Miller, and her adopted surrogate Goldthwaite, have missed the point about the Christian message in the Narnia Chronicles. As an avid C.S. Lewis fan (both the Narnia books AND his theological works), I can tell you that the Christian message looks so unrecognizable to Miller because she's operating with a narrow-minded view of what it means to be a Christian, and what it means to write a work of fiction as a form of Christian allegory.

First off, Lewis never intended for the Narnia Chronicles to substitute for the gospels. Lewis intended to take certain very specific gospel themes and illustrate them using the world of Narnia as a venue. He did this not only in the Narnia books, but in his science fiction works (the Perelandra series) and his direct allegorical works ("Till We Have Faces" and "the Great Divorce"). To suggest that Lewis's works are only Christian if they contain a complete and definitive statement about what Christianity is is to create a straw man -- a ridiculous standard that no one should legitimately expect anyone to meet or take seriously.

Second, Miller's myopic view of Christianity fails to make room for the fact that not every Christian believes the same things about the universe. Lewis was a writer in the mid-20th century in England, and a devout member of the Church of England, known here as Episcopalianism. Episcopalianism bears about as much family resemblance to the evangelical Christianity that most liberals associate with being "Christian" as a Kobe steak does to a MacDonald's hamburger. Sure, they're both beef, but beyond that they occupy completely different culinary spheres. Many branches of Christianity over the years have had cosmologies that bear no resemblance to Goldthwaite's assertions of what "real" faith should hold out as true.

Indeed, it is precisely this issue that Lewis addresses in the last book in the Narnia series, "The Last Battle." In that volume, many Narnians take up the worship of "Tashlan," a false god who is not Aslan the lion. Ultimately, the hero of the story comes to the realization that God by any other name is still God, and worshippers of Tashlan may have had a misunderstood who God was, but none of that negates the validity of their faith in the divine. It's a theory commonly called universalism in theological circles. It's a concept that was well-accepted in many mid-20th century churches, but is considered anathema to American evangelicals and fundamentalists.

The point of all this is to say that for anyone to claim that Lewis's work must embrace a certain form of Christianity in order to be Christian understands neither Lewis's work or Christianity itself.

I am both a liberal and a Christian -- a fact which stymies many on the left. And it's articles like this that point out why the left seems to continually stumble in their attempts to win voters of faith: so long as they buy into the religious right's premise that one may only be a Christian if they ascribe to a narrow, misguided, myopic version of the faith, they will continually miss the opportunity to reach out to the vast numbers of believers. These believers know instinctively that Christ is bigger than the hate-filled preachings of Jerry Falwell and his ilk, and would gladly accept a political platform that is based on truly caring for your neighbor as yourself if only the left could stop thumbing their nose at Christianity long enough to communicate it.

This sort of pious nonsense never fails to make liberals look bad, as well as much more like the religious right than either group would like to admit. What do you care if the Chronicles of Narnia is embraced by the religious right? And why do you even have to wonder whether you can still enjoy the books and not embrace the Christian allegory? These anxieties are puritanical nonsense that would make any evangelical who frets about his admiration of secular music proud. Do you worship Greek gods and view prowess is war as a cardinal virtue? No? Better put down the Iliad. Are you a conservative reactionary? If not, then there goes Yeats, Eliot, and a host of other great Modernists (as well as the tired, historically ignorant notion, only really formed in the 1960s, that great art is a leftist phenomenon.) I guess only a Stalinist can appreciate Pablo Neruda. Do you see how ridiculous all of these stances are? We need to forget our puritanical hang-ups and realize that good art is not predicated on good politics, that "Imagine" is quite possibly the worst song John Lennon ever wrote, and we shouldn't feel guilty for liking something just because our political opponents embrace it.

In the last book, a follower of the false god Tash is wandering around Heaven wondering how he got there. Aslan explains that in his quest for truth and justice, he was in fact a follower of Aslan. Aslan says that no one can do good in the name of Tash--it is really in Aslan's name, and no one can do evil in the name of Aslan--it isn't really in Aslan's name at all. Take that Christian right! Lewis wrote that there is more than one path to God, and anyone who is living according to Christ's priciples will be saved no matter what god they profess to be following.

Lets be real here, even the story of Christ isn't Christian. Stories of gods or sons of gods, often born of a virgin mother, who are sacrificed or are murdered and then reborn or resurrected go back as far as Gilgamesh in Sumer,Osiris in Egypt,Tamuz and Attis, Krishna and so on and so on. Jung called them archtypes. Jesus is just one of the more recent ones and certainly Aslan's gory murder and resurrection in the Narnia chronicles is just continuing a great story. There is nothing new in Christianity.

Someone asks what the Silver Chair had to do with Christianity. When I read it as a child it was simply one of the seven enthralling Narnia books. I absolutely loved the salamanders, and still do.

As an adult, however, having lost my faith, I found the central interaction in the story between the Emerald Witch and the children to be deeply troubling. After imprisoning the children in her underground world, the Emerald Witch attempts to brainwash the children into believing that the aboveground world doesn't exist--that there is now and has only ever been the underworld, and that the world above is only a pleasant dream, a fantasy, until Puddleglum the Marshwiggle sticks his foot in the fire and makes his speech about knowing that there must be a world above ground, even though he can't see it. The Emerald Witch eventually shows her true form and turns into a snake.

To me, the Silver Chair became a specious allegory about faith and rationality, casting the Emerald Witch in the role of the rationalist and materialist (which Lewis turned into a straw figure) and implying that, at best, the world that those of us without religious faith inhabit is bleak and miserable and dark, that we are brainwashed by our belief (comforting, if you can believe it) that this beautiful universe is all we have; and at worst, that we ourselves are seductive snakes and devils. This attitude--alternately condescending and pitying toward freethinkers and downright hostile toward and even fearful of them--seems to pervade much of Lewis's writing.

I still enjoy the Narnia books though, and like Miller try not to let Lewis's own theological insecurities ruin my pleasure in them.

On a side note: as for liberal Christians who complain that the Left looks down its collective nose at them: why does "the Left" need to "reach out" to you? You *are* the Left. Where were you when we were fighting the religious right in 2004 and passionately supporting our pro-choice Catholic candidate? Why didn't you speak up then, instead of allowing the Right to claim the language of religion? Or was it you who didn't want to align yourselves with us nonbelievers? Were you, like Lewis, afraid that we would seduce you into nonbelief? Or, like Lewis, did you pity us because we could not, in good conscience, accept the existence of the "nonrational"? Glad you're making your existence known now, but we'd like a little respect, please.