator over his universe (or a painter over his painting, for that matter) - so much so, in fact, that I suggest that it would never occur to most people to issue commandments to their pottery, or to threaten their houseplants with damnation. When we have power over other humans, who in any other circumstance might be our equals, that power is palpable because we're controlling things we instinctively perceive to be of great value: things very much like ourselves.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:15 PM
"Aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion" in many dialects (also "Arslan"). Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was the Chechen rebel leader until his death -- the Chechens aren't Turkish, but names get passed around.
"The Lion King" -- extremely unfair to hyenas. I believe that there are a number of natural-history inaccuracies in the film, but I can't remember what they are.
Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of "Beowulf".
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:22 PM
Wow, am I late to this party! Fun times. Thanks for reading, Fontana. Substnatively, I think we just gotta go to the Gopnik:
The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory.
To which, I say, Adam Gopnik, you are so far from an officially acredited interpreted or monotheistic doctrine it's not funny: so don't front. The amazing, magical story of monotheistm is that The Good Guys are gonna win. They are stronger, they are better, and Satan is out of luck. It's Good News. Yes, we should not confuse the marks of wealth and pride with spiritual election, but monotheism is not about loving the underdog. Satan is the fucking underdog, and he's going down.
In this respect, LB's 79 is spot on. Think of the harrowing of hell. Jesus (much less The Lord of Hosts) is not just some sandal-wearing hippie dipshit. He's all about the righteous might. Remember when McCain won the New Hampshire primary, and it looked like he was going to topple Bush and dance on Gore? In a Christian universe it's that moment to the nth degree at all times: there is a unity of moral righteousnesss and ultimate might. It's pretty cool.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:28 PM
Went to Gopnik in 4. I appreciate the rest of what you said; that's the way I'm framing the upcoming Rose Bowl.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:33 PM
baa, that post is what is wrong with America. And yet reading it, I like you. It makes me very sad.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:33 PM
but I must ask you: what is this monotheism of which you speak -- the singular monotheism that you sum up so succinctly? Is that the religion practiced by the judeochristians one hears so much about?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:37 PM
I think the original kids get magically warped over to Narnia world unprepared, and are roughing it, and somehow they get bear meat, which they wrap around apples and roast over a fire
made me think of Gene Wolfe's "Tracking Song." There's an allegory for you! Maybe.
It's been so long since I read the books that I remember pretty much nothing, except Aslan scratching the princess's back in Horse and His Boy (as payback for the servant girl who was whipped when she escaped) and Lucy seeing the face of Aslan in the book Voyage when she was thinking of doing something she shouldn't ought to. And then eavesdropping on her friends and hearing them say nasty things about her. And that I didn't like the last two in-order-of-writing.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:37 PM
Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of "Beowulf".
I wouldn't say it was dishonest; I'm sure he genuinely believed it was a heavily Christian text. Also, he was the first to vigorously defend it as a masterpiece in itself rather than a window into the Altgermanische past, so props for that.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:38 PM
Props for defending the poem, but I think he was dishonest. He simply asserted that the book was deeply Christian and clerical in origin, but without argument or evidence in what I read, especially about the clerical part.
I went through the text looking for Christianity, and I did find monotheism, a passage on monsters loosely tied to the Bible, and a condemnation of pagans, but some of it looked pasted on, and the theology was very thin, with no Christ, no redemption, no Passion, no trinity, and so on. I really prefer the older theory that a pre-Christian work was retrofitted for Christianity.
A lot of the Christian touches he found were only there the way they are in Moby Dick or D H Lawrence, as subtle symbolism, but as far as I know Christians of that time always explained their messages explicitly. (There may also have been an analogy with people like Chaucer, who was deeply Christian though sometimes anti-clerical. But Chaucer and the Beowulf we are least 400 years apart, reallyin different worlds.)
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:48 PM
Yeah, it's Judeochristian all the way to mormonism, my man!
Seriously, I do think a unifying philosophical strand in the major monotheisms (or at least Judaism and Xianity, Islam I simply don't know) is the basic goodness will triumph motif. It can be that we focus on this as a "the tables are turmed!" moment with respect to the popular kids in high school (or in liberation theology, the rich landowners). This is what Gopnik clearly imagines. And, let's be frank, it's a lazy, politicized, spiritually anemic vision of the inherent radicalism of of monotheism. Maybe, maybe, if you are a Haitian peasant, this version of politico-spiritual radicalism makes lots of sense -- just wait till you see what Jesus has planned for you, you aristocratic Tonton Macoute backing scumbags! -- but for Gopnik it's just inexcusable to try to cram a round Jesus peg into a square political hole. It is just wrong -- and wrong in a predicatable, lefty, politicized way -- to think that The Message of Christianity is that socially marginal = good. No, it's that the ruler of the universe = good. That's just a bigger message.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 6:54 PM
What huh? Is Christianity = monotheism? Since when? Last time I checked, most of the Catholic churches I attended did, indeed, teach that the Christ part of Christianity--the gospels part--was, in fact, about the socially marginal in a hell of a lot of ways.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:06 PM
"There's a sizable disparity between the amount of power wielded by an employer over his employees and a theoretical world-creator over his universe [...] it would never occur to most people to issue commandments to their pottery, or to threaten their houseplants with damnation."
But that disanalogy is subtle enough not to occur to most people.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:14 PM
Yeah, fer sure. But to center the message on the socially marginal is already a category error. God's bigger than our politics and our class prejudices. So he must also be bigger than the inversion of our politics and class prejucices, right?
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:15 PM
And text, I don't see any issues with the accuracy of seeing Aslan as being representative of the whole Trinity and not just Christ. What say you?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:17 PM
Yeah, fer sure. But to center the message on the socially marginal is already a category error. God's bigger than our politics and our class prejudices. So he must also be bigger than the inversion of our politics and class prejucices, right?
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:17 PM
I think what baa's saying is that there's nothing inherently *good* about *remaining* socially marginalized. That's the promise of the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs."
It's not "Blessed are the poor, and they should stay poor and meek because that's good." it's basically, one day, you who are stuck being meek will get a chance to kick ass, too.
The amazing, magical story of monotheistm is that The Good Guys are gonna win. They are stronger, they are better, and Satan is out of luck. It's Good News. Yes, we should not confuse the marks of wealth and pride with spiritual election, but monotheism is not about loving the underdog. Satan is the fucking underdog, and he's going down.
That pwns.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:17 PM
I don't think that's the case. Most of the gospel stories I remember are, precisely, about inverting social status. The fact that that seems too simple to us in post-Marxist 21st century ways doesn't really have a whole lot of bearing on a text written two thousand years ago (roughly).
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:20 PM
No, it's that the ruler of the universe = good.
Fine, but this says nothing about how one should live one's life. It says only that, in the end, Good shall triumph over Evil. It doesn't say how. The extension of it to a system of living is normally read into the bible, and it does, often enough, have to do with bettering the lot of those less fortunate.
Are there other ways to read it? Of course. But you seem to be making a stronger argument than that.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:21 PM
Chistianity isn't even monotheistic unless mono means "three or less".
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:21 PM
147 is me. 149 is a *very* derivative Ben Wolfson.
Thanks, Cala!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:22 PM
It would never occur to most people to issue commandments to their pottery, or to threaten their houseplants with damnation.
That's because they are mindless objects lacking in reason. The only language they understand is violence.
Throw them across the room. Smash them with a hammer. They won't be screwing with you any more then.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:24 PM
Ah, Joe O, that only applies to Catholicism. Somehow Protestants have gotten rid of the whole spirit thing and see God and Jesus as one. It's we Catholics who are the damned polytheists, what with our saints and our Virgin Mary--except that, of course, as any good Catholic would tell you, none of those things challenge the supremacy of the one God.
Don't get it? That's why they call it a mystery.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:24 PM
Isn't it only inverting the social status because the poor and the meek get to kick ass, though? It's not much of a story if Aslan and the kids give up and keep eating bear meat and apples over secretive fires.
I think it's right, though, to say that even the Gospel stories aren't wholly about rescuing the poor and ill (washing Jesus' feet with expensive oils, he doesn't demand that they be sold, etc); God's after people's souls. It happens to be easier to get those souls when people are poor and meek, and it's good for people's souls to help the poor and meek and not be pre-occupied with material possessions, but eternal salvation's the Big Promise along with some Satan Ass-kicking.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:25 PM
I thought most Protestants had some form of the Trinity? (They don't have saints, but if you want Ass-Kicking, saints are cool, so their loss.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:29 PM
Satan Ass-kicking
When I make it to church, it's normally Episcopal services for me. Not a lot of ass-kicking in those sermons.
I think it's a mistake to believe that muscular Christianity has significantly more textual support, or institutional support than other variants.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:29 PM
147 is me. 149 is a *very* derivative Ben Wolfson.
Someone very derivative of me, maybe, but I didn't write 149.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:30 PM
Honestly, baa. Would I have written that?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:33 PM
Look, I know that there's a very strong "invert the social order" message to the Gospel. True enough. But if this were *all* Christianity was, Nietszche would be right: it would be slave morality. It isn't just the F(x) = -x function applied to our current performed order of respect and deference. God's order is just not a political order, an exaltation of the rich, the poor, the lucky, the unlucky. That's what I mean by spiritual anemia: a desire to read some favored politics off of monotheism in an uncontroversial way.
And SCMT, you are of course right that God beign the winner does not tell us how to live. But Lewis does not say that being godly = obeying the king, the queen, the rich. It's about doing what is right. Of course this means charity, the liberation of slaves, and all that good stuff. But it does not mean that any identification with the good, the bold, or the successful is ungodly, or imperfectly Christian. Does Moses only get to be a prophet if he fails to liberate the Israelites?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:34 PM
I don't claim to have the gospels down to one succinct message. But here's one thing that's in there, for sure:
we have responsibilities for each other. Or, better yet, we are responsible for each other. And we are failing over and over again to meet those responsibilities. The poor aren't blessed because they are poor, but because they aren't rich -- that is, they don't have these resources that they aren't spending on their fellow men. There's nothing feel-good about Jesus' teachings. There's nothing in there about sitting back and waiting for good to win, because it will, and that will be sweet. You should be troubled after reading the gospels. If you feel smug instead, you're doing it wrong. In other words, baa, you are the anti-christ.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:35 PM
of course, men and women.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:35 PM
No, and I dislike a lot of the muscular Christianity rhetoric, especially since it is so often tied to political causes that are anti-Christian (torture, maybe?) or just really unrelated ('God wants you to be a fiscal conservative' -- what???)
I don't know about more textual or institutional; but it's pretty clear that the Satan Ass-Kicking isn't supposed to mean people get to kick each other's ass, or a celebration of being wealthy, but a triumph over death kinda thing. Maybe you get issued a big sword once you're dead and get to take on a demon.
Here it's supposed to be about helping poor people, loving thy neighbor, and helping them get a chance to pwn a demon, maybe, too.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:38 PM
Of course not, B-wo! I screwed up and posted twice, and thus decided to blame the single least likely person to do that. (assuming that everyone would understand that it was me) My apologies!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:39 PM
In other words, sure, good's going to win, but how sure are you that you are good?
Those with ready "quite sure" responses are the ones who'd like a Lion-Jesus, my guess.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:41 PM
Maybe you get issued a big sword once you're dead and get to take on a demon.
I think the "kingdom" of the Pevensie children should be understood in exactly this way. Everyone gets to be king in Narnia. In "The Magician's Nephew", a cockney cab driver becomes the first King of Narnia. In "Prince Caspain" we learn that Caspian (and all his line) are decendents of murderous pirates. The idea is: you were born to be Kings and Queens of the Earth, behave with appropriate nobility!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:43 PM
Oh, I didn't even notice that 147 and 149 were the same.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:43 PM
I think there's a lot of room for joy in the message, though, text: 'O death, where is thy sting?' and all that. It doesn't mean to do nothing and sit around being self-congratulatory, but it's a pretty cool promise.
There are two messages here:
Death sucks.
God defeated death.
This is pretty fucking sweet. (The only proper response is joy, or at least relief.)
God said to love even the smallest person like she was God.
You wouldn't let God starve and be cold and hungry, would you?
Okay, let's go take care of each other.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:43 PM
Somehow Protestants have gotten rid of the whole spirit thing and see God and Jesus as one.
THAT sure isn't true.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:47 PM
(One might note that while some of my theological training made it as far as Aquinas, the basics stopped pretty much around age 8).
The Narnia stories don't deal with the daily grind of caring for the poor and meek; they're all about the promise of the kingdom of heaven for even cabdrivers and schoolkids. Peter even gets a sword!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:48 PM
This is kind of my point, ash.
Was it?
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
Versus
But the religion ultimately maintains the exact same "God-as-king" structure of every other world religion, and with good reason - it was informed by a worldview in which power was the authority of the king, so God had to be the biggest king there was.
If God exists, how Christians interpret God isn't necessarily how God IS so much as how he is perceived.
If you start with the assumption that God does not exist, then pointing out that Christianity is often similar in hierarchial structure to other religions is fine (and I'd agree). But you seem to be arguing that that is because the God that doesn't exist wouldn't be sane.
Depending on how I want to slice that, either it's a tautology, a self-negating loop, or a statement of implicit solipcism (in which instance, you should stop arguing with yourself, since you're going to win, unless you're insane).
Sorry I wasn't clear what *I* was getting at.
ash
['Dum dee dee.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:50 PM
Let's please keep in mind that in the context of Christianity, "good" means "Christians," "bad" means "everybody who doesn't figure out that Christianity is true," and "ass-kicking" amounts to "God sends everyone who guesses wrong to hell to eternal wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:50 PM
170 sums it up for me. I'll go back to retirement. baa, you are not the anti-christ. I feel as though we reason in the same manner to opposite conclusions, creating headache for me.
If only that pdf fellow were here, he'd show us how reasoning always leads to agreement. In conclusion, Aslan eats his own poo.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:50 PM
I guess you missed 146 & 148?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:55 PM
174: Depends. Catholicism doesn't hold ex cathedra any more, I don't know about most of the mainline Protestant sects, but a lot of them are kind of wishy-washy on sin, so I don't think so and C.S. Lewis allows his pretend-Hindu-man into heaven because he is following his conscience and doing the right things. Fundies think that, but fundies think Catholics aren't Christian either so they're obviously out of their damn minds.
text, Aslan does NOT!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:55 PM
There's a real problem here with even just using the term "Christianity." There are a lot of theological variations under that name. Are we talking Calvinist predestination, Methodist populism and focus on free will, Catholic Marianism, post-Vatican II Catholicism, those weird Sedevacantists, high church & state Anglicanism, or what? Because they all have different attitudes towards social inequality, justice, peace, power, the relation of church and state....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:58 PM
I've re-read 173 several times and have no idea what ash is saying there, much less where he's disagreed with me in this thread.
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:58 PM
Horse and His Boy Aslan, is a very Old Testament Aslan-as-father, pdf, I would tend to agree.
Text, have you just agreed that Dick Cheney is one swell fella?
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 7:59 PM
so, pdf, why can't we agree? Is it that we haven't done enough fact-finding?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:01 PM
Aslan eats his own poo.
In Black&White, making your minion eat his own poo is one of the fastest ways to turn it evil.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:01 PM
sorry baa, you can't drag me back in.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:03 PM
I'm glad if you agree with my opinion as-presented, that Aslan parallels the Trinity better than Christ. I simply hadn't seen you actually agreeing with me.
I choose to approach your jibes humorlessly.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:07 PM
In other words, sure, good's going to win, but how sure are you that you are good?
This gets it exactly right.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:16 PM
177 and 178:
I'll try to be more specific. Much of what makes Christianity a religion per se (as opposed to a sort of collection of instructions for being nice to people) is a very particularly mystical sort of redemption story. It's awfully hard* to get around the notion that Jesus isn't just dying because of some goofy cosmic screw-up, but that his death, in and of itself, is supposed to accomplish something. It's equally hard** to get around the notion that he died specifically to redeem mankind, which leads us to ask the question, "redeem them from what?" Which leads us to sin and hell and all that. You could get pretty figurative about all those things, and say that sin isn't real or hell is a metaphor or something, but again, it's pretty dicey territory (the New Testament gets a lot more explicit about this sort of thing than you'd think).
If you do accept a literal hell - and from every poll I've seen, the majority of Christians to - you've got a God who specifically creates a place of eternal torment and damnation, and then sets up a religion as the means to avoid that place, which is kind of a nasty God.
(*you can do it, but it involves chucking out huge chunks of the text, as WELL as tradition, teachings of "church fathers," etc., at which point you might as well be a Unitarian - not like that's necessarily a bad thing)
(** ditto)
Posted by Isle of Toads | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:18 PM
I've re-read 173 several times and have no idea what ash is saying there, much less where he's disagreed with me in this thread.
I reread what you first wrote 173 times and couldn't make sense of that. The part that hung me up was:
And yet most religions assume that the creator of the universe created his creation specifically to rule it, which strikes me as bizarre. It says more to me about the people who came up with the religion than about how any theoretical god would sanely behave.
But it doesn't say anything about whether God exists or not, or even whether a specific religion is true, unless you decide that the given religion (the diety described is presumably a separate entity from the religion itself) encompasses all that the diety is. God could be described as ruling the universe like a king, but that doesn't mean that that is the way he is running a show, only that his worshippers describe it that way. In any event tho, if you accept that God exists and demands to be worshipped as a king, that doesn't prove he doesn't exist, it proves you think he exists and insane.
If you are saying that a diety that created the universe demanding to be worshipped as a king doesn't seem true to you, well then, fine, that's a matter of personal opinion. (If your personal opinion dictates whether God exists or not, that's solipcism.)
ash
['Where are the lions?']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:21 PM
Wait a second, baa. Good triumphs, but not after the battle, where Han and Luke accept their laurels. Reward is eternal reward, meted out after we're dead. In this life, no outcome is guaranteed, and all that's left to us is to live the proper life. You're right that weakness != goodness, but it doesn't follow that strength = goodness, either. In fact, much of the gospels are devoted to teaching us that the earthly categories don't correspond to the holy ones. You make this point, but then say that good triumphs. Well, yes, eventually, but not in any necessarily recognizable (or even cognizable) way. And the problem with an allegory in which the Lion comes back to rule isn't that it's wrong, because we don't know that, but that it fails to note the possible gap between the earthly and holy.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:22 PM
baa -
On re-reading your complaint, I don't understand it. Toynbee is arguing against a specific description of Christianity. You are arguing that he misreads that description. I think. But it's not as if his reading of that discription isn't comprehensible. We do see what he sees - it's the same thing we react against (if so inclined) in real world muscular Christianity theology. So it may be political, but it's not crazy.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:24 PM
crap, I wish I'd written that.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:27 PM
I recall that the reason I didn't like 6 and 7 was not enough battle--7 ends with several chapters of boring stuff, and 6 is all boring stuff--which provides support for someone's view.
But what I'm here to say is, Toynbee's name is Polly.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:27 PM
I don't know much about the mechanics of hell, but I do know that Catholicism, while believing in sin and hell and redemption, and while believing that Jesus' dying was necessary to get that redemption working, doesn't hold that a person goes to hell automatically if she isn't Catholic or Christian.
Basically the idea is that Jesus died for everyone, and if you haven't heard of Jesus, but live a moral life according to your conscience, God ain't going to make you burn just due to an accident of birth. That's been roughly the Church's position since they discovered there was a whole continent of people that hadn't been saved. Now, conversion is still important because you're guaranteed heaven if you believe in Jesus, but you're not totally out of luck otherwise. (It's a little more complicated, but that's close enough.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:27 PM
188, I mean. Not that your comment wasn't also lovely, SCMT.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:28 PM
Tim, not so much, I don't think. I think she just doesn't get Christianity:
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.
This doesn't sound like someone who thinks Christianity is fine and dandy, but thinks the Narnia portrayal focuses too much on the Satanic Ass-Kicking and not enough on Love thy Neighbor, but someone's whose just not onboard with having to explain, like, why Aslan's alive again.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:34 PM
Cala-
Agreed that Toynbee's hostile to Christianity. That said, the part quoted by baa and FL stands on its own as its own critique of Lewis's instantiation of Christianity. And again, it's a perfectly comprehensible critique that could and has been made by people who are Christian. Indeed, note above that baa takes as related Gopnik's criticism, which baa then describes as a deracinated version of liberation theology, itself a Catholic (if not approved) product.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:40 PM
baa, that post is what is wrong with America. And yet reading it, I like you. It makes me very sad.
To make a similarly broad statement, this is what America thinks is wrong with liberalism.
Seriously, why is monotheism's enthusiasm for whipping evil's ass (as in baa's account) wrong? We're speaking in purely theoretical absolutes. There is nothing wrong with good triumphing over evil in the abstract. It's the identification of the respective parties that's the problem. Once/if you can ID evil its ass ought to be whipped, tautological-style.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:42 PM
196: I thought text was saying, what's wrong with America is that people feel free to identify political candidates with Manichaean deities.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:50 PM
what's wrong is that it is self-satisfying. It presents the obvious part of the story while ignoring the difficult, and (I think) more important part. The gospels take it as a given that good will triumph -- frankly, I think there's little space devoted to that trope -- and concentrate on what it is to live well.
The problem with concentrating on the "let's whip evil's ass" aspect of religion -- conceding for the moment that the aspect even exists -- is that it allows you to assume that you are on the good side. It's lazy, frankly. In my mind, it completely misses the point of religion.
And one more thing: thinking of religion as being about kicking evil's ass has often (and is presently) led to kicking ass for no good reason at all.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:51 PM
("deities" is almost certainly not the word I was looking for there.)
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:51 PM
That'll teach me to try and speak for text.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:53 PM
Tim, I get that, but I think the mistake is that while it's a one-sided version of Christianity,no one's claiming this is all there is to Christianity. You only get there if you can't even grant that the resurrection might be kind of cool.
And frankly, I don't think LW&Ws terribly muscle-bound; the Pevensies aren't storming through England's public schools fighting Evil, or fighting evolution or fat atheist scientists, but in a fantasy world they get to be kings and queens for a little while and save all the forest animals. When they go back to England, they're normal kids who lost their flashlight in Narnia.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 8:59 PM
you are right, though, that is another problem with America.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:00 PM
also, what's wrong with it is what ogged said: the good triumphing part comes not in this world, and we have no idea what form it will take. All we can accurately predict for our own lives is pain. I would fo so far as to say that pain is the purpose of life -- to suffer pain and yet live the good life, to sublimate, which is the formation of the soul. I'm cribbing that from Tolstoy, and doing a poor job of it.
This rah rah stuff, it's a good way to stop thinking about the consequences of your own actions.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:05 PM
But isn't Narnia representative of 'the other world'?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:08 PM
You people. You pick the damnedest times to get all serious.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:19 PM
Then there is the fact that Aslan eats his own poo, which we have only barely touched on.
The text refers to the breath of Aslan as having a powerful, terrifying effect. That is so because he eats his own poo. Often it is written that Aslan's roar debilitates his opponents. Of course, that is a euphemism, one that we as readers are meant to see through, quite readily, given the tools at hand. For what is a roar, but a collection of sound, a reverberation felt within the ear, a sensation. It could make one afraid, sure, but not physically debilitate.
Yet when we consider the roar as not just the sound that emits, but the particles of poo in the air -- for it is the air particles reverberating that create the sound, and in this case, particles of poo within the air -- it becomes self-evident that the roar, vis-a-vis the poo that carries the roar, is a debilitating force indeed. For poo carries cooties, and when one eats one's own poo, the strength of the cooties is multiplied several score.
Which would also explain why Aslan's breath is so very hot. And why he goes away for long periods of time: it is shameful to eat one's poo in public.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:20 PM
I agree that the rah-rah stuff leads to bad outcomes, but I don't think that means it ought to or can be ignored. I tended to tune out during those parts of the church service, but they were definitely there, every week. And I was raised Presbyterian, for pete's sake -- hardly a fire and brimstone denomination.
It seems like the main objection to the Aslan/Christ formulation is that it doesn't take pains to invalidate our tendency toward a might=right heuristic in the way that the bible does. Pointing out the flaws in that idea is a big deal in Christianity, but I'm not sure it's the biggest. The frequency with which some Christians ignore it entirely is galling, but I'm prepared to let the Narnia books off the hook, given their intended audience.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:22 PM
I take Narnia to be a world like our world, different, but not the after-life.
It's like earth, except that some of the animals can talk, and there's this lion who eats his own poo.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:23 PM
tom, I think we agree.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:24 PM
Cala:
I like LW&W very much myself. I think we are disagreeing here: I think the mistake is that while it's a one-sided version of Christianity,no one's claiming this is all there is to Christianity.
To the extent there is a unitary Christianity, its requirements are fairly minimal. Beyond that, we are talking about a number of variants of Christianity. Christianity as viewed through Lewis's eyes looks and feels very different from Christianity viewed through Graham Greene's eyes, for example. I take Toynbee to be saying that Lewis's Christianity is of a particular type, and that he doesn't much like that type, for certain reasons. I don't know how much textual support there is for claiming that the LW&W presents a muscular Christianity view of the world, but I think it's fair to claim that Lewis himself espoused such a view.
I don't see where the coolness of resurrection enters into it, I'm afraid. AFAIK, Christians after Lewis's own heart and Christians who find his brand of Christianity discomfitting both believe in resurrection and think it's cool.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:32 PM
Baa, you are either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord, but I can't decide which.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 9:58 PM
Perhaps he's an insane god who lies to himself and us.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 10:06 PM
Perhaps he's an insane god who lies to himself and us.
They all are.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 10:09 PM
Since people keep asking other people what they thought of Narnia, my last answer is here. (Some other recent Lewis posts here, here, here, here, here.)
I fear I don't think I have anything new to say about Lewis in this thread, otherwise.
"Perhaps he's an insane god who lies to himself and us."
Made for decent stories for Harlan Ellison and Lester del Rey, and arguably James Blish, and Mary Doria Russell, among many others. (David Zindell, Michael Moorcock, and if one goes in another direction perhaps Greg Egan, and in another direction, perhaps Phil Dick.)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 11:51 PM
""Aslan" is the Turkish word for "lion" in many dialects (also "Arslan")."
Ever read M. J. Engh's novel? (Kneejerk association for me.)
"Tolkein -- dishonestly greatly overestimated the Christian quality of 'Beowulf'."
Having just tried to do another riff off that well-known auteur, Professor "Tolkein," about an hour ago, and been earnestly told I should read his books, I'll just say nothing. That's the ticket.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 12- 7-05 11:57 PM
Has anyone ever resolved why Hagrid wasn't given a second chance after the student who turned him in turned out to be the Dark Lord? It would seem that would call for a retrial, is all I'm sayin'.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 12:36 AM
O death, where is thy sting?
Wait, this idea isn't original with Tolstoy? I call plagiarism on him. Also, shenanigans.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 1:16 AM
The text refers to the breath of Aslan as having a powerful, terrifying effect. That is so because he eats his own poo.
You're on the wrong track here. Rabbits are creatures who eat their own poo, and neither they nor their breath has a powerful terrifying effect.
Cellulose needs a lot of digesting, and various creatures solve the problem in various way. Rabbits (which are not rodents any more, thank you) solve the problem by running everything through twice.
It couldn't be C.S. Lewis's mistake. There's some subtle point of his which is being missed.
Aslan the Turkish rabbit/lion -- that's where you have to start.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 6:49 AM
Colonel Pudding eats Katje's poo.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 6:58 AM
Tim: Toynbee's problem with LW&W, specifically the part quoted here, doesn't seem to stem from even a basic understanding of Christianity or really of the books. I don't think it's fair to say of Narnia that its message is war-happy politics and rewarding the rich at all; it's a fairy tale, and it's a fairy tale only of one small part of Christianity.
There's a difference between, I think, the critiques going on in this thread (mostly that Aslan isn't a good avatar of social justice, and that the Narnia stories aren't a perfect allegory or Gospel material) and "Wow, that incarnation sure is repugnant. Plus, it's a brand of Christianity only Bush supporters could identify with because I once heard that the poor shall inherit the earth and these kids are KINGS. Duh! Kings aren't poor!"
Point is, I think the tensions between Lewis' Narnia are a little more subtle than the picture Toynbee presents, and I'm not so sure that her lack of charity isn't due to her worries that she might (oh, horrors) have to explain why Aslan comes back from the dead.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 7:14 AM
Sorry I bailed on this thread last night. But, briefly, Cala is correct to note that Toynbee's problem with Narnia is that she, Toynbee, is an idiot.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 7:19 AM
I'm left to wonder what a good allegory of "the meek shall inherit the earth" would be. The "inheriting the earth" part suggests that those who are socially marginalized will end up ruling something; in Christianity generally, this is interpreted spiritually, but , ordinary kids (war refugees, even) and ordinary (if talking) animals winning over a cruel, exotic Witch and a pack of fierce wolves and monsters doesn't really seem like a bad symbolism.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 7:40 AM
Re: 136, 214
"Arslan" is Aslan's Mineshaft nickname.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 7:48 AM
Tia,
Thanks for the heads-up on the musical "Narnia." I gave it a brief perusal and cannot yet see the 'hook,' by which I mean "a great part for me."
I wish I could sample the music.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 8:04 AM
"Arslan" is Aslan's Mineshaft nickname.
Um, I think it's actually Nalsa Saiselgy.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 8:08 AM
I meant the Bruce-Beckham-as-directed-by-RuPaul Mineshaft.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 8:30 AM
Y'know, forget whether Aslan makes a reasonable Christ figure. I want to know how I'm supposed to believe that RuPaul had never heard of Anal-Ease.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 8:35 AM
I'm enjoying the thing where someone stumbling across this thread by googling "Anal-Ease" will have to scroll down all the way to comment 227 to find it.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 8:59 AM
Passing two or three reasonable presentations of the gospel along the way.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:02 AM
Presumably, there will be anal-ease in heaven.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:05 AM
A good name for a Swedish gymnast, would be Annalise.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:12 AM
Tripp, can you do a Cockney accent? Because Mr. Beaver is a really fun part with lots of comic potential. My dad was once Mr. Beaver, which is how I know of this musical's existence. Also, presumably you could play Aslan/Father Christmas/the guy in the beginning who turns out to be the kid from Magician's Nephew whose name I can't remember, i.e. the star. That requires a lot of singing though. (Do you sing?)
I'm trying like gangbusters to make a dirty joke about comma splices and Swedish gymnasts in response to 231, but i can't come up with one.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:20 AM
Show me a Swedish gymnast named Annalise, and I'll show you someone whose comma I'd like to splice.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:26 AM
Presumably, there will be anal-ease in heaven.
It will be rebranded as Angel-Ease.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:26 AM
Speaking of Johnny Cash, has anyone mentioned how much Walk The Line sucks?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:28 AM
God, baa, stop being so sexist.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:28 AM
Actually, I didn't think it sucked, Joe D. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:29 AM
Apparently apo forgets how God-as-Badass dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah for trying to have teh sex with Lot's angel-friends.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:30 AM
the kid from Magician's Nephew whose name I can't remember
Digory.
how much Walk The Line sucks
Really? I'm going to see it tomorrow night.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:30 AM
yikes, 238 to 234
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:30 AM
Also, I hesitate to wade into all this, since I'm not Christian and my only Christian education ended when I left Episcopal School at age 8, but aren't the wolves, etc. who are cast down after Aslan's return not properly understood as the meek of the earth but as the demons of Hell? Thus, it's not a social but a metaphysical order that Aslan restores.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:33 AM
how much Walk The Line sucks
Have you seen Ray? Strictly speaking, it's the exact same movie.
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:33 AM
'Sokay. I don't want teh full-on sexx, just a little angelingus.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:33 AM
231: My cousin is named Analise. Not Swedish or a gymnast, though. Beyond that I couldn't comment.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:34 AM
Digory
hmm, perhaps more evidence for the J.K. Rowling shoutout to Lewis.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:35 AM
Tia,
Everybody can do a cockney accent - the question is how well. As for singing - reasonably well. I'm not quitting my day job, but my singing doesn't seem to frighten the animals either.
So your father played Mr. Beaver? Hmmm. For starters the character name is great - but I hope this was years ago when your father was younger. I'd prefer you think of me as your older brother. Maybe an older cousin, or perhaps as that mysterious charming gentleman from out west.
Ahem.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:37 AM
I haven't see WTL and I don't know a lot about Johnny Cash. But my internet friends say that it completely glosses over the fact that Cash was almost kicked to death by an ostrich. I don't want to see a movie made by the type of people who think a country star getting attacked by an ostrich isn't worth committing to film.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:40 AM
Gymnasts are all underage, you pervs. If I led the vice squad, I'd run a sting featuring tickets to the Olympics women's gymnastics.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:42 AM
241: You could see it that way, but I don't think it's a very good construction. The wolves and all the other nasty looking fellows are corporeal beings. They walk around Narnia like everyone else, and they can die. My construction -- the nasty creatures are the meek -- doesn't hold up perfectly either. I'm not trying to show that Lewis intended my construction, but rather that the work doesn't really hold up as a religious parable under close analysis.
What I find more interesting today is the passage where the wolves perform annilingus on the white witch, while the amputated dwarves jerk themelves into the golden chalice, until the one twitchy dwarf OD's on turkish delight. That part was pretty sweet.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:43 AM
Probably they would also cover up Sharon Stone's attempt to feed her husband to a Komodo dragon lizard.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:46 AM
Also, Angelingus Jolie would have made a decent White Witch.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:55 AM
Re: 249
Text, the scene you refer to is from this movie.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 8-05 9:57 AM
Angelina J. always looks sort of overripe and sickly to me, I don't know why. Maybe she was nicer looking when she was 12.
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