Letters to the Editor

• A respectful dissent

  [Read the article: The Jesus symbol, the witch and the wardrobe]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I'm not particularly invested in the Christianity of Narnia-I enjoyed them while an atheist as well as a Christian-but I know the books and Lewis deeply and the arguments used here to make them non-Christian are somewhat misleading. Comments come not just from myself, but my husband, Bart Odom, who holds a PhD in religious studies from the University of Virginia, so we're writing to straighten out some theological/Narnia issues. The mistakes are basic ones, common to people who speak from their personal understanding, and not from rigorous theological study.

  I will list my husband’s comments first, with my bracketed Lewis/Narnia notes where appropriate. Word count prevents my including everything: please go here for the entire critique: http://alexfiles.com/wordpress/index.php

  "Whenever a professed Christian feels he must create some wholly other world to explore the meaning of his religion, he is flirting with bad faith."

  A wholly other world is the perfect place to explore, with a tabula rasa, the meaning of one's religion, a way to try to avoid entanglements with one's own life and the actual events of the world we live in. In short, it is a good faith way to avoid invidious associations and roman a clef characters, to minimize one's own prejudices about the world. Bad faith would only enter if the nature of the other world were contrived to facilitate proseletyzing or apologetics.

  Including “the make-believes of other religions” is polytheism.

  Not polytheism but inclusivism or pluralism. What it excludes is the odor of Christian exclusivism. [Personally, I find the phrase “make-believes” shows that same unpleasant exclusivity.]

  Werewolves, the White Witch, etc., display Manichaean dualism.

  It is not obvious that werewolves etc are evil per se. They are what they are. The assumption that they are evil is itself a Manichaean one, grounded in the belief that one is on "God's side" and can make such a judgment. The White Witch is not necessarily Satan and Satan is not an independent entity. If Christians believe these things, they are in heresy, but most Christians have a proper understanding of the situation. [Those who believe in Satan believe in an ultimate fallen entity. Satan is not placed on a level with God or Jesus except by Satanists; to Christians, he is better equated with the Archangel Michael.

  Re: Narnia in this context. The White Witch is a created being, perhaps the character Jadis from another book in the series, who has set herself in opposition to God's will through pride. Lewis never portrays evil on a level with Aslan. Like Christ on the cross, Aslan is always ahead of the game, even when the most powerful fallen creature, the White Witch, seems to have won.]

  Belief in Satan is heretical.

  Satan tempts Christ, is rebuked by him; demons possess people. This is in the canonical Christian scriptures, and can therefore hardly be said to be heresy.

  Exercising free will in opposition to God is the cause of evil.

  This is by no means the only, or even an adequate account of why evil arises, and what God's responsibility in the existence of evil is. The entire vexed field of theodicy deals with this issue. Moreover, the "free will" argument ignores the Luther's insight of the bondage of the will, as well as the doctrine of original sin.

  Creating a Secondary World…is in effect a declaration that God's creation is deficient.

  No, it is a technique of fantasy fiction, and a way of communicating a message indirectly that cannot be communicated directly, as Kierkegaard believed was true of the Christian kerygma....What do preachers do each Sunday but convey the gospels in a different way?

  Relocating the Christian story in a different place is wrong and Lewis thought so.

  The point is that the Christian story is universal and can be visualized in many ways without losing its identity. After all, it has escaped first century Judea and is still going after 2000 years, in a vastly different setting. The Christian story is sui generis, unlike Fenimore Cooper or any other literature.

  Lewis challenges our level of responsibility, and this is the real problem Goldthwaite and others have, I think. Lewis felt Christianity to be a very demanding religion, and his work reflects that. These are not simplistic, good vs. evil stories unless you’re not paying attention. There is an us vs. them quality, but "them" is a concept that changes as people gain and lose faith for a variety of reasons. God asks more and more of Lewis's characters, and one of the more difficult questions Lewis asks is how to answer that need.

  A major theme is Lewis's awareness of our responsibility for creatures other than our species. The children come into the world because to Lewis, humans are made to be stewards of the world, and as "sons of Adam and daughters of Eve," these children must take stewardship of Narnia. The White Witch is a daughter of Lilith, and not the "true" steward. Whether God put us in charge or not, our own power over the environment makes us de facto responsible for our world. So soon after the introduction of the atomic bomb, in a world where industry's rape of the planet was beginning to show, Lewis's non-humans teach children that they have responsibilities beyond people. As a lion, Aslan was also making a point about Christ being over all of creation, not just humans. This is not the work of a man withdrawing from the world, but a man using his best skills to exhort people to act responsibly for a world worth saving.

  And here I will write as a Christian: if to write Christianly is to write solely about the world we know, then we must ignore one of the greatest gifts we have: imagination. I do not think such a gift would be given lightly. I would think Goldthwaite, as a Christian, might consider that.

  Permalink Thursday, December 8, 2005 04:44 PM