Why the Lion isn’t safe -Dec 15, 2005

The poster is of the lion Aslan. It came in the mail a fortnight ago advertising the movie Narnia. With the poster came some Christian promotional material.

After seeing the movie I wished the poster was of Lucy. She is the young girl who first finds her way into the strangeness of Narnia and follows her heart to make friends with a faun. Lucy epitomizes the spiritual discipline of following the heart, with all the risks that entails.

Aslan on the other hand is the personification of majestic might. He alone knows the deep magic that brings life out of death. Yet he must kill his enemies in order to triumph. There is little that is exemplary about him.

C.S. Lewis (Jack to his friends) created the Narnia series in the 1950s to both comfort and enthral children. 'Goodies vs. Baddies' was the script of the Cold War era. Lewis promoted the inevitability of militarism. He had faith in the alleged greater leadership of the male species - something he shared with his friend J.R. Tolkien. He also believed, unlike Tolkien, in the need for a miraculous intervention independent of human courage.

C.S. Lewis was one of the foremost Christian apologists in the 20th century. Apart from some time in the Army during WWI, he spent his career in academia - at Oxford and Cambridge. His forte was Medieval and Renaissance English. Yet he was more widely known for his popular books in the 1940s communicating what he considered was the reasonableness of Christianity. His Christian writings received considerable adverse response from his academic colleagues. Lewis was accused of simplifying things and using a vulgar tone. He was passed over for the Merton professorship of English Literature at Oxford.

Yet the creator of Narnia believed in the place of fantasy, fun, and children. Above all, through the wardrobe, he validated the power of fantasy. He wrote in the spirit of play, past the 'watchful dragons' of boredom and embarrassment. Through fantasy he hoped that we would gain a sense of otherness, of realities beyond our confines. He hoped that we would be awed and that the real world would become a more magical place because we'd been to Narnia.

C.S. Lewis affirmed children as heroes and heroines. They can be disciples of Jesus. They don't have to grow up first. Christianity is not an adult preserve.

And there are more places to learn about faith and life than dull, boring Church. Christianity can be communicated in exciting fantasy novels, not just in academic tomes or sermonic pronouncements.

Now Andrew Adamson, the New Zealand director who brought us Shrek, has faithfully translated the book onto the big screen using all the modern digital tools to make monsters real, fauns feel, and lions talk. He's also thrown in some great Kiwi humour - like Philip the horse, and the marital repartee of the beavers.

Prior to its release, Disney and certain church organizations joined wallets in the name of God. They sent out posters, a CD, sermons, and the like. Their material promotes Aslan, he with the big mane and bigger roar, as resembling Jesus - particularly in his dying and coming to life again.

After seeing the movie on Friday, I retired to a nearby café with my 'focus group'. Two intelligent children, who had never read the book, shared their insights. 'Great.' 'Exciting.' 'More girls than in Lord of the Rings.' 'The battle scene with those creatures was excellent.' 'Cool centaur.' 'I liked Lucy.'

"What is Christian about the movie?" I ask. They ponder. They've had some 21 years of Church and Sunday School between them. "Well, they honoured the dead lion by staying with him after he died." "The good guys didn't play dirty." "There was Santa, reindeer, and presents."

One the disputes Lewis had with Tolkien was over the inclusion of Santa. You must admit it is rather bizarre! What serious fantasy novel is going to have Mr Claus drop in, particularly as a benevolent arms dealer?

Personally I like Santa in the script. It's hard to ignore the guy when you want to talk about Christmas. Just try celebrating the season without him. Some mythology is so powerful you need to set a place for it at your Christmas table.

I continue to probe my young 'focus group'. "What is the moral of the story?"

"Well, sometimes as a kid you have to give up things in order to do what is right." "Those kids risked their lives for what they believed in and creatures they hardly knew."

"What about Aslan," I ask, "didn't he risk the most, dying and all?"

"No," they unanimously respond. "He knew the deep magic. He knew he was coming back to life again."
"Why was he looking so sad then?" I counter.

"It was a strategy to fool the bad guys."

These hot chocolate-sipping children have just refuted the logic of the "Jesus as Aslan" argument. Indeed these children don't recognize Christ in Aslan. They see the Pevensie kids in their courageous risk-taking as the Christic figures.

The term 'Christic figure' is a way to describe a character in a movie that, in a similar way to Jesus, brings hope. Also, like Jesus, this figure usually has an unexpected, upside-down quality about him or her. So, for example in the imaginary world of Middle Earth, Tolkien's Christic figures are not the Gandolfs or the Aragons - those with great magic, military prowess, and leadership qualities - but the hobbits, Frodo in particular. It is the tenacity and faith of the little ones that ultimately destroy the power of evil.

In the Christian Scriptures Jesus, a hillbilly from Galilee, leads an itinerant band of misfits giving his version of the good news and upsetting a number of people in doing so. Jesus was no Narnian lion. He had no military prowess or great leadership skills, nor was he interested in either. He didn't have an army. His power was the antithesis of the regal pageantry so prevalent in Lewis' novels.

The regal bunch in the Bible was Caesar, his henchman Pilate, and his puppet Herod. They were the ones with the army. They were the ones with the language of Kings, Lords, Saviours and Masters. Might was right. Right ruled. And pacifist revolutionaries from Galilee were quashed and killed.

The unconventional oddballs who followed Jesus had a different worldview. They understood poverty, politics and power very differently. They believed that love could overcome hate; little deeds could overcome big egos; and that love and those deeds could in time work the magic of justice for all. It was in many ways a vain hope.

The question still remains today: Is God on the side of the right and strong, or on the side of the wrong and weak?

C.S. Lewis was a good friend, patient teacher and intelligent conversationalist. He was a loyal Anglican, remaining a parishioner at St Mark's Dundela, where his father's family had attended since 1870. He was also frequently an argumentative bully, coarse in his language, contemptuous of the opposite sex, and dismissive of teetotallers and non-smokers. His private writings were often at odds with the recollections of people who knew him well. He was a complex individual, with notable inconsistencies.

Narnia, too, lacks an inner consistency. Even if you create a fantasy world, you still need it to be consistent. Take for example Peter's swordsmanship and bareback unicorn riding. Where did he suddenly acquire these skills? Even Tolkien's hobbits after weeks of military training never presumed that they were skilled enough to lead an army into battle.

Then there is the Narnia prophecy. Are you trying to tell me that the first four children who walk into Narnia will automatically be elevated to royalty? It's not due to their beauty, brains, or courage. It is totally unmeritorious. And therefore totally lacking in credibility.

Then, more poignantly, there is the whole schema of Aslan having to die in order to atone for Edmund's treachery. Was Edmund really treacherous? He was badly missing his dad (who was away at war). He was sick of his bossy brother. He had a fondness for sweets. He was suckered in by the White Witch. All this sounds like a pretty normal boy growing up, moved by his fears and appetite, and trying to work out where his loyalties lie. Treacherous? Hardly. Deserving of a blood sacrifice? Doubt it.

C.S. Lewis isn't really to blame for this credibility gap. It's what's wrong with the whole sin/salvation scenario that dupes so many Christians. Is failure an unforgivable sin that needs blood sacrifice to be rectified? Maybe in some guilt-ridden ancient mythology. For most of us though, failure is a chance to learn how to get up and try again. We need the support of others; we don't need them to die for us.

Spirituality, or 'deep magic' to use Narnian-speak, needs to resonate with our experience if it is to cast its spell over us.

It is Lucy who provides the magic. The young actress Georgie Henley conveys that sense of wonder and magic that Narnia is all about. Lucy ventures into the depths of her hiding place. In this new and strange land Lucy meets a faun (an English-speaking one!). She befriends him and believes in him, even when he doesn't. Her spirit of goodness is her guide.

The real power in the movie, the Christic power, is the innate goodness that flows through Lucy. She trusts, she believes, and she is courageous. And, unlike the lion, she doesn't have to kill anyone.

Maybe C.S. Lewis had Lucy in mind when he wrote in The Case for Christianity, "Safety and happiness can only come from individuals, classes and nations being honest and fair and kind to each other." And, as the movie says, the lion isn't safe.

Glynn Cardy is vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City, a progressive and inclusive Anglican parish in Auckland, Aoteroa, New Zealand. Take a movie tour here (QuickTime)