This excerpt seems to be missing a mention of the medieval bestiaries (of which Lewis was surely aware), in which Christ is represented variously as a lion or a panther. The bestiary's lion has many of the characteristics of Aslan.

“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be kind to beasts as well as man, it is all a sham.”

---Anna Sewell, author, Black Beauty

“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat are not the better for it...I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”

---Abraham Lincoln

Christian writer C.S. Lewis noted that animals were included in the first Passover. The application of the “blood of the lamb” on the doorposts, not only saved a man and his family from death that night in Egypt, it saved his animals as well. Lewis put forth a rational argument concerning the resurrection of animals in The Problem of Pain. His 1947 essay, “A Case for Abolition,” attacked vivisection (animal experimentation) and reads in part as follows:

“Once the old Christian idea of a total difference in kind between man and beast has been abandoned, then no argument for experiments on animals can be found which is not also an argument for experiments on inferior men. If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we re backing up our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reason. Indeed, experiments on men have already begun. We all hear that Nazi scientists have done them. We all suspect that our own scientists may begin to do so, in secret, at any moment.

“The victory of vivisection marks a great advance in the triumph of ruthless, non-moral utilitarianism over the old world of ethical law; a triumph in which we, as well as animals, are already the victims, and of which Dachau and Hiroshima mark the more recent achievements. In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.”

“I am not a Christian,” wrote one animal rights activist in Animals, Men and Morals (1971), “but I find it incomprehensible that those who preach a doctrine of love and compassion can believe that the material pleasures of meat-eating justify the slaughter it requires.”

In 1977, at an annual meeting in London of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Dr. Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said, “Animals, as part of God’s creation, have rights which must be respected. It behooves us always to be sensitive to their needs and to the reality of their pain.”

Dr. L. Charles Birch, an Australian “eco-philosopher,” has long urged the churches to preach conservation of nature and respect for other living creatures. In July 1979 he argued at a conference of the World Council of Churches in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that all living creatures should be valued because of their “capacity for feeling.” Dr. Birch has also condemned "factory farming" -- the modern, overcrowded, confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food -- as “unethical,” and declared that “the animal rights movement should be supported by all Christians.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this essay. It found the nexus of a number of subjects in which I'm intensely interested: child development, language, animals, writing [my profession], Christianity, Lewis and Tolkien.

I have only read the complete Chronicles once (but my favorite volumes several times). I did not come to them until I was adult, unfortunately: I always knew about the background Christian texture in them. I also share the writer's view that there are significant flaws in Lewis' view of the world, and these emerge in some unfortunate ways in his fiction, essays, and letters. (I'm not sure that I would have enjoyed having lunch with him either. But I would have loved to sit in a pub, quietly sipping a pint, and listen to Lewis and Tolkien converse!) Lewis had such a vivid imagination and was a splendid craftsman--as the long excerpted passage in the essay so clearly shows.

[The only part of the essay that struck me oddly were the paragraphs about 'carnality'. Perhaps it was simply an unexpected word choice. The descriptions of the clambering twins helped clarify the meaning and understand the manner in which the word was used. But when I first encountered 'carnal' in the text, my thought was "Well, this is veering off on a strange vector..."]

I will surely add "The Magician's Book" to my library. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks to Salon for publishing this wonderful appetizer.

I look forward to reading your book. I read _The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe_ when I was very young. I remember crying when Aslan died. I was surprised and happy when he came back to life. I truly didn't see it coming. Wow - to be able to read like that again.

I never knew it was a series and didn't discover the others until a long time later.

I have a long term relationship with the _Little House Books_. When I was little I loved the first three the best. When I was a preteen I loved the last two. Now that I am an adult (and after reading the series to my son) I found I love _By _the Shores of the Silver Lake_ and _The Long Winter_ the best. I hated them all when I was a teenager.

My experience with Animal Farm was traumatic. My mother used to take art lessons at a Art Institute. The Art Institute also would show a movie for children simultaneously. The movie they showed one time was Animal Farm. My experience with cartoons was that the characters could never die. I watched it initially as if it were a typical cartoon. The horse was taken away to the glue factory. When was he going to get saved? I finally realized he wasn't.

When the movie was over the rambunctious group of 20 children under the age of 12 were silent - some sobbing quietly.