Hollywood's Promotion of Narnia
Here we go again. It's like a re-run of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ". Hollywood is beginning to realise how it can push the buttons of evanjellycals in order to control their leisure activities. Neat.
Although Lewis has plainly used some aspects of biblical truth in his legend, I do not believe that it could function properly as an evangelistic tool. Certainly many believers (in their ignorance) will read the Narnia books or watch the films and think they have read Christian books and watched Christian movies. Any unbeliever who does so will either have the message go right over his or her head or they will feel cheated when they find out that it was allegedly a Christian yarn. They certainly will not feel confronted with the need to repent.
It has to be remembered that Lewis was not an evangelical. He was essentially a deistic, High Church Anglo-Catholic with mystical bells and whistles. He did not believe in a substitutionary atonement; neither did he subscribe to the orthodox understanding of heaven and hell - believing as he did in the unbiblical doctrine of Purgatory. In the Narnia tales - for all the suggested Christian overtones - one enters an eerie, occult-like, fabulous world full of pagan symbology which seems to suggest that Christ merely possesses a deeper kind of magic than Satan. (In fact, that is the very phrase that is used: "deeper magic"). This reduces the spiritual battle to the level of the black and white magic of the sorcerer - one supposedly good, the other thoroughly bad.
Because of Lewis's erroneous understanding of the afterlife, we find that the idea that even followers of Satan (or a satanic god) can be saved after death, so long as they truly worship Satan (or a satanic god) and do some good works, is built into the Narnia tales. No doubt that will surprise you. Most evangelicals today (in their ignorance) will not even begin to comprehend this. But it occurs in glaring fashion in the Narnia book "The Last Battle", which is the final volume in the series. Thus, the Christ-figure, Aslan the Lion, says to a man (after his death) who has served the monstrous Tash (the Satan-figure) all his life: "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me", and then welcomes him into his kingdom. Essentially, Lewis teaches in the Narnia tales that so long as one worships any god sincerely - no matter how evil that god is - one will be saved. Although that fits in perfectly with Post-Vatican II teaching in the Catholic church (as well as Mother Teresa's religious meanderings) and is thoroughly in line with the New Evanjellycal view of salvation, it is far removed from the teaching of Scripture.
To read an extended article on this subject (and to remove the need to repeat myself), please see my paper "Saving That Which is Lost: The Challenge to Christian Mission & Evangelism at the Close of the Twentieth Century". The blurb for the article reads:
"Is it necessary for people to know about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God born in Bethlehem, in order for them to be saved and receive eternal life? Will a pagan who does not believe in Christ but who lives a religious and moral life -- devoted to his or her 'God' and practising charitable works - be excluded from heaven? Is it right to refer to unbelievers as being "lost"? Is it only Christians who have the indwelling Holy Spirit or Christ living in them? These are some of the questions being asked today by many evangelicals in church leadership and on the mission field. At one time there would have been a resounding "Yes!" to all of them. But today many are unsure. In this article we trace the background to such thinking and show that there is a historical process at work which seeks to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian gospel".
You will find this article on the "Articles & Analysis" page of the Diakrisis website at
http://www.diakrisis.org . If you can read that article and continue to think that Lewis teaches a Christian Gospel in his Narnia Chronicles, I will be very surprised. Although it is true that Lewis wrote some psychologically insightful stuff at certain points in his life ("Fernseeds and Elephants" and "The Screwtape Letters" being good examples), I do not believe that the Narnia Chronicles can be regarded as evangelistic or replications of the Christian gospel. This is especially the case in today's pluralistic, multicultural, interfaith, Christ-denying world.
This is why I say "Here we go again. It's like a re-run of Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of Christ'". Modern evanjellycals misunderstand the Gospel so much that they place their great hope in weird "Toronto Blessings", bizarre "Anointings" and arcane mythological legends as ways of bringing millions to Christ. There is only one way to bring anyone to Christ and that is with the presentation of the death of Christ correctly applied from Scripture.
I know that many of you will disagree with what I have said above about the Chronicles of Narnia. Then you must follow your conscience. But please be aware of what is at stake here. This is not an era during which the true Christ will be portrayed in general - and especially by Hollywood. In fact, the reverse is the case. If the dark powers have put out a film allegedly about Christ, then it will not do Christ justice. I stand by that absolutely. This is their hour and the power of darkness.
taken from:
http://www.christianissues.com/narnia.html
